A three legged horse in a dog show

Twitter has hit the headlines and become the social media phenomena of the moment. From Barack Obama to Britney Spears, people are capitalising on its ability to publish messages to the masses in 140 characters or less. It only takes seconds to write and seconds to read. But what relevance does this new platform have for business and how are organisations cashing in on the opportunities?

Among many organisations Twitter seems to have an unjustified reputation as a service for socially inept teenagers. Yet properly used and effectively targeted, Twitter can add significant value to most organisations’ marketing and communications strategies.

Many organisations will take the approach that they will wait and see how micro blogging develops before they get involved. These same organisations and individuals within them said the same thing about social networking (in fact probably still are) and almost certainly the web before that.

The simple fact is that the speed of adoption and change in this space is such that most organisations cannot afford to risk not getting involved.

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5 million Australian's are online every day

6.5 million Australians now belong to an online social network according to Nielsen Online and 23% interacted with a company through social media. In addition, of the number of Australian’s online, 5 million access the internet every day.

In addition, the study showed that 57% of Australians have watched videos online, specifically to help them decide whether or not to buy a product, with YouTube proving the most popular, used by 75% of Australians last year. In general terms, according to the UM Wave 3 survey, 77.2% of Australian internet users who access social media have watched a video clip.

Surely it is time for Australian organisations to take social media more seriously and allocate time and resources to better understanding how its use could add value to their brand and their products or services.

There is a tipping point when the risk to an organisation of getting involved with Social Media is outweighed by the risk of not getting involved. We are rapidly approaching that point.