Twitter Offers New User Guide for Businesses

After conducting a series of in-house studies to discover how the popular micro-blogging service was being used by businesses, Twitter has published its findings in a new suite of web pages called “Twitter 101: A Special Guide.” The new guide, designed for Twitter newbies and veterans alike, includes steps for getting started, best practices, interesting findings, and much more.

For users who are new to Twitter, the new manual provides an easy-to-read introduction to its services as well as a brief overview about how businesses use Twitter. From there, users can find out more about getting started, which includes steps for signing up for an account, finding relevant people and companies to follow, and posting your first message. Users can also use the handbook to learn Twitter jargon such as retweets (RT), Tweetup, and hashtags (#).

For veterans, the special guide offers a look into the most profitable ways to use Twitter, followed by real examples from companies such as Dell, JetBlue, American Apparel, and Pepsi. In addition to the special guide, users can also view a downloadable slideshow, which can be utilized by companies as a training tool to give presentations about Twitter.

Of the new guide, Co-founder Biz Stone wrote on the company blog, “We’re focused on enhancing value across Twitter in general—these documents are just a first step.”

While there has been a lot of hype about how businesses use Twitter these days, according to Matt McGee of Search Engine Land, this is Twitter’s “first major outreach to business users.”

To access the guide, users can find a link called Business at the bottom of every page on Twitter.

Twitter to Release New Study

Businesses large and small have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon for product promotion and other innovative reasons. In an effort to examine how and why businesses use Twitter, the social networking and micro-blogging service is conducting an in-depth study which is soon to be released, according to the company blog.

“We’re beginning to discover the value that customers and consumers are getting from businesses who use Twitter in smart and interesting ways,” wrote co-founder of Twitter Biz Stone.

For example, a small bakery uses Twitter to send out a tweet that the cookies just came out of the oven and local followers head on over to purchase the freshly baked cookies. Most recently–and perhaps a better example of how businesses can get creative with Twitter–Best Buy developed a program called Twelpforce. The new program allows employees to interact quickly and easily with customers who have inquiries about the products. According to Twitter, although this is a different approach, it is a smart one. Best Buy’s method helps to build trust and fosters a satisfied, informed costumer.

By studying how costumers and businesses interact and utilize its services, Twitter has collected findings, use cases, and best practices. “We’re putting together a document based on our studies and we’ll find a spot on our web site to share it with everyone when it’s ready,” wrote Stone.

Facebook Launches New Security Model

In an attempt to stop spammers from hacking into Facebook, the social networking site has rolled out a new step-by-step process to alert users that their account has been compromised. Although the popular site claims that the vast majority of its users have never experienced a security problem, this new process should help the small number of people who do.

On the company blog, Project Manager of Facebook’s Integrity Team Jake wrote, “This new change will help us not only fight spam, but also spread the word about security on Facebook.”

Currently, when an account has been compromised, Facebook sends an email to the user explaining the situation and provides links to solve the problem. According to Facebook, the new process involves “clear and simple steps taken within Facebook itself.” With this new process, Facebook expects to identify the true owner of the account in order to prevent hackers from using it to send spam in the future. Going forward, users will still receive a notification email, however, when they attempt to access the site, they will be led to a caution page with a message that their account has been temporarily suspended. The message also informs the user that suspicious activity has been detected on the account and will prompt the user to begin the verification process to ensure that they’re the legitimate owner of the account. The simple process eventually guides the user to select a new, secure password and refers them to the Facebook Security Page.

In addition to the security model, Facebook plans to launch similar processes to address the different threats people may face on the social networking site.

Half of Twitter Users Fail to Utilize Service to Full Potential

Although the popular micro-blogging service Twitter has experienced dramatic growth in the number of accounts since last year, 54.9% of users have never tweeted, 55.5% are not following anyone, and 52.7% have no followers, according to a new study from HubSpot.

“Recently, there has been a lot of buzz from mainstream media about the growth of Twitter,” said Brian Halligan, CEO and co-founder of HubSpot. “However, the June 2009 State of the Twittersphere points out that people may not be using Twitter to its full potential.”

The study also found that a significant number (79.79%) of users failed to provide a homepage URL and 75.86% have not entered a bio in their profile. On the data, Halligan added, “If new users aren’t really engaged, should it really be considered growth?”

Still, other users seem to be utilizing the service to its full potential. The study found that Twitter has a large number of users who are following exactly 2,000 users, the maximum number of followers permitted by the micro-blogging service. According to HubSpot, the figures indicate that many active users are intentionally trying to gain as many followers as possible to increase their reach.

Despite the fact that more than half of Twitters users have never tweeted, the micro-blogging service continues to grow at an astounding rate. Last year, HubSpot reported that Twitter grew at a rate of 5,000 to 10,000 new accounts per day. According to this year’s numbers, “that rate has since accelerated and it has reached a point where it is futile to attempt to generate a flat growth rate number.”

-Melanie Saxe