Time 22:51

One part chat room, one part instant messenger, and one part blog, the microblogging platform Twitter has gained in credibility and usefulness among businesses and journalists. I don’t want to say popularity, although it has 3.2 million users, because this word is less meaningful. Useful is how the author of a new book Twitter Means Business, Juilio Ojeda-Zapata, shares his insights from his upcoming book.

At its core Ojeda, believes Twitter helps build relationships, and relationships underscore business in many ways. A journalist to his core, Ojeda has been with the St. Paul Pioneer Press since 1987 and a technology writer for more than a decade. In this podcast, he walks through his personal journey on Twitter and it was his second look at the platform that got him hooked.

According to Ojeda, Twitter is an alternative means to get a reporter’s attention in a non-intrusive way. I have found it is an excellent to learn more about a reporter’s interests, immediate and long-term projects, and how they interact with the Twitter community.

Two ways to learn who is on Twitter is to search key words in either Tweetscan www.tweetscan.com or search.twitter.com or browse through TwitterPacks, a wiki dedicated to allowing individuals to list by a variety of categories. For example, there is a Twitter public media category

Twitter Means Business is available to order at www.twitin.biz.

Society for New Communications Research Symposium, – November 14 in Cambridge, MA. I am a senior fellow for this organization and I invite you to review the agenda for this forum. It is a smaller venue that gives attendees exceptional opportunities to talk with some of the countries most thoughtful and experienced social media practitioners. Some of those practitioners attending will be Shel Holtz, Francois Gossieaux, Steve King and Todd Defren.