Pitch that up the chain saying that there is a new medium of conversating with your customer base and its something that should be seriously looked at. 18k. Are you a one-man Twitter team? There is no way that a customer should not get a response from your company when they are trying to reach out to you. With that many followers you are obviously selling product to the mass consumer. I assume you would like to keep ALL of them happy and grow that base. Not responding would dilute what seems to be a strong brand (after all, you have 18k followers).

Sorry, had to throw the above in and now to get to your question. I don’t spend a lot of time explaining to people WHAT Twitter is. You either get it or you don’t. I have found that sitting with someone in a consulting session proves to be invaluable. It’s one of those tools that people have to be involved in to understand. That’s what Social Media is. You can’t sit on the sidelines and understand?

It’s like your PCC place. How could I possibly understand what it was like for you to get food from there as a kid? I have my own experiences. You would have to take me to PCC, explain to me what you feel so that I could even begin to grasp your nostalgia.

Fortunately explaining Twitter is a bit easier than my understanding your PCC experience.

For what it’s worth – Twitter is the form of communication that will become prevalent in future (think 5 years). It’s how we communicate now.

Note: One thing that always works for me is to ask people what it was like when email came on to the scene. Which side were they on? The side pushing for it or the side against it? Same story…don’t fall behind. The clock is ticking.

Tick Tock.