Web 2.0 seems to have a flare for gadgety software that is widely hailed for entertainment value but often short on practicality. So when I was asked to find out if there is a practical PR use for the 2.0 social networking phenomenon Twitter, I was skeptical.

Twitter, the brainchild of one of Blogger’s 30-something founders, has spawned a social media niche known as micro-blogging. It’s a part blog, part instant messaging program that limits users to 140 characters per entry—called a Tweet—with the ostensible goal of answering the question: What are you doing?

That simple purpose has emerged as an addicting form of community conversation that, believe it or not, has marketers taking notice.

But I found out that I wasn’t the only skeptic in the PR realm.

Tim Allik | twitter.com/timallik

When Tim Allik of Topaz Partners first heard of Twitter, he wasn’t buying it. “I set up an account in May, but I was skeptical and really ridiculing my colleague Doug [Haslam], who was all for it,” he said. “It seemed like a bunch of B.S., but then I changed my view.”

After Topaz client Brijit was mentioned in the Washington Post, an agency staffer posted an item on Twitter linking to the story and it was picked up on ReadWriteWeb, a popular tech news blog.

That made Allik start Twittering and he sounds like a believer now, especially after Topaz picked up some business leads and landed hits in trade publications using the service.

“That was a direct result of Twitter, so I completely drank the Kool-Aid on it,” he said. “It boils down to being effective and getting results, and we’ve found that it can be an effective tool.”

‘Different form of communication’

Erin Byrne, chief digital strategist of Burson-Marsteller, is also a Twitterer, although she came to embrace the network to cut down on the daily deluge of email circulating among the 50 or so staffers that report to her. “I was getting a lot of, ‘Hey, where are you?’ emails, or ‘How did that meeting go?’ messages,” she said. “So we all got into Twitter to stay connected, but also to cut down on the emails.”

Erin Byrne | twitter.com/erinbyrne

For example, Byrne can post a message on her whereabouts or schedule to her Twitter page, and members of her team who “follow” her Tweets can see where she is without circulating emails to find out. “Everybody can see it at once and there’s a genuine nature to it that doesn’t come across in email,” she said. “It’s a different form of communication.”

But Twitter’s informal vibe is seen as a potential asset to marketers, as well. Burson is developing a Twitter program for a consumer packaged goods client as part of an overall digital, social media strategy. “The opportunity here is that you can get in front of people that you wouldn’t necessarily get in front of in a blog,” she said. “Twitter gives them an opportunity to reach and engage the casual user – people who wouldn’t normally go to a blog about the client’s niche.”

Although an individual’s Twitter page is limited to his or her own Tweets and those of the Twitterer’s “friends,” Twitter’s public timeline publishes the Tweets of all users in chronological order, so anyone posting to the network has the potential to be seen by anyone viewing that page.

Daniel Keeney, who runs DPK PR out of Dallas and Houston, said Twitter makes “an awful lot of sense” from a positioning perspective for clients in the technology space. “It’s a leading-edge technology and it’s really a good idea to have your clients out there and seen as early adopters,” he said. But a client must be someone who “radically” embraces transparency, Tweets often, and has the personality for it, Keeney said. “For it to have any utility at all, the client must have the right frame of mind for it,” he said.

Keeney sees Twitter as a great way to promote other forms of social media – like videos posted on YouTube or blog posts. “It shouts to the world, ‘Hey, look at my blog,’ or, ‘Look at this URL,’” he said.

Dan Keeney | twitter.com/dpkpr

That doesn’t always translate into a technology client-only gameplan, either. One of Keeney’s client’s, Saint Arnold Brewing Company, is run by “old school guys and they run their business in an old school way, but they’ve really been very quick to adopt some of the new technologies.” So Keeney has recommended that they fire off a Tweet each time they blog or post a new video.

The added benefit of Google tracking Tweets adds a search engine optimization element to Twitter that could send even more traffic to a page.

Journalist Tweets

Keeney said a key development in the Texas market has been the adoption of Twitter by journalists at the Houston Chronicle, especially Dwight Silverman, technology writer for the paper who is a regular user.

“You can really get a sense of what has caught his eye and what he’s thinking,” Keeney said. “He doesn’t obviously give away a lot in terms of stories that are in development, but he definitely gives you an ability to kind of track his thinking. In that sense, it’s an extraordinarily valuable tool.”

Notably, Silverman “follows” 93 other Twitters, but he is “followed” by 309.

