Copy of EBIZCLUB - TWTTR

The plan:

What is Twitter

and why should

you use it?

Twitter best practice

Listening with Twitter

What to say?

Using Twitter on

the move

Twitter business success

Tools & applications

Around 100 million monthly active users

Ages 13-17 4%

Ages 18-24 13%

Ages 25-34 30%

Ages 35-44 27%

Ages 45-54 17%

Ages 55+ 9%

52% women, 48% men

1 billion tweets per week

90% of accounts follow at least one business

23.8m registered accounts in the UK

Shouldn't you be part of the conversation?

Information network

Status updates are known as tweets

Tweets are limited to 140 characters

Users subscribe to other users tweets by "following" them.

Your timeline is the real-time listing of all the tweets of people you follow

How is it relevant for business?

Gather market intelligence

• See what your competitors are up to
• Find out what the future trends are in your industry
• Listen to your customer's needs

Share information quickly

• Announce news to interested audiences
• Use your network to find new suppliers or partners
• Spread blogs, videos and other content easily

Build meaningful relationships with people who can, or possibly will, care about your business

• Old customers
• Potential customers
• Suppliers
• Employees
• Strategic partners

Best Practices

Share

• Share photos and behind-the-scenes info about your business.
• Give a glimpse of developing projects and events.
• Twitter users want the latest info - give it to them!

Listen

Use Twitter to listen for talk about your business, your industry and your products

Become an expert

Break news, share your years of experience and become "that person" who people go to for advice and solutions

Champion your stakeholders

Reply, retweet and celebrate your customers publicly. Make them feel good about choosing your business.

Be geniune

By and large, Twitter users like interacting with real people. Be authentic but also be appropriate for your business

Twitter on the move

Twitter was born around the concept of SMS

If you don't have a computer or a smartphone, you can still tweet on the move.

Send the word "Start" to 86444 and follow the instructions to get started

Then head to http://support.twitter.com/ for full SMS command details

Case studies

There has been big business successes...

Such as DELL who made $3m from Twitter related sales in 2009

But small to medium sized businesses have flourished using Twitter too!

"Actually, we've had quite a lot of business from it."

What tools to use?

Twitter Based Services

@ebizclub

#ebizsoc

What is it?

Things to consider

Mentions

Tone of voice

Don't be too salesy

Social media policy

A mention is a tweet containing your @username

Authencity- don't pretend to be something you are not.

Sprout Social

Add value to your followers - give a little love.

Hootsuite

http://socialmedia.policytool.net

Tweetdeck

Cons

• No free version
• Facebook reports don't always correspond with Facebook Insights
• Lack of depth in the reports

Pros

• Manage multiple accounts including location services such as Foursquare or Gowalla
• Detailed reports measure both engagement and influence
• Discovery tools allow you to find influencers and new followers

Pros

• Facility to repeat the same tweet
• Free reports including Google analytics
• Freemium - Free facility with option to upgrade

Cons

• Must pay to have more than 5 social media accounts
• Steeper learning curve than Tweetdeck
• User interface is less intuitive

Pros

• Free
• Schedule tweets
• Support multiple social networks

Cons

• No reporting facility
• Requires download
• Resource heavy

Choice of words - are you informal and jovial or corporate and rigid?

Before tweeting, ask yourself, "is this valuable?"

Swearing - Does it give off the right impression of your business?

Keywords - Try to use them in your tweets. People search Twitter so make yourself easily found

People will unfollow if you only self-promote.

Hashtag

Terminology

Retweet

#Networking - promoting networking events

#FF - Follow Friday

#WW - Wedding Wednesday

Retweets are tweets that are deemed good enough to be shared by someone.

There are two types of retweet: traditional and new

#DerbyUK - Derby

#Lincs - Lincolnshire

#LeicesterTigers - LeicesterTigersRUFC

#Notts - Nottinghamshire Cricket Club

#Jobs - Advertising jobs

Message

• Messages are private messages.
• Also known at Direct Messages or DM.
• They are still limited to 140 characters.
• Can only be read by the two users.
• Start a tweet with D or DM followed by the name of the intended recipient to send one.

Twitter

Further reading

http://www.mashable.com

http://business.twitter.com

http://www.oneforty.com

percollate.com

allows identification of key influencers for a brand or organisation.

is an online coupon creator that lets you create simple Twitter coupons

TwtQpon.com

Tweriod.com

"To be honest I was very skeptical at first - I couldn’t see any business benefit."

@Love_Cakes

tracks when your followers are most commonly online so that you can time your tweets to achieve maximum impact

@filmextras

"Everytime we post on our Twitter account we make money!"

@BDPs

“We have had a few orders from Twitter, where someone has asked for business data or contact names and this has been forwarded by a friend – adding my Twitter name to the end to alert me to the enquiry. It is then up to me to follow up, although I truly believe without a presence, these would be lost opportunities.”

Ask

Respond

Promote

www.tweetgrid.com

http://search.twitter.com/advanced

Twellow.com

Reward

Ask your followers questions. Gain an insight into what your customers want and show that you are listening

• Receive glowing customer feedback? Say thank you in real time.
• Heard a customer complain about your service? Take ownership of the problem publicly and be seen to resolve the issue.

Give your loyal followers discounts, special invites and other incentives to turn followers into customers

UberSocial

Twitter for Blackberry

Hootsuite

Blackberry

iPhone

Seesmic

Twitter for iPhone

Twitterrific

Hootsuite

For those with a smartphone

Android

Plume

Seesmic

Tweetcaster

....and Hootsuite

Text "follow @username" to 86444 to receive texts from people you want to watch

For those who just want to watch.

Fast Follow

Seesmic

Birdsong

Twitter for Windows Mobile

Window mobile 7