Until Stephen Fry got stuck in a lift the vast majority of us had probably not heard of Twitter and those that had probably did not see the relevance of Twittering.
His musings such as: "Ok. This is now mad. I am stuck in a lift on the 26th floor of Centre Point. Hell's teeth. We could be here for hours. A**e, poo and widdle." reached the national press and TV. His “tweets” were not only humourous, they demonstrated the space that Twitter holds – a world between email and blogging.
So what is Twitter all about and can it become a tool useful to businesses? Twitter (www.twitter.com) allows users to post “tweets” of a maximum of 140 characters. Once you create a Twitter account you can search for people you know and then follow them...start posting and hopefully they and other will find you tweets interesting and they will in turn follow you.
Twitter – by design - forces brevity on users which is a good thing. It makes people think about what they are writing and because they can be posted via mobile phones as well as the internet they can have an immediate impact. Remember the headline “man bites dog” – when you Tweet you need to capture someone’s interest quickly. For a new business starting out the more exposure you are able to achieve the better and if you don’t think that creating value out of social interaction is important look at how much money the likes of Google, Facebook and Microsoft are spending in these areas.
OK so hopefully I’ve got you interested in Twitter but you’re still thinking that apart from letting some friends know that you’re having a latte in Pret, it’s not going to help my business.
Think again - Twitter also allows you to post questions and to search by specific topic. For instance, if you are starting out a new business venture you need advice – well you can use twitter to find a graphic designer. You can also ask other users for advice on funding sources. It is also a great medium for executives of large corporations to share their thoughts – where else would you be able to read the thoughts of FTSE 100 executives who may not have the time to blog and whose email address you probably don’t have. A case in point is the site Microsoft has created linking senior executives at www.exectweets.com.
So now is the time to take the plunge.
Firstly, think about what you are going to use Twitter for. A couple of examples could be the obvious ones such as generating interest in your business – things like announcing a new product release. I’m going to use the example of - often not considered – to use Twitter as a customer support mechanism. This is a great use of the technology - you are able to connect your customers, share information on product enhancements and also enable individual customers to interact with each other.
Once you have decided on that nominate an individual who will post tweets as well as a backup when that person is away. You need to be clear about what the purpose of the Tweet is and ensure it is regularly reviewed. In the case of customer comments you need to address negative tweets honestly and quickly.
The next step is to choose a name - and I would suggest using your company name on twitter. You can also customise the page – and this is really important – ensure that it contains your logo, a bio of the company and also the URL to your company’s web site. Remember every visitor to your page is a potential customer so make sure what you put up there has been written professionally.
You can also embed your unique Twitter URL into your web site. Taking the example above ...if you have a support page on your site you can invite visitors to that page to “follow” your support specific Tweets. If you Blog you can add a badge to your blog page which will display the short Tweet but then via the blog you give users access to the full article. It’s all about creating “noise” about your operation. You can reply (using the @reply syntax) to their tweets which can be read by anyone or, as a direct message by prefacing the message with a “D”.
For instance you may @reply to someone with your opinion on the latest Cricket score but you may keep private a reply to your significant other half about plans for your romantic evening. It’s not email – it’s not blogging it’s all about what you or your business are up to and if what you have to say is interesting, people and (hopefully) profits will follow.
So how do you measure success? It’s not as simple as sitting back and waiting for the enquiries to flood in – Twitters primary purpose is not commercial however, by that very fact it has the potential to connect you to new opportunities. As you start twittering, your home page tracks how many updates you have made, how many people you are following and most importantly how many people are following you. This is the critical number. Don’t expect immediate results – it’s exponential – if someone with a large group of followers starts following you then chances are some of their followers will have a look at your posts and hopefully decide that what you are saying is interesting.
Who you follow is also important although I’d steer clear of the usual suspects such as religion and politics on a company Twitter. By using the #search function you can find subjects being Tweeted on that may indicate interesting users and because it looks at profiles, you can find people who you can connect to.
So take the plunge – create a Twitter account today.
