Adrienne Royer

May 19, 2009

How 140 Characters Are Changing Communications

What Is Twitter?

Twitter is a micro-blogging, social networking platform that asks users to answer, “What Are You Doing?” in 140 characters or less.

Launched in late 2006 Allows people to share breaking

news, links, information and reach out to community/customers

Twitter’s Flexibility

Easy to Update:Text Message from cell phoneiPhone or Blackberry applicationsComputerE-mailInstant MessageFacebookBlogAny other web-based platform

Why Is Twitter Different?

Twitter uses several different technologies to operate including:

RSS: a group of web-based feeds that standardize blog posts, podcasts, web sites, etc. and syndicate them into an aggregator in order to share information and allow readers or users to know that the site has been updated

Texting: a short, 160-character electronic message sent via a cell phone using the Short Message Service (SMS)

Who Is On Twitter?

As of early 2009, Twitter had more than 10 million users.

comScore Media Metrix. April 9, 2009

Who’s on Twitter?

Twitter is most popular with 45-54 year-old demographic.

How to Use Twitter

All you need is an e-mail and user name.

Find Friends

Find people through e-mail, invite friends or search by keyword.

How to Tweet

1. Give an update in 140 characters or less.

2. Reply to someone: use an @ and their username

Say What?

Tweet:

(noun) the short 140 character message that you send on twitter

(verb) the act of sending a message on Twitter i.e. to tweet. For example: @adrienneroyer was tweeting earlier.

Tweeple, Tweeps or Twitterers: Twitter friends

*You tweet on Twitter. You don’t twitter on Twitter.

Mobile Twitter

Twitter is opened to 3rd party applications. Allows you to maximize the Twitter community

Add to your cell phone, iPhone or BlackBerry Add SMS through twitter.com Tweetie for iPhone and

TwitterBerry for BlackBerrries

Maximize Twitter

Splitweet•Manage multiple Twitter accounts•Track key words in the Twitterverse•Manager your online brand•Developed for Corporate Twitter accounts

Maximize Twitter

Tweetdeck•Track hot topics on Twitter•Split friends into groups•Organize tweets

Other Twitter apps:•Twirl•TwitterFox (for Firefox browser)•Brian Solis’ Twitter Tools for Community and Communications Professionals•http://www.briansolis.com/2008/10/twitter-tools-for-community-and.html

Why Should You Use Twitter?

Social media is about building relationships not selling a brand or product.

Twitter is one of the best social media tools for building relationships.

Traditiona/Broadcast Model

Social Media Model

Success Stories from Twitter

Charity: Water Twestivals @comcastcares & @zappos

customer service @CDCemergency updates about

H1N1 @girlsincchatt

How to Effectively Use Twitter? Essentially, Twitter tracks the world’s

conversations.

For the first time, organizations are capable of having one-on-one conversations on a mass scale.

Best social media tool for building relationships with key stakeholders, communities, opinion leaders and media.

How To Build Relationships?

Use Twitter to build create honest, transparent, 2-way conversations with stakeholders

Don’t just send out press releases on Twitter. Share information, breaking news, updates

• Ex. @FDArecalls Answer questions Scan for concerns or questions on public’s

radar and address them directly Ask questions! Reach out to people with similar focuses or

interests

How To Build Relationships?

Real people use Twitter and expect a real person to be handling your account.

Eliminate corporate-speak or PR-language from tweets

Twitter Tools

Twitter Search: http://search.twitter.com/Allows anyone to search for tweets with

specific keywords Hashtags: adding the “#” allows twitter to

aggregate similar tweets into one feed#breakingnews, #lost, #oprah, #obama

www.hashtags.org tracks all hashtags Trending TopicsTracks the day’s top hashtagswww.twitter.com

Twitter Tools

Thousands of 3rd-party Twitter tools exist to monitor Twitter and build your online community.

Twitter tool listings: Brian Solis’ Twitter Tools for Community and

Communications Professionalshttp://www.briansolis.com/2008/10/twitter-tools-for-

community-and.html

http://www.longest.com/2008/10/28/top-twitter-tools/

Measuring Success

Monitor Twitter and online mentions through free web-services Google alerts (i.e. @adrienneroyer) Socialmentions.com Twitter alerts

Establish goals of friends or followers User similar metrics to PR measurement Monitor blog hits, tweets and Facebook

mentions

Questions

Blog: Nonprofit Land

www.adrienneroyer.com

E-mail: aroyer@gmail.com

Twitter: @adrienneroyer