twitter for business
DESCRIPTION
A comprehensive guide to using twitter in a business environment. Topics include: *Getting started *Building a follower base *How to gain visibility *Business uses of Twitter *The future of Twitter in the enterprise This presentation features plenty of examples and best practices from successful members of the Twitter community.TRANSCRIPT
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Twitter for Business
Paul GillinAuthor, The New InfluencersSecrets of Social Media Marketinggillin.com
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Twitter is a
Microblog Service
“ A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically much smaller, in both actual size and aggregate file size…microbloggers post about topics ranging from the simple, such as ‘what I'm doing right now,’ to the thematic, such as ‘sports cars.’”
--Wikipedia
It is the simplest form of blog. But in simplicity there is often great power.
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A Few Microblogging Services
And, of course…
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Did You Know That…• 600 new tweets are created every second? (Twitter)
• 10% of Twitter users account for 90% of all activity? (Harvard Business School)
• The more followers you have, the more you tweet? (Sysomos)
• Brazilians are the second largest population of Twitter users? (Sysomos)
• 15% of all US adults will use a microblog service this year? (eMarketer)
• Ashton Kutcher, Britney Spears and Ellen DeGeneres each have more followers than President Obama? (Twitterholic.com)
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Using Twitter is Like Fishing a Stream
It’s a constant flow of information that yields continual discovery
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Publish Everywhere
32 million members
300 million members44 million members
1 billion daily views
6 million daily visitors
50 million members10 million members
1 million daily visitors
1.5 million daily visitors
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US; 40%
Japan; 23%
Brazil; 4%Germany;
4%
Taiwan; 2%
Spain; 7%
Canada; 4%
Italy; 3%
UK; 6%
France; 4%
Nether-lands; 3%
Twitter Users by Country
International Flavor
Source: Twitter, Compete.com
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What’s the big deal about 140?Here’s what 140 characters looks like:
“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposi”
Or Tweetshrunk to:“4 score & 7 years ago R fthrs brought forth on ths continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, & dedicated 2 the prop that all men R crea”
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The Appeal of “Ambient Intimacy”“Facebook users didn't think they wanted constant, up-to-the-minute updates on what other people are doing. Yet when they experienced this sort of omnipresent knowledge, they found it intriguing and addictive.
“Each individual bit of social information is �insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends' and family members' lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting.”
--Clive Thompson, The New York Times, 9/8/09
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• Branding• Hiring • Traffic building• Professional networking • Publicity• News• Prospecting• Feedback• Peer relations• Competitive tracking• Search engine optimization• Mobile visibility
Uses For Twitter in Business
$
Source: Sirona Consulting
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Getting StartedSign up• Create personal and business accounts; keep
names short!• If tweeting for business, choose username linked to
business (i.e. “@MeganCIO”
Fill out that profile• 160 characters; choose ‘em wisely!• Use keywords• Link to an “About” page on your site• Include photo or logo, depending on intended use
Change the default background• Choose images and themes consistent with the
intended persona• Pay attention to business marketing guidelines
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Step TwoChoose a Reader• Twitter.com just doesn’t cut it for
active users• Seesmic (top) and Tweetdeck are
popular choices• Choose a mobile client• Readers support filtering, lists,
profiles, follow/unfollow, multimedia, cross-posting to other social networks, tweetshrink, URL shortening
Follow people• Start with a small list and grow• Follow your friends, then find
people through search.twitter.com, Listorious the people others follow
Listen For a While
Tweetdeck Seesmic
Tweetie
Twitterific(iPhone)
Pandora(Android)
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It's Your Turn to TalkSay Something Interesting• Cite good articles on the Web • Comment on others’ tweets• Talk about others, not yourself
The Golden Ratio is 9:1• For every one tweet promoting yourself, send nine
promoting others• Be courteous, even if you disagree• Take time to look up user IDs of others you quote
@ShellyKramer: It's An Exciting Time to Be A Creative Type | http://bit.ly/c1Fzxo
Romania seeks to tax fatty fast food http://is.gd/8JS5a
New Mashable app is massive improvement from previous incantation and soo glad they dumped that 'graphic' or whatever it was
16 unusual facts about the human body http://u.nu/3fpw5
Do not have your username "admin" when using a wordpress blog #wcmia
4 Reasons Why Nobody Reads Your Blog http://ow.ly/19kDd #BloggingTips by @binterest
Facebook Problems Today: Photo Uploads Broken and Other Issues http://bit.ly/cuRs2n
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Consider Your PersonaHelpful?Funny?Offbeat?Sympathetic?Snarky?Unpredictable?
