Tweet tweet

The more Internet-savvy of you out there will realise ProcurementAsia has its own twitter account, and are part of the 136 (and counting) that we correspond with on the micro-blogging site.

"Tweet...what?" Unfortunately, apart from PR companies or those that are active in the social media space, that's the normal response I get when I try to tell my esteemed purchasing colleagues about it.

Twitter, explained by Wikipedia, is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers).

What does this mean to you? Well let's see. ProcurementAsia is now in contact with 136 purchasing and supply chain professionals across the world, who update on their Twitter about their lives, their jobs and what's going on in the supply chain space where they are at. I've essentially met and chatted with over a hundred buyers and supply chain folk, most of who I would have otherwise never get the chance to.

What's more, our followers get live updates when we're at conferences, price and market trends and the news when it breaks. In fact, more and more visitors to the ProcurementAsia website (www.procurement-online.com) are redirected from Twitter. It's a great place to bounce your thoughts out to the purchasing and supply chain world, and have them respond quickly, in 140 characters back to you.

But don't just take my word for it. Try also UPS, whose account (@thomasatups) helps frazzled Twitter clients find or track their parcels; Kingfisher (@flykingfisher) which uses Twitter to reach out to their customers; @ariba and @Oracle which extend their spend management helpline, new products and tips to the twitterverse; oh and of course, the very helpful groups of supply chain experts at @SupplyChainNtwk and @PurchasingPros.

See the number of likeminded purchasing and supply chain individuals you might be missing out on meeting? It's not too late. Get on over to http://twitter.com and start your 140 character updates.

Oh, and don't forget to follow us. We're at http://twitter.com/procurementasia

Happy tweeting!