Tweet Ideas: The Marketer'sGuide to Twitter

by Michael Daehn

There are dozens of articles about what Twitter is and how to take advantage of it-especially for marketers. This is a brief guide on the must have basics you need to know before venturing into the Twitter waters (Twaters).

What is Twitter?

It depends on who you ask. Some peoplesay it is a waste of time. Others think it isthe greatest invention since the telephone.here's the official explanation from theTwitterwebsite:

"Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers tocommunicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question:

What are youdoing?

Some people call it micro-blogging since the postings often resemble short little blog posts.By short I mean 140 characters or less. 140 characters is the same limit as most textmessaging platforms. Twitter integrates and works well with the SMS platform. Many activetwitterers (or tweeters) use their mobile device to send and receive messages (tweets) fromthe service.

The Beauty of Brevity

Part of the appeal of Twitter is the ease with which you can post a thought. In the old days Iused to slave minutes over a blog post to share information with my readers. Now I canpost a quick idea or even put a link in my tweet to an important page I just found and wantto communicate.These brief messages have also been a reason for scorn. People ask "how can youcommunicate any important information in just a few words?" Good writers and editors willtell you that being concise is the skill of a good writer. And with the ability to embed linksinto your tweets, you have the option to link to larger thought, page or article.

Syndication

The ability to link turns Twitter into a syndication channel. Many people, myself included,will post links to their larger blog posts or articles when they publish. There are several tools

you can use to schedule your tweets and/or publish from an RSS feed. I have my accountset up to tweet a link each time I publish a new post to mymarketingenious blog.A word of caution, over syndication can get some people riledup. They want to follow a person,not a robot. Be clear what theTwitter account is and what type of information is going to betweeted. For instance my personal account@michaeldaehnisreally me sharing ideas and links throughout the day.Occasionally a link to my blog is added when I write a post.I also have a twitter account set up for my Blues hockey fansite@myblues. The only updates from this feed are comingfrom the RSS activity feed from thewebsite. This accountmakes no pretensions about being human, but provides aservice for the members of the website that want to get updates in their Twitter feed.Be clear about the purpose of the account and what type of updates will be given so thatpeople can decide if they want to follow or not.

Spamming

Just like email, Twitter has spam. On Twitter spam can take the form of people followingyou that are not real, usually robots, in hopes that you will see who they are and click on alink to their website. Other spam can be subjective. If you are following me and all I do ispromote my products or latest blog post you may consider me spam. The nice thing is youcan easily unfollow me and stop receiving my updates.

Conversation Building

New marketing orMarketing 2.0is all aboutconversations. Old school marketing meantcarefullycrafting a message and broadcasting it outthrough various media channels. The Internethas dramatically changed the communicationprocess and Twitter is a perfect example. It isbuilt for real people to have conversationsabout their lives, their laundry and maybe yourproduct. If you have not figured out theconversation thing yet, I suggest you readsome of the books listed in the resource sectionat bottom.

Customer Service

For those companies that want to do a better job at customer service, Twitter is a greatopportunity. Want to know what people really think about you? Put your name into a searchand see if people are cursing or praising you in their conversations. You have theopportunity to proactively participate in discussions with your customers.A couple of successful examples of this areComcastandDell. They honed in on some issues people were discussing about them and did something to help their customers.

Public Relations

The era of the monotonous press release are over. Good riddance. If you are truly relatingto the public today you are using tools like Twitter, blogs and interactive forums.

Twhat did you say?

Twitter has spawned a whole new vocabuly of words starting with Tw. Some are cute andsome are annoying, but if you run across some silly sounding words like twollow, twellow ortwittelate you can assume you are dealing with something Twitter related. If you still aren'tsure, check thetwittonary.

Should You be on Twitter?

Marketing is about finding the right tools the job. So ask yourself these questions:•Do you want immediate feedback on what your customers think?•Do you want a low or no cost tool to add to your marketing mix?•Do you want to pro actively engage one to one with customers?•Are you willing to be transparent and authentic and not hide behind corporate speakand/or policies?•Are you prepared to respond to your audience?•Are you comfortable with "building good will" as an objective?•Are you able to devote the time to do this right?If your answers are yes than welcome to the twitterverse. Be sure to say hi@michaeldaehn.