Try following some popular people , then choose a style that makes sense for you
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Check out this interesting article! http://bit.ly/bvnPDV
RT @copyblogger Revised AP style guide http://bit.ly/bvnPDV
New entry on my blog: http://bit.ly/bvnPDV
@JasonFalls do you like @Backupify? I've heard of it but never from someone I trust who uses it.
We just launched a new product! http://bit.ly/bvnPDV
It’s snowing in Austin and raining in New York. Something’s wrong!
Info tweet
Retweet
Help tweet
Postman tweet
Smiley tweet
Youtweet
Six Types of Tweets
Source: Sirona Consulting
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Flame or use abusive languageRepeat personal or confidential informationTalk about your gambling, drinking or other after-hours exploitsComplain about clients or colleaguesRepeatedly send the same tweet
Don’t…
Twitter is public and searchable. People are listening!
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Terms to knowTweet: A single Twitter message of 140 characters or lessProfile: Your Twitter persona, including contact info and 160-character profileFollower: Unilateral relationship in which a person chooses to receive all your tweetsTweetstream: The flow of tweets from people you followPublic Timeline: The globally visible Twitter stream@Reply: Public response to a single user that is directed to a special inbox for that user. Also appears on tweetstreams of that person’s followersRetweet: Twitter message forwarded to another member’s followers
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Terms to knowDirect Message (DM): Private Tweet; the equivalent of an e-mail or text messageBlock: Prevents someone from following youTweeple: People who tweetTweetup: Meeting organized via Twitter; the event itself is usually heavily tweetedList: 2009 enhancement that enables members to group and share lists other tweeple by categoryFavorite: Saved tweetConnections: Applications permitted to access your accountGeotag: Optional geographic annotation that tells people where you are
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URL Shorteners – There are About 100 of Them
Claims world’s shortest URLs
Create custom URLs like bit.ly/IDGSeminar
Statistics about URLs you share
Embeds ads in tweets
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=one+speen+street,+framingham,+ma&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=1+Speen+St,+Framingham,+Middlesex,+Massachusetts+01701&gl=us&ei=-hOES45dh-GUB4G1_I4C&ved=0CAcQ8gEwAA&z=16http://3.ly/lyx
From This:
To This:
Look For:• Bookmarklets/browser integration• Analytics• Geotargeting• Custom URLs• Compatibility with your reader
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Tips from the Experts
• Alternate between something relevant to your business and something irrelevant. Comments on the tax season can alternate with notes about my passion fruits coming into season.
• Add “Follow Me on Twitter” to your emails, web site, and other communications
• Focus on one or two of your followers a day. Spotlight something about them in a tweet. They’ll notice.
Excerpted from “137 Twitter Tips: How Small Businesses Get The Most From Twitter” by Small Business Trends (@smallbiztrends)
• Be useful. Be helpful. Be an authority• Demonstrate you know your market• Promote your work thoughtfully• Share links and knowledge• Use LinkedIn contacts or business cards to look
up and follow people in your field
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• Twellow.com helps you find people in your industry or your region. It’s like yellow pages for Twitter.
• Don’t follow too many more people than follow you, or you risk looking like a spammer.
• Find other companies that are similar to yours and follow them. Their customers will start following you.
• The smart way to market on Twitter: Don’t. Instead, provide value to others.
• Always be positive. The quickest way to get me to stop listening to you is to constantly complain.
• When the people you are following put out a tweet for help, answer back. Don’t let the it die in cyberspace.
• If you ask for a RT (retweet) leave at least 15 characters so people RT’ing your message don’t have to shorten it.
