‘Tweet-Up’ plugs R.I. firms into latest online trend

If 2008 was the year of Facebook, 2009 is shaping up to be the year of Twitter.
For the uninitiated, Twitter is a Web site where people post very short messages – as in, 140-characters short – for others to read and comment on. New York Times tech columnist David Pogue described it as “a cross between a blog and a chat room.”
Fans say it provides a quick and simple way to communicate in real time with online associates and friends from offline alike. A local “Tweet-Up” event for businesses was organized last week by The Perry Group, a Warwick-based public relations firm. More than 100 people attended the May 19 event.
The Perry Group President Gregg Perry says it is vital for businesses to stay current with online trends.
“Twitter and social media have really rewritten the rules of social marketing now, and that really has a powerful impact on a company’s reputation,” said Perry, who himself only joined Twitter a few weeks ago. He said his clients have been asking more questions about Twitter in recent months as the service has gained a higher profile.
Perry recommends that businesses that want to catch the social-media wave do research first to figure out which service – whether Twitter, Facebook or something else – best fits their needs. “You can’t just jump into all of them at one time,” he said.
But Perry has no doubt that Twitter has great value to companies and businesspeople. It can help them keep up with trends, interact with their customers, and find out what is being said about their businesses. “I think people understand that social media isn’t a passing fad – it is the wave of the future,” he said.
Jane Cuoto Porricelli, co-founder of MomGenerations.com, a site geared to mothers, and a Twitter user since May 2007, agrees.
“There’s something about Twitter that really isn’t the same in any other social-networking tool,” she said. “There are other applications on Facebook, like pictures – there can be a lot of noise. Whereas on Twitter, you’re talking, communicating, engaging, and that’s really it.” Porricelli is a social-media early-adopter – she joined Facebook in 2004, back when it was still known as The Facebook – but at first she wasn’t sure what to make of Twitter, with its stream of 140-character messages cascading down her browser screen in various languages. (Since then, the site has made it possible to filter incoming messages.)
But Porricelli, who was expected to speak at last week’s Providence “Tweet-Up,” said she has come to love “the community” the site creates. “I’ve met so many amazing people who’ve helped me out along the way with business things, personal things,” she said.
Although Twitter has been around since 2006, its popularity and visibility has surged in recent months as the site attracted media attention and high-profile users like Oprah. The site now gets more than 18 million unique visitors a month, according to measurement firm ComScore.
On the other hand, social-media users can be notoriously fickle – consider the flameout of Friendster, or even the waning appeal of MySpace. A recent report from Nielsen Online, another research firm, found that just 40 percent of people who visited Twitter last February returned in March. And the site has plenty of detractors who see it as a superficial timewaster; after all, you can only say so much in 140 characters.
But those arguments do not dissuade Twitter evangelists, including those here in Rhode Island, like Cheryl Phillips, who joined Twitter last September while recovering from surgery and writing her blog, The Daily Blonde. She didn’t like it at first, but eventually changed her mind, and says she has now become the most-followed Twitter user in Rhode Island, with more than 14,000 people following her dispatches.
“It’s an amazing place,” Phillips said. “I am thoroughly into it every day – although I don’t stay up until 2 in the morning ‘tweeting’ anymore.” •