Twitter

Most merchants on Twitter are using the channel like a public email platform. The majority of messages are sales pitches and very little engagement with followers, which completely misses the point

Live Tweets by Tim Parry and Jim Tierney from New York: Apps World and Social Media World Forum.

When it comes to children’s apparel and accessories, you don’t get more old-school than Carter’s or OshKosh B’gosh. But the brands, both owned by Carter’s, are hip to 21st-century social media.

Engaging in back-and-forth dialogue and spreading the word about what others are saying are critically important parts of the Twitter ethos. But research in the 2010 Global Social Media Checkup study by consulting firm Burson-Marsteller indicates that too many companies are doing much more talking than listening.

Merchants like to throw out the numbers of followers they have on Twitter, or how many times they tweet per day. But are marketers getting the most out of their tweets?

Real-time search is still new, making it difficult to truly understand its ultimate magnitude. But your business must optimize its social media channels so that when results displayed in real-time, your business sees peak benefits.