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Trying out Twitter

By Bo Gowan August 15, 2008 1:08 pm EDT

I have ignored it all year. Had absolutely no desire to do it.

Twitter.

I already have this Nortel blog, so how can Twitter and its 140 character limit per message possibly provide me any value when updating my “followers”?

Quite frankly, I’m not sure I know. I haven’t created a Twitter communications strategy, calculated the expected ROI, or any of those things that I’m told I should do before moving ahead.

I’m also supposed to be focusing on the conversations I want to have, and who I want to have them with…not the technology. At least that’s what Groundswell tells me.

So I had no desire and no plan — why exactly am I starting a Nortel Twitter you may ask?

Yesterday, social media guru and Dell (and former Nortel) marketing exec Andy Lark dropped by the Nortel Richardson campus and talked to a few of us about his thoughts on new media. One item that Andy highlighted was how Dell was using Twitter. As you can see from Dell’s Twitter page, they have an unbelievable amount of activity going on with Twitter — including several “Dell Offers” feeds that allow them to quickly move products of their choice.

Now Andy’s a smarter guy than I am, but I wonder if even he could have planned out the eventual strategy and huge ROI that Twitter is providing for Dell. How much of it was “the plan all along” and how much of it was finding a path as you go?

Add to that the fact that Nortel has had an inactive Twitter account now for a while with no updates at all — but still more than a dozen people are following it “in waiting.”

So today with this post I announce the grand opening of Nortel Twitter. Not quite the same hoopla as when we launched this blog, but maybe I’ll look back a year from now and realize that Twitter is more than just a good way to tell people about your coffee habits.

Categories: Commentary
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Trackbacks/Pings

  1. […] social media menu now includes Twitter. You can it at twitter.com/nortel. As well, here’s Nortel’s Bo Gowan on why he/Nortel broke down after rejecting the lure of […]

    August 16th, 2008 at 1:56 pm from Nortel Climbs on Twitter Bandwagon

Comments

  1. You’re kidding. Who and why would anyone feel the need for minute-by-minute updates from Dell (or Nortel, for that matter)? Do they run 30-minute blue-light specials on laptops? I’ll have to look into this because I don’t understand it.

    On the other hand, I could see Twitter being a great tool for social and impulse-buy businesses.

    August 16th, 2008 at 12:43 pm by Another Nortel Watcher

  2. ANW. I don’t know there sure is a lot of drama associated with Nortel. Perhaps a twitter soap opera complete with cliff hangers entitled “as Nortel turns” or “desperate Nortel wives” :) .

    Anyway, In light of the Nortel partnership with Microsoft, I find it curious that the buzzboard posts its video using apple’s quicktime application. (I know because it wants to load on my computer everytime I visit)

    Perhaps Nortel wants a stratigic partnership with apple too?

    August 17th, 2008 at 3:01 pm by many

  3. Many, if there isn’t a soap opera series somewhere on twitter yet I’m sure there will be soon.

    PS - while I like your Apple grassy knoll theory, it’s your computer that determines which app YouTube videos are played in (which are flash based). It’s likely that when you installed QT it set itself as the default player for all videos.

    If you want to change that to something like Windows Media Player - which I fully endorse :) - then just open WMP, go to options and change the “file types” settings.

    August 18th, 2008 at 12:38 pm by Bo Gowan

  4. Bo,

    That is the problem. I have not ever installed QT and WMP is my default player. For some reason and only on the buzzboard page, I get a QT popup asking if I want to install it. I killed the second time it happened it but it still seems odd. Perhaps the notel web page is akin to the magic java bullet?

    Thanks for the suggestions though….

    August 18th, 2008 at 6:13 pm by many

  5. Hey Bo,

    welcome to Twitter. It is a hugely powerful conversation platform.

    Twitter is like any other social media channel in that what you get out of it is directly proportional to what you put in.

    A quick suggestion. Pick a few interesting people on Twitter and start following them. Check out who they, in turn follow. Choose to follow a few of them too. Start conversations with some of them (using the @reply) and soon enough you will build up followers and from there flows the value.

    August 19th, 2008 at 3:35 am by Tom Raftery

  6. An interesting post on Twitter & UC solutions.
    http://www.ucstrategies.com/unified-communications-strategies-views/views-on-social-software-and-unified-communications.aspx

    August 25th, 2008 at 11:08 am by AM Stern

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