Has the use of Twitter become a necessity in online reputation and company recognition?

There is no one-size-fits-all rule that applies to every kind of business. A business should first be asking what it means by getting "into the web world successfully", and why it wants to do that in the first place. For a typical Web 2.0 consumer facing startup, the answers to those things are pretty obvious, but that is not the case for all businesses by any means.

Whether Twitter is remotely a necessity depends on what fraction of your target market uses it, and maybe on whether those people are influencers who shape general opinion about your company. Let's consider some examples.... a) Your startup is based around user-generated content and social networking. Well, probably a lot of the people you want to reach use Twitter heavily, and certainly the bloggers and journalists who cover your space do.So some kind of Twitter presence is vital.

B) You might not know it, but there are web trading platforms that help oil companies buy and sell oilfields amongst themselves. They don't really need to tweet about their latest offers, or use Twitter to build relationships with customers. :) c) You are a well-established mainstream chain of shoe shops.

Not high fashion, just average everyday shoes for average everyday folks, like moms buying shoes for their kids. Well, I don't think many of your target market will use Twitter, and even if they did, they probably wouldn't be interested in following your tweets.So Twitter isn't a necessity for every kind of company any more than taking out ads in Time magazine is. However one thing you can say about Twitter... it's pretty cheap and easy to experiment with, so maybe there's a case for just trying it out regardless.

No, if your customers aren't using Twitter then there is little point in being on Twitter. Twitter is still an echo chamber, people who use Twitter are still in the minority. And the longer Twitter has been around the less useful it has become.

The the ratio of real people to people who are on Twitter solely for marketing purposes continues to decrease making Twitter one big commercial.

Of all the social networking opportunities on the internet for businesses, I say that twitter is the least successful in terms of getting a company noticed. The main function of twitter is to allow users to make small messages, or "tweets", about the goings on in their day. Twitter, therefore, allows one to keep up with the adventures of the people he or she follows.

For this reason, businesses will have a hard time getting noticed in the twitter world. If a business can find a way to advertise their company while also creating interesting messages for the users in their tweets, it could be possible, but even so, sites like facebook and even myspace allow companies the same advertising opportunity, but without a character space limit.

Personally, I think yes and here's why. Yes, one thing that Twitter does is give your company and online reputation. By tweeting out various marketing opportunities, coupons, etc., they're giving out valuable information about their company to their customers.

The second thing that Twitter does is allow communication between the company and customers directly. For instance, Dell is a company that's on twitter - they use it to market promotions, coupons, exclusives, etc.On their products. The other thing they do though is that when a person complains about Dell on Twitter, Dell can find those tweets, find the person that tweeted them and then address their concerns directly.

Although its not practical to find all the complaints, they can find enough of them to at least satisfy some people and that means good things for Dell (often times, people tweet but don't really expect a solution. Lo and behold, they get a DM from Dell saying that there's a number you can call or that yes, the product is malfunctioned and can be replaced if you send it in). It's an exciting way of letting everyone know what your company is up to.

Of course, if the company doesn't know how to use twitter and goes on it anyway, I think that is a valuable opportunity lost.

In my opinion without a doubt - look at the whole Kevin Smith vs, Southwest Airlines deal. Mr. Smith was asked off of the plane to discuss their Custoemr of Size policy and he didn't like it - so he Twitters to 1.6 million others about what's going on. Southwest is immediately bombarded with e-mails and must respond or face shame in the massive online community.

That kind of power is AMAZING. Think about it: within moments of his displeaure and sending this information to his "followers," a major, MAJOR business was put into a very serious situation: thousands of fans, large people and businesses will not use the airline simply because one guy was upset. Now THAT is power you simply can't buy.It's no longer our parents world of work folks - when things happen, the world finds out about immediately, which is why it's important for both new businesses and old ones to be able to enbrace this technology, learn to use it to their advantage and be able to get out front of issues that arise.

New businesses can use it to promote their specials and create awreness, same thing with older businesses and they can even use it to hammer home product awareness. The application is a porweful one and saavy business owners and managers will see the value in it.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.