In what I've already confeessed to having been one of my more clueless posts in the history of JimLyonsObservations, it's been six months to the day since my infamous "Do we need printer industry tweets?" and the conclusion, actual two conclusions, are the a) yes, we need them, and b) wake up, Lyons, we already have them!As I pointed out in my July Observations, "Twitter Printing", I was in that very typical early Twitter user confusion state six months ago. I'd had an account for some time, couldn't see what the fuss was about, and assumed most everyone else was with me. As it turned out, much printer-related Twitter activity was already under way, and the number has grown significantly. How so you might ask?
Well, like in other web activities of the recent past, certain categories lead in tweeting as well. The printer OEMs are doing some tweeting (for example, @HPIPG, @xeroxevents, and @LexmarkNews), and some of the research houses and analysts come through with some too (e.g. @Infotrends), but the champs are split among the traditionally active bloggers, both growing and established (see @greg_walters, @artpost, @driessen, Greg_VDQ, and the irrepressible @databazaar) and those who cover commercial printing as well as some of those participants (@neenahpaper and @whattheythink come to mind).
Just a quick look at these 10 or so Twitters accounts (all among my 1,000 or so "followed" accounts) shows a range of one or two orders of magnitude in their numbers of followers and tweets (or "updates"). It's clearly still a developing area, but I have visions of maintaining a regular "printer industry members on Twitter" listing, much like those of @KentHuffman and his Marketing-related Twitter lists.
So printer-industry tweeters, please make your presence known, and thanks for all those great tweets!
Comments
I find the potential to share MPS information incredible and to date, unrealized.
So for now, I monitor the TweetFlows primarily for comic relief - it amazes me how many people dislike their copiers so much, they feel the need to Tweet about it...
Thanks for the shout out!
G
We’ve found Twitter to be a great way to share information, connect with others in the industry and help customers grow their business (and solve problems they are having and tweeting about like Greg mentioned in his comment). We not only have @XeroxEvents, but @XeroxCorp for industry news/announcements, and @XeroxProduction and @GinaTesta for tweets and interactions related to the graphic communications industry.
I manage the @XeroxProduction account and as a company we really want to be more approachable for customers to ask questions and share comments/concerns, and be easy to get a hold of. We even have Xerox sales reps on Twitter; @scotttitus is a great example!