CNN has created a Twitter page for its “breaking news” alerts, the San Francisco Chronicle has a similar Twitter page, and ESPN is experimenting with links to its news stories, while new media like Techmeme and Techcrunch are also using it to link to stories.

But media adoption of the platform is in its early stages. As Keeney noted: “It’s really limited by the journalists that are participating, and there aren’t too many at this stage.”

So there is a feel of potential in the air surrounding Twitter, but whether its utility translates beyond the “look at me” or “look at this” messaging remains to be seen.

As the three PR pros I talked to for this column point out—after they got over the initial embarrassment of realizing I read their Twitter pages—much of the initial marketing being done on Twitter is sales-focused, with, for example, airlines or cruise lines posting package rates or weekend specials with a link.

“I’d like to think there will be a lot more strategy put into Twitter, rather than ‘click for this bargain,’” Byrne said. “Creativity and approaching it from an altruistic point of view hasn’t really hit it yet.”

George McQuade, MAYO Communications, Los Angeles (12/03):
Greg, Good stuff. I have learned that it is now easier to produce a blog for someone or a startup company than a website. Everything is right there and finally user friendly, and often free thanks to Google.

Here's a good example. I had an 80 year old comedian as a new client and when I asked him what his website was... he said he didn't have time. Then I said how about a blog...he replied "What's that?" He is now blogging, or should I say bloating, on how many comemdian contests he's winning in the senior competition. By the way, he is a retired UCLA professor, who wrote 35 books on social and group psychology. He says you're never too late to have a V-8. His favorite line at the clubs: "Yah know, people make fun of older people and their driving. Do you know how hard it is to manuever on a sidewalk?" And my favorite. "People complain that seniors get a 50% dicount on their movie tickets. We should, we fall asleep half way through the movie."

Perplexed Middle Manager (11/30):
This is an excellent, helpful column--like a road map showing part of the new media world. These online tools are not only good for getting and holding jobs but for DOING jobs successfully and giving accounts successful results they crave.

With newspapers, much of the circulation is to groups of readers who want sports news, or business, or to check out prices before shopping, or to people who subscribed once (or got an almost-free subscription) and now rarely read the paper thrown at their door. So of every 1,000 in newspaper circulation, what proportion are relly reading our release?

I don't know, but online nearly ALL the people we reach care about our subject--and actively clicked so as to get the kind of info we're offering.

Advetisers and their agencies aren't stupid. I think Sorrel was quoted that 15% or 20% of WPP ad dollars now go for online ads--and the proportion is rising. It's reminiscent of the days when computers came in.

Some in PR, including some highly placed executives, said in effect, "I don't understand or NEED these damn things"--but those people were replaced not because they didn't look good but because tool users (ask any caveman) could DO more, often faster and at lower cost.

It's true that part of management's enchantment with online PR may be like kids with new Christmas toys but when companies spend BILLIONS for Internet communications, there has to be a lot of research plus highly educated hunches showing that it's a good idea.

Doing succeessful online PR, like breaking up, is hard to do. There are scores of services for hitting newspapers--two big news wires and some smaller ones all of which are increasingly filling top dailies, and dozens of smaller services for smaller papers, mainly tiny weeklies and throw-away shoppers, but alsost no services (except for the huge Burson and Edelman online teams which you obviously can't use when you're at another PR firm) for scoring online.

Many larger companies feel in effect that "we're not paying big bucks and employing a big PR firm to hit little papers."

Alas, little papers do not a big impression make--and sometimes lead to questions of PR competence and understanding. Fortunately, entrepreneurs of the service firms tend to go not where the wild goose goes but where the money is, and there's an awful lot of money available for those who can help to succeed online. So more services may be coming along.

Until then, columns like this Greg Hazley piece are awfully helpful.

Online Enthusiast (11/28):
Twitter is good not only for messaging and making productive contacts but also, happily, for heavier PR lifting: getting and holding jobs and accounts.

As managements switch billions in ad dollars to online media, managements also have increasingly big buck enthusiasm for online PR success. "Most likely to succeed" are job candidates and presenters who can "talk tech" a little and show online PR success, not just clipping books that look like five years ago.

In well under 140 characters, two advantages of Twitter and related skills are often: Money and More. Also fun since it's fun to succeed in ways that others don't even think to try.

Beth Kanter (11/27):
Actually, I've used Twitter to raise money for orphans in Cambodia.

Doug Haslam, Topaz Partners (11/27):
Thanks to Tim for calling me out (I think). I should add that I was initially skeptical of Twitter usefulness too, and blogged about it. Obviously, I changed my thinking pretty quickly.