To follow my recent post on
how to get your company onto Facebook here is a look at Twitter and how your company can utilise this social media network as a marketing tool.
Twitter is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows you to send and receive messages with 'followers' – people and companies that are interested in what you have to say and whom you are also interested in.
The popularity of twitter has grown over the last few years and has become a necessary space for companies to have a presence and be seen to be having informed, responsive conversations.
What should we be doing on Twitter?
Use twitter to spread news, tell people about things that are happening in the company, as they happen. This could be through tweeting news stories, blog updates or actually providing live coverage from events. It is also an immediate, fast way to update your customers on situations that may have occurred – even when other communications fail e.g. website crashes, products having almost sold out.
Build your brand. Simply, the more your brand is talked about, or seen to be talking, the more aware people will become of it. This also allows you to benefit from the simplest use of twitter - to drive people to your website or blog.
Twitter is an excellent tool for brand monitoring and reputation management. Twitter allows you to see what people are saying about your brand/company. Monitor discussions to ensure there are no risks or concerns for the company that should be followed up and see when people are saying positive things about you. This then allows you to.....
Engage in conversation - A tricky to manage but useful tool. Where it makes sense to respond, and doesn't risk a public debate that may cause further damage, it can work well for a company to respond and advise people discussing you online. You should also encourage conversation by inviting people to feedback or ask you questions.
Use twitter to connect with others and learn about what your competitors are up to, follow them and respond to them. The opportunity is there to learn from what others are doing and talking about. It allows you to share valuable information.
Encourage people to talk about you, encourage them to re-tweet. Follow people who are discussing similar subject matters to you and voice your thoughts and opinions – these people may then begin to follow you, or people reading will see you are also a useful source of information and begin to follow.
Create events/invites – Once you have established a strong collection of followers the opportunity is there to use them as a guest list and invite them to events. This ensures you are inviting interested audiences.
How to develop a presence on Twitter
It is important to consider what Avatar name you choose to go by on Twitter. It should be relevant and easy to find. If you have an online presence already through blogs and other social media then you should use the same one – for consistency and awareness.
Your name should be short – this allows people to limit the amount of space they use up in their tweets if they are re-tweeting or replying to you.
Your twitter page has a background design to it which you can personalise. This should be stylish and simple and again should have a consistency with any online and offline identity you already own – to confirm to your customers they are talking to who they think they are.
Before embarking on twitter it is important to set objectives for what you are trying to achieve by having a presence on there. Do you want to tell people about new products, encourage them to interact with you, reach the most people possible etc.? This will then inform the content you choose to place.
Some things to consider
Twitter has moved away from the web and is everywhere. People interact with it on their phone, blackberry's etc. and link direct from their computers through programmes such as twhirl – allowing them to have instant updates when people tweet. This adds to its immediacy and the speed to which people can respond or messages can be re-tweeted on to others.
It is important to consider your tone of voice and be honest – however the nature of the short, punchy updates allows you to have fun as well. The limit to letters you can use (140) also means you should keep things simple and get to the point, there is no room for detailed content. Use the tweet to direct people to further content.
There should be a fine balance between tweeting about your business, blogs, products etc. and more personal comments that allow you to show more of a personality.
It is important to be seen to share links, ideas, insights through your communications – information that you see as being valuable for your followers. Do not just link to your own blogs, comments etc.
It is important to keep updating your content and keep a voice out there. Do not go quiet on people as they will lose interest and choose not to follow you anymore.
It is important to communicate directly with people when they choose to communicate with you directly. It is also a nice touch to welcome people when they choose to follow you, thank them for their interest.
Telling people you're on Twitter
Tell people that you are on twitter to encourage them to follow you by using the twitter badge. When communicating with customers make sure you highlight this e.g. include it on your email, website, other network sites, and your blog.
When establishing a twitter account a key activity is to explore who you should be following. Use http://search.twitter.com/ to find out people that are talking about relevant subjects to your company. This allows you to research their content and see if it is worth following them. Hopefully this will in turn lead to them following you.
It is also beneficial to use a site such as whoshouldifollow.com, twitdir.com or twitterholic.com – these sites allow you to research who are key people to follow, based on number of follows and activity.
Measure Success
Once a presence has been created and you have become active in the ways outlined you should be analysing your position on the site. This can be done by using analysis tools such as Twitalyser, which looks at your popularity and references to your messages, or tweeteffect, which looks at which updates made people follow you or leave you, allowing you to gain an understanding of which messages work and which haven't.
Coming soon - the importance of a company blog and what you can do with it.