You can say Twitter is a stupid application, that no business gets done
there, but there are too many of us (including me) that can disagree and
point out business value. Im not going to address the naysayers much
with this. Instead, Im going to offer 50 thoughts for people looking to
use Twitter for business. And by business, I mean anything from a
solo act to a huge enterprise customer.
First Steps
Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitors names, words that relate to your space.
Add a picture . We want to see you.
Talk to people about THEIR interests, too.
Point out interesting things in your space.
Share links to neat things in your community.
Dont get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead.
Pimp your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out.
Promote your employees outside-of-work stories.
Throw in a few humans.
Talk about non-business, too.
What to Tweet ?
Instead of answering the question, What are you doing?, answer What has your attention?
Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. Its nice to have a variety.
When promoting a post, ask a question or explain whats coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
Ask lots of questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
Tweet about other peoples stuff.
When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
Share the human side of your company. If youre bothering to
tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human
connections. Point to pictures and personal human things.
Dont toot your own horn too much. (Man, I cant believe Im
saying this. I do it all the time. Side note: Ive gotta stop tooting
my own horn).
Or, if you do, try to balance it out... by promoting the heck out of others, too.
Some Sanity For You
Really, You cannot and dont have to read every tweet.
You dont have to reply to every @ tweet directed to you (try to reply to some, but dont feel guilty).
Use direct messages for 1-to-1 conversations if you feel
theres no value to Twitter at large to hear the conversation
Use services like Twitter Search to make sure you see if someones talking about you. Try to participate where it makes sense.
3rd party clients like Tweetdeck and Twhirl make it a lot easier to manage Twitter.
If you tweet the day while your coworkers are busy, youre going to hear about it.
If youre representing clients and billing hours, and tweeting all the time, you might hear about it.
Learn quickly to use the URL shortening tools like TinyURL and all the variants. It helps tidy up the tweets.
If someone says youre using twitter wrong, forget it. Its an
opt out society. .
Commenting on others tweets, and retweeting what others have posted is a great way to build a large community.
The Negatives People Will Throw At You
Twitter takes up time.
Twitter takes you away from other productive work.
Without a strategy, its just typing.
There are other ways to do this.
Twitter doesnt replace customer services
Twitter is buggy and not enterprise-ready.
Twitter is just for nerds.
Twitters only a few million people.
Twitter doesnt replace email marketing.
Twitter opens the company up to more criticism and gripin
Some Positives to Throw Back
Twitter helps one organize great, instant meetups (tweetups).
Twitter works swell as an opinion poll.
Twitter can help direct peoples attention to good things.
Twitter at events helps people build an instant backchannel.
Twitter breaks news faster than other sources, often (especially if the news impacts online denizens).
Twitter gives businesses a glimpse at what status messaging can do for an organization. Remember presence in the 1990s?
Twitter brings great minds together, and gives you daily
opportunities to learn (if you look for it, and/or if you follow the
right folks).
Twitter gives your critics a forum, but that means you can study them.
Twitter helps with business development, if your prospects are online (mine are).
Twitter can augment customer service. (but see above)
The Free Twitter Guide
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