What’s the big deal about #Twitter?
First of all, Twitter might be my favorite thing on the internet. It’s part news, part entertainment, part communications all built on a real time firehose of information.
140 characters doesn’t give a lot of space to convey much important information. You might ask is it really enough to build a relationship?
Much like a haiku, Twitter, and its 140 character limit, impose a structure that can improve communication as much as it can limit it.
As with anything, the tool is more about what you do with it than what it is and Twitter can be a great way to initiate a relationship.
Many companies worry that Twitter will be a massive time drain…it can be, but it doesn’t have to be.
Companies that officially implement a Twitter strategy with goals and guidelines will almost always have more success and waste less time.
You may not know where to start, so I’d like to first provide reasons to tweet and then a set of actions to take to participate on Twitter.
Building the B2B case for Twitter in your organization
People are changing their behavior because of new technologies. It wasn’t that long ago that we didn’t even have Google to search for info.
People are creating more content than ever before; 5 exabytes every 2 days. Just ask Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. http://tcrn.ch/c0BKtb
With all of this information out there people are starting to turn to their social networks for recommendations and information.
Twitter serves up something like 24 billion searches per month. People are looking for answers; as a business you want to provide solutions.
Twitter is a channel where you have direct access to people who are putting out thoughts, ideas and questions into an open public forum.
You should Tweet because it gives you a channel to connect with potential customers and current clients.
You should Tweet because it will give a human face to your brand…provided you put a human face on your Twitter account.
You should Tweet because more and more people expect you to be there for customer service and more.
You should Tweet because it can improve your website and/or blog traffic.
You should Tweet because you can learn more about your industry and your competitors.
There are numerous reasons why you should join Twitter and begin to participate.
Ok, I’m in, what’s next?
Sign up, choose a good username, add an avater (profile picture), create a background image, start following good people. Like me: @jgibbard
Learn about #hashtags, understand the lingo like @mentions, Retweets (RT@) and DM (Direct Mentions). Also learn about lists, following, etc.
Start Tweeting, at least 3 times per day. Try to create and enter conversations with people by @mention’ing them. Promote others.
Create these 3 Twitter lists: Initiate Relationship (Private), Prospects (Private), Clients (Public).
Join Hootsuite. Create a tab called, Dashboard. Add columns for @mentions, DM Inbox and your 3 lists. Also create a search column.
What should you search for? Something relevant to your business, what would a prospect say? There are also weekly conversation hashtags.
Ultimately it comes down to this: “There’s a difference between knowing the path and walking the path” – Morpheus #quote <–Just do it!
Hopefully this was valuable, I know it’s corny, but this was written in 140 character blocks.