Using Twitter for Business

OutlineWhat is Twitter?

Why to use Twitter for business?

How to use Twitter for business?

Tips

Twitter applications demo

Q&A

What is Twitter?Social networking and micro-blogging service for

friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and

stay connected

Tweet: 140 characters message

Tweet can be sent and received via: Twitter

website, SMS, Twitter applications (web, mobile,

desktop)

Why to use Twitter for business?Connect with others in the industry

Get instant access to what’s being said about

organization and products

Stream of ideas and resources

Monitor what’s being said about customers

Promote products and services directly to a target

audience

How to use Twitter for business?

Public RelationFantastic PR channel: global reach, endless

connection, networking opportunity, promotion

platform, immediate event planning and feedback

Others can pick up ideas and spread around

Twitter usernames are short => powerful way to

introduce and pass along contact information

Public Relation (cont)Tips:

Have a photo

Be helpful

Be valuable

Be balanced

Customer ServiceMake business more accessible

Allow business to catch consumers in their moments

of frustration and help them right away

Thank-you tweets give instant good public-relation

buzz

Example: Comcast and Dell

Networking and CommunityEasy to interact and connect with people and

businesses sharing same interests and goal

Create a more open and flexible hiring environment

for companies

You don’t have to talk to anyone whom you don’t

want to

Offering Promotions and ProductsThe successful case of @DellOutlet

Tips:

Be interesting

Be accessible

Don’t hard sell

Don’t link spam

Follow the 90-10 advice

Promoting Bands and ArtistsTake it offline

Share your content

Tweet on the go

Engage your fan base

Sharing Company UpdatesProvide value to the Twitter community

Attach a real-world face to the account

Don’t spam

Conducting ResearchExcellent tool for crowd-sourcing and focus-group

research

Passive data

Active research

Close some pretty important gaps between supply

and demand

Challenge: find reliable methods to analyze the data

4 Ways of Using TwitterDirect:

PR, customer service, promotion and products …

Need to follow “best practices” to gain benefit

Indirect:

Let the employees tweet instead

Can have both positive and negative effects

4 Ways of Using Twitter (cont)Internal:

Share ideas or communicate about current projects

Can have security issue

Inbound Signaling:

Twitter “listeners”

Keep track of what's being said about the company, products and

the industry

Get early warnings of problems and to collect feedback on

product issues or ideas

Useful TipsAdd a picture. Others want to see you

Have more than one twitterer at the company

Ask questions

When talking about products/services, make it

useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures …

Share the human side of the company

Useful Tips (cont)Learn quickly to use the URL shortening tools

You don’t have to read every tweet.

Use direct messages for 1-to-1 conversations if you feel

there’s no value to Twitter at large to hear the

conversation

Use services like Twitter Search to make sure you see if

someone’s talking about you. Try to participate where it

makes sense.

Twitter Applications Demo

oneforty: Twitter applications online store

Stwittergy: Twitter business analysis

140h.me: Twitter business promotion

oneforty

oneforty

oneforty

oneforty

oneforty

Stwittergy

Stwittergy

Stwittergy

Stwittergy

Stwittergy

Stwittergy

140h.me

140h.me

140h.me

140h.me

140h.me

ReferencesBrogan, C., 2008, "50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business".

Available at: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business [Accessed December 7th 2009]

Fitton, L., 2009, "Twitter For Dummies". Wiley Publishing, IncGrove, J. V., 2009, "40 of the Best Twitter Brands and the People

Behind Them". Available at: http://mashable.com/2009/01/21/best-twitter-brands/ [Accessed December 8th 2009]

Jantsch, J., 2009, "Using Twitter for Business". Available at: http://www.johnjantsch.com/TwitterforBusiness.pdf [Accessed December 8th 2009]

Perez, S., 2009, "4 Ways Companies Use Twitter for Business", Available at: http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/03/4-ways-companies-use-twitter-for-business.php [Accessed December 7th 2009]

Q&A