Twitter for Business
Beginner’s guide to advance with Business Communication
The power of Social media had exceeded the limits of just getting in touch with people to corporate branding. Gone are days where people thought social networking as a non Productive Platform, today from PR to HR all Business functions relay on Social Media for their allied activities. Now, let us look at some interesting Social Media facts. Radio took 38 Years to reach 50 million users Television took 13 Years to reach 50 million users Internet took 4 Years to reach 50 million users Ipod took 3 Years to reach 50 million users Facebook took 9 Months to reach 100 million users There are 1, 00,000,000 Video‘s in Youtube Globally there are 2, 00,000,000 active blogs A research study by Time Magazine says Social networking sites are more popular than Porn sites. People, are totally engaged than ever before. Social media had given a way to variety of jobs across all industries. How engaged are people in Social media? 73% of active online worldwide users have read a blog
45% have started their own blog 39% subscribe to an RSS feed 57% have joined a social network 55% have uploaded photos 83% have watched online video clips Now, 75% of the people spend at least one hour a week on social networking sites and 19% spend more than 7 hours a week You know, your boss is more active than you in social networking sites Over four in 10 (43%) CEOs use online social media at least a few times per week 20% have used social media to communicate with stateholder groups. Of those, Facebook was the most popular (78%), then MySpace (44%), YouTube (44%), Twitter (19%) 62% of CEOs believe social media can have a much larger impact on reputation on sales of their products and services. Numbers do not lie, now with an understanding that you wanted social media to serve for the success of your brand, we are going further ‌. Hundreds of tools are available to serve you with the same cause out of which Twitter has lately become the most popular and productive social media tool that can help you enhance your brand
Twitter is one such micro blogging platform which is been used widely across the globe for business. Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that allows you answer the question, "What are you doing?" by sending short text Messages 140 characters in length, called "tweets", to your followers (In business they can be your customers)." Some interesting facts, about Twitter Twitter had grown 1,382% between February 2008 and February 2009 and expected to have over 100 million users by 2010, and 250 million in 2011 Around three million tweets are posted on Twitter every day This e-book would primarily give you a clear insight on how to use Twitter for Business. However, Why Twitter? Twitter is a Public Instant messenger Twitter helps you to keep the market updated about your status. You get a chance to interact with your customer base Keep up on the buzz in your industry Networking - Business is all about networking
How do I get started with Twitter? Step 1: Register with Twitter
Step 2: Have a Professional Template or a Template, which would suit your Business activity How do I do it? There are few sites which give free downloads of the Twitter Themes. www.twitpaper.com www.twitterimage.com www.twitterbackgroundsgallery.com If your want the logo to be a part of your Twitter Page, Just download the Image of your Logo in a .JPEG format and upload it in Twitter (See the below image for a Better Understanding)
Step 3: Start following people, make sure you follow who can contribute to the community. It is always better to have Like-Minded people in the Books. Example: If you are a Web 2.0 Product based Company, follow People who have a passion or at least interest in Web 2.0. Reason being People who you follow will start sharing their Opinions and Feedbacks that can help in Product Enhancement. Try: www.search.twitter.com Twitter search is an inbuilt option that helps you to find like-minded people.
There are Some Third Part Sites, which can help you in finding them. www.twellow.com (They claim to be Twitter‘s Yellow Page; It gives you industry wise Twitters.) www.twitter.grader.com (This helps you to find Twitters Local to you, Say you can find all Twitters who live in ―LA‖ through their search feature.)
Step 3: Chose your Tool Many third party vendor applications make your Twitting experience a glorious one. (Instead of using www.twitter.com you can download these desktop tools which has more inbuilt features and the interface is also good) TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can stay organized and up to date. TweetDeck serves the purpose of easy tweeting with an excellent Interface and with TweetDeck, you can manage multiple twitter accounts. If you are a company with three major services, you can have three different twitter accounts for three different services in a single window, this way you will be in constant touch with the users of all three services. Google has more than 50 accounts for all their online services, also many organizations in Service Industry had integrated, twitter with their customer service department to serve customers online.
