Hello. My name is George Reed, and I Tweet.

So here you are reading a blog. If you’re like me, not long ago you scoffed at “bloggers” and “blogging” as something done by the fringe elements with too much time on their hands. Who do they think they are?

But times have changed. Blogs have become a useful tool for news, opinion, and idea dissemination. Twitter (http://twitter.com/) is simply a mini-blog, limited to 140 characters. And it has taken off like a rocket, more so with the “grownups” than the kids. It is widely used by professionals. The benefits of Twitter to me and my brokerage practice increase daily, as more and more of my clients, customers, and other industry professionals add their voices to the Twitter universe.

I signed up for Twitter (@GeorgeReedRadio) within the past year just to learn what it was all about (I launched this blog for the same reason). The benefits soon became apparent and I now follow just under 300 people (with just under 250 following me). The people I follow generally fall into these categories:

* Clients, customers, and prospects
* Media and marketing opinion leaders
* Broadcasting related groups (NAB, state broadcasting associations, trade publications, consultants, FCC law firms and lawyers)
* General business
* Businesses and contacts in Charlottesville (where I own stations)
* Friends and family
* My radio stations (and those of my competitors)
* Radio personalities
* Local news and weatherNews on my other hobbies and interests

By following these Twitterers, I stay up to date on all kinds of useful, relevant information, often using links in the Tweets for follow-up. If I spot something which I think might be useful to my own Followers, I “re-Tweet” it. One of the keys to using Twitter effectively is to only Tweet what you think is relevant to your own Followers. I often Tweet links to interesting articles or websites, links to my blog if I have posted something useful, and re-Tweets of timely industry news items. Mashable has a great Guide Book for anything you might want to know about Twitter (http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/).

If you own and operate radio stations, your air personalities should be on Twitter. It allows them to expand their brand and your station’s brand. Follow a few DJ’s and you’ll see what I mean.

Try it out. It only takes a minute to set up an account. After you have set it up, pick out a few interesting people to follow (you can use Twitter’s Search function). Feel free to go to my account (http://twitter.com/GeorgeReedRadio), click on “Following,” and click on names which look interesting to you; you will be given the choice to “Follow” at the top of each profile. Here are a few ideas to get you going:

@GuyKawasaki
@borrellassoc
@chrisbrogan
@FCC
@garyvee
@mashable
@mramsey1
@nielsenwire
@nytimesbusiness
@Scobleizer
@webby2001
@WSJMedia

If the benefits become apparent (and I suspect that they will), you might want to consider Twitter software for your smart-phone (I use Twitterrific on my iPhone) and a more enhanced platform for your office computer (I use TweetDeck, available for free download http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/download/).

See you on Twitter!

George
Media Services Group
http://www.mediaservicesgroup.com/location.cfm?id=3