Excerpted from “137 Twitter Tips: How Small Businesses Get The Most From Twitter” by Small Business Trends (@smallbiztrends)
Tips from the Experts
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Advanced ToolsDirect Message – Essentially a short, private e-mail (Both parties must be following each other).Hash tag – Text string that categorizes a tweet’s relevance to a theme. Examples: #fail, #tigerwoods, #obama, #macworld. Useful in organizing and trendingAuto reply – Controversial practice of sending automated responses to new followers
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Use Hash Tags To…Find people with similar interestsCreate conversations around a brand or eventCreate structured online eventsMonitor topics of interest Discover new sources and informationQuick assess sentiment
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Twitter CultureMemes: Thematic conversations, often tied to days of the week. Ex: #FollowFriday, #Music Monday, #SinnerSundayResponses: It’s considered a snub to fail to respond to a request sent as an @ messageTexting Slang: Avoid all but the essential. “IMO” is OK; “LMFAO” isn’t
Trends: Popular topics of the moment, often displayed as tag cloudsSelling: Just don’t
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Building Followers: The
Quality/Quantity Tradeoff
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A Tiny Sampling of Follower ServicesTwtrFrnd - Find out who two members follow in common, plus who member 1 is following who also follows member 2TweetSum - Follow or ignore your recent followers with a simple drag and drop interfaceTwtUpon - Find people based up on interests and feedbackTopify - One-click follow-back; Answer direct messages from your inboxTwitSeeker - Find & follow tweeps based on keywordsJoule - Charts, graphs, and RSS feeds of your follower changes.TheTwitterBot - AutoFollow massive number of new peopleTweepi - Value of metrics to help find people to follow and unfollowTwitroduce - Track activity around your tweets. One-click of other usersstalking (and who is stalking them).iHazFollow - Check to see who is following who, and if the relationship is reciprocated.
Source: Twitter Fan Wiki
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Word to the WiseTwitter has a very open architecture
This is both blessing and curse
A lot of Twitter apps don’t work or deliver questionable
results404 – Caveat Emptor
Just don’t expect too much
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Engage Popular People
1.7 million followers
1.2 million followers
1.1 million followers
980,000 followers
473,000 followers
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Building your follower base• Follow people you admire• Comment upon and retweet their
messages• Include their Twitter name• If they follow you, thank them• Ask for advice, input• It’s occasionally OK to ask for a RT• They know they’re important;
don’t abuse the relationship
Checking out "Facebook and Health Ads" on @WEGOHealth : http://ning.it/93dQ6z
Tweeps: I'm in front of a college journalism class. What shld these students know abt social media.
RT @tshuttleworth: This is the golden age of engagement for book publishers. - Arianna Huffington #toccon
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Building your follower base• Attend and organize events• Tweet from events you
attend• Create Twitter-only events• Add your Twitter ID to all
communications• Participate in topical Twitter
chats• Think outside the box: What
can you try with Twitter?
#brandchat (Weds. @ 10) #smallbizchat (Weds. @ 7)#solorpr (Weds. @ noon)#journchat (Mon. @ 7)#blogchat (Sun. @ 8)
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Auto-follow
Pros• Quick way for both parties
to build follower count• Easily automated• Can introduce both parties
to wide variety of other perspectives
Cons• Accumulates undesirable
followers• Tweetstream quickly
becomes unwieldy• Looks like a numbers game
Robotic process in which a person automatically follows back any new followers
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Twitter BuzzDana Lewis (@danamlewis) and co-creator Arik Hanson created the Twitter hashtag #hcsm in early 2009 to stimulate a discussion of healthcare issues. It has become the most cited healthcare community on Twitter, drawing more than 2,000 followers for the moderator account, 50 to100 regular participants during each weekly scheduled chat and contributions from more than 200 people throughout the week.
AdWeek used Twitter, video and near-real-time reporting to bring an eager US audience the latest news from the annual Cannes advertising festival. The coverage spiked the b-to-b magazine’s website traffic and provided comprehensive coverage of an event that’s crucial to its audience
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Offbeat and OriginalPaul Armstrong has built a following of more than 22,000 people for his Twitter persona @themediaisdying. Last summer he was hired as head of social media for one of Europe’s largest public sector consultancies.
A team of 16 publishing professionals collaborate on the satirical tweet stream @fakeapstylebook. They’ve amassed more than 100,000 followers in less than four months with just 850 tweets. A book is in the works.
Justin Halpern began recording his father’s off-color and often hilarious homespun wisdom on @Sh*tMyDadSays. Six months and 103 tweets later, he’s got 1.2 million followers and a TV pilot.