How does Tweetdeck works?
User Interface:
Features: (From TweetDeck Webpage)
Twhirl If you find Tweetdeck as an application that is bigger in size then you need to try Twhirl, which is comparatively very smaller and an application with self explanatory feature.
User Interface:
Features: (From Twhirl Webpage)
The Most important aspect about Twhirl – it is small and sleek, which makes your Twitting Experience wonderful.
Online Applications: CoTweet: If you feel you do not want a desktop Twitter application then you can opt for CoTweet a complete web based application that will remind you of your Outlook Mail Box.
CoTweet has an option to integrate multiple Twitter accounts that you hold for different services.
CoTweet is a Simple application with good interface and Integration, it has an additional Option to schedule your Tweets
CoTweet is the most popular Web Based Twitter Application which is been used by Corporate.
Other Online applications: After choosing you desktop Twitter application, you still have to explore the online applications to create more visibility for your brand. www.twtpoll.com Opinions make great products An interactive application that can help you conduct polls, here you get a chance to conduct mini surveys with multiple Question Types (I strongly recommend this because feedbacks can help you to enhance your service)
www.Tweetube.com Now video Tweeting is possible through Tweetube. Upload the videos on any Video sharing portal, fetch the URL of the Video and share it with your members. Through Tweetube, you can keep a track of the Video‘s that are uploaded from your end month to month. The video can be a Birthday celebration/Product Launch/Interview of your companies Top Team member, which you would like to share with your customers/followers www.twitpic.com Twitpic has become one of the most popular Twitter applications that allow you to share the Pictures with your Twitter Connects. www.monitter.com Monitter does exactly what it is supposed to do. Yes, it tracks the visibility of your brand through your search options. If suppose organization is put-up in LA and you wanted to know what people speak about your brand in California, monitter helps you in finding it. www.exectweets.com ExecTweets – A web based Twitter application by Microsoft, which helps you to follow Top Business Executives in Twitter.
This can help you in two ways. You may get to know, if they are in need of your kind of service You get to interact with Leaders across diversified businesses Step 4: Best Practices
Interact with the Members Contribute to the Ongoing Conversation. Convey your Thoughts. Appreciate ideas. (There is an option called Retweet(RT) with twitter. if you find an Interesting Tweet by any of your members, you can actually RT the same message which calls for an appreciation)
Make the Forum more interactive Engage your followers Ask for Opinions Listen to your customers and their Concerns about the product Listen to what the market speaks about your Opponents (an Outsiders View is always different from what you normally hear from your customers) Take the Feedbacks more constructively; this can make your product Robust. Share interesting facts: about the growth of your industry Link to articles and contents of your website (White Papers/Presentations/videos) Use Twitter to announce Job Openings – You might get immediate responses Use Twitter to announce discounts and offers Focus on the conversations that matter — Know when you need to jump in. Find your prospects through Twitter (People may be more interested in your service)
Step 5: Share your Success Twitter, can be used as an extension of your Corporate Blog. 1) Share the links from your corporate website with Twitter. 2) Share the New Product or Service enhancement details through Twitter 3) Share the details of corporate honors, Awards and Accolades. 4) Share the details of Service Offers and Promotional Activities. 5) Share the details of New Product launch. 6) Create a curiosity of ―What Next?‖ When your share the details make sure, you provide the authentic links and Source. For links (URL) which are very big in length use www.is.gd to shorten the URL (Most of the time twitter does it) Note: With one twitter account, you can explore all these tools. You do not need to register repeatedly.
About the author:
The author is a Social Media Evangelist/Marketing Blogger, whose avid interest in the field of marketing and technology has helped him to keep pace with the latest trends. He works as a ‗Marketing Analyst‘ at Hyderabad, with a leading research firm headquartered in San Francisco and aspires to contribute more to the field of ‗Creative Marketing‘. Email: hairaman@gmail.com Phone: +91-9704165275 Blog Space: www.iamshiv.com Twitter: www.twitter.com/hairaman LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/iamshiv
Download my other e-Books: 15 Essential Online Tools for Marketers What Makes a Great Marketer?