Monthly Archives: August 2008

Tips & Ideas for Using Twitter

Aug 25

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I’ve been pretty focused on Twitter lately but mostly because I’m enjoying the platform and am intrigued by how other communications/PR pros are making use of the tool. From my own conversations with others about using Twitter for their own company or brand, one big question always seems to come up – what would we tweet about?

Last week, Chris Brogan did a great post about 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business. Chris shares strong insight and a good overview of reasons to hop on Twitter (listening/monitoring) and how to make the tool effective (be human!). Contemplating whether to tweet? Be sure to check out Chris’ post.

- Scott

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Should Your Brand Tweet?

Aug 15

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On the heels of my last post, I thought it would be good to follow up with a discussion on why your company or organization may find it valuable to have an active presence on Twitter.

As with any social networking tool, it’s of course most important to first define your audience and establish your objectives before assuming you should hop on Twitter and start tweetin’ away. Demographic stats around Twitter are hard to come by, but here is a decent demographics breakdown as well as this survey on how people use Twitter.

That being said, here are 5 reasons your organization or company many want to consider using Twitter:

1. To Monitor & Listen
Carefully monitor your brand and utilize a tool such as TweetScan to start the listening/monitoring process. You can use an RSS Reader to subscribe to key terms to make the process easy.

2. To Build Relationships
Your supporters and brand evangelists want to hear from you. I promise. Good or bad, they want to know you are hearing their thoughts, concerns and suggestions as well as responding. Twitter is just one free tool that may be an easy way to connect.

3. To Build Brand Awareness
Though Twitter puts limits on the degree to which you can customize your profile (again, kudos to the simplicity of this site) it serves as a a great brand enhancement tool that you can use to link to back to a website, blog, etc. Most importantly, you’re providing an active, direct line for communication with those who determine your brand anyway. 

4. To Show Thought Leadership
Twitter is an easy avenue to provide links to valuable articles that matter to your followers and contribute in a thoughtful manner to the ongoing conversation. Jeremiah Owyang of Web Strategist fame is a perfect example. He Tweets, people listen. Guess that happens after 9,000 updates.

5. To Build Business
Gone is the era of stuffy social networking sites serving as the only forum for new business development. Depending on your industry, chances are someone from a leadership team is starting to catch the buzz and dip their toes into the Twitter zone as well. Say hello. 

So, what brands are out there on Twitter? Here’s a solid list, but as with any social media strategy, carefully assess your goals and purpose for hopping on Twitter. As Jeremiah demonstrates, there are just as many reasons as to why brands can fail on Twitter.

Happy Tweetin’,
Scott 

*Back in a week, taking a break to shoot some photos and travel out in WA!

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5 Reasons Why You Should Be on Twitter

Aug 13

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I’m pretty new to the world of Twitter and I’ll be the first to admit that it took awhile for me to make the leap and sign up. It’s an incredibly clean, simple site and it takes all of a couple minutes to create a profile.

This simplicity is a telltale sign of the site as a whole, which operates around the premise of providing updates or “tweets” limited to 140 characters (via web or mobile text updates). It’s basically a networking/community building tool situated around the concept of instant messaging. Like all well-designed networking sites, once you participate, you get IT.

Another great aspect of Twitter is that it makes it really easy to find and follow others on the site. You can search by name or any keyword which will yield results based on what words users place in their profile. In addition, you can synch updates to your profile through RSS Feeds and also incorporate updates on your various social networking profiles.

For instance, anytime I update a blog post here, TwitterFeed automatically posts a Twitter update and announces that I’ve published a new blog post. Moreover, I use the Twitter application on my Facebook profile to provide updates as well and you can even set this up to update your Facebook status. I’ve been meaning to incorporate a status update tool here as well, which I plan to do soon. 

*Note – Be careful, just using Twitter for RSS feeds and not providing regular personal updates can be viewed as Twitter noise or clutter and demonstrate a lack of authenticity by the community.

From an outside perspective, it seems that it would be incredibly overwhelming and a huge time demand to follow a bunch of users as they tweet the day away. The fact of the matter is that the setup makes it really easy to either quickly scan over updates from those you are following or even select whose updates you want to have delivered to your mobile device. 

So, if you haven’t already signed up and found me on Twitter, here are five reasons to help sway your decision.

1. To network with other like-minded professionals and gain excellent expert insight

2. To listen, listen, listen and monitor various trends

3. To provide live updates from a particular event you may be attending

4. To use as a marketing tool to help drive traffic back to a blog or website

5. Because everyone knows the new catch phrase will be,
“You Tweet?”

-Scott

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