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The Twitter Fan Page Wiki lists more than 700 applications. Everyone’s tastes are different. Some of my favorites:
Big directory of businesses on Twitter
Schedule tweets for later delivery
Who’s tweeting in your area
Continuous keyword/ hashtag monitoring
Measures power, reach and authority of a Twitter account
TweetStats analyzes your own Twitter activity
Customer Twitter dashboard
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Broadcast Listen Engage
Twitter in Business
Primary Flow of Information
Primary Flow of Information
Conver-sation
• Publish recent news
• Advertise events, activities, products and promotions
• Automatically broadcast of events related to business
• Trend research based on analysis of Twitter data
• Ask questions, conduct market research
• Collect ideas, innovations and feedback from social network
• Customer service and retention
• Humanize brand, increase staff retention, build team spirit
• Expert exchange
CategoryAction CategoryAction CategoryActionInforma-tional
Promo-tional
Informa-tional
Informa-tional
Informa-tional
Auto-matic
Informa-tional
Personal
Informa-tional
Source: Richard Caelius (@rcaelius)
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15% off any Dell Outlet Insp 11z, 15-1545 or 17-1750 laptop with coupon*! Enter code at checkout: ?PZMKKWHQG7DMM. http://cot.ag/7mwkWd.
• Additional channel for promotions • Free permission marketing
Alltags-Problem-Wettbewerb
Principal Value
•33 Twitter accounts
•Special offers and promotions (by segment and
geography), special interest engagement groups and
information channel
•Top 10 accounts have more than 98% of the followers,
top account (DellOutlet) has more than 90%. Median is
618 followers
Flow of InformationType of Comms
Promotional
Personal
Infor-ma-tional
Auto-matic
Analysis & Frameworks
Broad-cast
En-gage
Listen
Dell on Twitter
Source: Richard Caelius (@rcaelius)
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• Personal relationships with recruiters improve applicant quality
• Image of Sodexo as progressive company appeals to young workers
• Recruitment costs substantially reduced
Principal Value
•Most of the company‘s 60 recruiters user Twitter and
other social media to meet hiring demand.
•Focus is on building relationships and enthusiasm among
prospective employees
•Traffic to careers site up 182% in last two years, job
applications up 25%. Recruitment ad costs down $300K
Sodexo Recruiters
“The human touch is essential. People know there’s somebody behind the message and the photo.”
-Kerry Noone, Manager, Marketing Communications
Quote
Spending time connecting with candidates on Sodexo Careers Facebook page this AM - http://www.facebook.com/SodexoCareers
Spending time connecting with candidates on Sodexo Careers Facebook page this AM - http://www.facebook.com/SodexoCareers
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Contrary to popular belief, our golden gallic Croissants are perfect anytime, not just breakfast. http://bakertweet.com/m/714
Flow of InformationType of Comms
Promotional
Personal
Infor-ma-tional
Auto-matic
AlbionsOven (Der Bäcker Ofen)
• Keep customers informed/engaged about current status of product/service
• In this business, timing matters• Twitter is low-cost real-time promotional channel• Goals: Increase demand and customer loyalty
Best Practice
• Good use of realtime/neartime Twitter features• Messages are informative, witty and original
Analysis & Frameworks
Broad-cast
En-gage
Listen
Albions Oven
Source: Richard Caelius (@rcaelius)
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Twitter in the Enterprise• Still a very early-stage market• Tools mainly manage multiple
accounts and monitor conversations
• Next generation will automate posting across multiple channels, summarize feedback and follow up on actions
• This will be a hotbed of activity during the next two years as corporations learn that Twitter is the killer social media application
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Useful Links50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business – Chris Brogan100 Twitter Tools to Help You Achieve All Your Goals - Online Best Colleges.comTwitter tools for teams – BtoB magazineTwitter Fan Wiki A Twitter Mini-Guide: 60+ Useful Twitter Resources – E-Marketing PerformanceA Twitter Basics Primer – BuzzBin62 Ways to Use Twitter for Business – WebWorker DailyThe Ultimate Guide for Everything Twitter – WebDesigner Depot101 Tweets on How to Use Twitter – SEO BlogThe 10 Twitter Commandments – Econsultancy137 Small Business Twitter Tips – Small Business Trends
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Thank you!
Paul Gillin
508-656-0734
www.gillin.com
Twitter: pgillin
Available on Amazon or at NewInfluencers.com
Available on Amazon or at SSMMbook.com
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Coming late 2010: Social Marketing to the Business Customer
By Paul Gillin & Eric Schwartzman