Twitter for Business: According to Dilbert and a New Application

(Click on cartoon to make it easier to read.)

A New Application

This cartoon leads to the new third party application for Twitter. Keep track of your boss with the first Twitter GPS. The Twitter Boss GPS gives you auto-updates on your Twitter account every 15 minutes letting you know exactly where your boss is located. Just input your boss's cell phone number and your Twitter account, and you are ready to go.

A great gift for a wife who wants to find out exactly why their husband is late from work (see David Letterman):-)

To get this free service or better yet, to find out how to use Twitter for your business, please contact me at mcogert@twit-streams.com.

How to Get Your Business Started On Twitter

While it is easy to sign up with Twitter, you really should plan ahead before getting started on Twitter.

Here are 20 questions to think through before you sign up with Twitter.

(Warning: Do not wait too long analyzing and reviewing your answers. It is better to move ahead with a general direction for using Twitter, and then refine this direction based on your learning.)

1. What is your objective for using Twitter?

Image via Wikipedia

2. What is your strategy?

3. What is your plan?

4. Who is responsible for your Twitter account?

5. How much time will it take to run your Twitter account?

6. How will you measure results from using Twitter?

7. Will there be a test period for using Twitter?

8. What is your ROI for using Twitter?

9. What kind of tweets will you allow?

10. Do you want to listen to relevant conversations before you sign-up?

11. Are there any legal issues about tweeting?

12. Will you engage people who are talking about your business?

13. Will you use Twitter as simply a press release outlet?

14. How will use listen to tweets on an on-going basis?

15. Who do you want to follow?

16. Who do you want to follow you?

17. Do you want quality followers or quantity of followers?

18. Do you have content that you want to optimize?

19. Do you need a blog with your Twitter account?

20. Do you know which third party applications are best for your business needs?

I have 101 questions that you should ask and answer on my Twit-Streams website that you can download for free.

Why Your Business Must Be Monitoring and Engaging Consumers on Twitter

Image via CrunchBase

In today's eMarketer there is a study about the type of tweets on Twitter. Researchers at the College of Information and Technology at Pennsylvania State University studied nearly 150,000 tweets that named brands.

Here is my interpretation of their results:

1. When consumers mention a brand on Twitter, over 50% of these tweets are opportunities for a company to engage a consumer in a one-on-one conversation.

These tweets include those brand messages that provide a sentiment (good or bad), seek information, or provide information. These are prime opportunities for a business to get involved on Twitter and to engage the consumer. You may be able to sell your product, provide customer support, and simply improve the customer experience by replying.


2. People who have opinions about brands and are willing to share them on Twitter, are potential advocates for your business.

Over 22% of the tweets are about opinions. Engage those consumers on Twitter and determine if there is an opportunity to build a relationship. These relationships can turn these consumers into your brand advocates on Twitter and elsewhere. At the very least, send a "thank you" tweet to those consumers who have a positive opinion about your business or brand.

3. Even the negative tweets are an opportunity for a business to turn this opinion around, and in the process, show other Twitter users how you are providing service and value on Twitter.

Over 6% of the tweets in this study are categorized as as "bad" or "wretched" brand opinions. While this sounds like a small number, it translates to 9,000 negative brand tweets and expands to the Twitter universe of followers.

Frankly, having just one negative tweet about your brand is too many. But don't look at a negative tweet as a reason to get angry at the consumer (like Horizon Realty Group who is suing a woman who tweeted about the room she rented).

A great first step in turning around a user's opinion is using Twitter to engage that user in a friendly, authentic and open way. You may be able to mollify or solve that consumer's problem.

In addition, you will be getting positive Twitter karma from your followers, who will read how professionally you are handling an unhappy consumer and your willingness to do so on a public, social site.

My suggestion:

Companies should not just monitor the tweets about Twitter, but also actively engage consumers when they mention your business or brand. In fact, you should also monitor your competitors and engage these consumers as well.

Studies reveal that more than two-thirds of Fortune 100 companies tweet about customer service or direct marketing responses. Isn't it time you took advantage of Twitter for your business?

3 Ways to Use Your Tweets To Increase Your Influence

Here are three ways to increase your influence by using your tweets.

1. Keep positive tweets about your business public

Image by Bern@t via Flickr

If someone tweets something positive about your business, service, or product, keep that conversation public. Sometimes a person may DM you with a positive tweet. DM him or her back and ask if he will make the same tweet public. If so, you can also thank this person for the positive feedback.

2. RT positive tweets about your business

When a positive tweet about your business is posted, simply thank the person and retweet it. People forget that your followers will not see that positive tweet about you from a third party, unless they also follow him. By RT'ing you are providing a great way to reinforce your positive image to your followers.

3. Develop a bulletin board of positive testimonials and tweet about them.

If people are happy with your product or service, they will let you know with positive feedback. Turn those into a stream of testimonials. Tweet one of these testimonials every so often and link it to a bulletin board of positive testimonials.

Twitter For Business: What To Avoid

Here are three things your business must avoid doing on Twitter.

Image by ucumari via Flickr

1. Avoid all those offers to buy a product that gets you followers.

Products like Social Blaster are just a waste of your money. The tweeterer is simply trying to make some money as an affiliate. Do not buy. If you get a tweet from someone who links to these products, he or she is a spammer. Simply block these people.

2. Avoid signing up to use auto-DMs.

Some third party applications offer you a service where you can automatically post a tweet to a person who follows you for the first time. Do not do it. Do not auto-DM people who follow you. This is simply not social. This makes you look like an idiot to many people; yeah, it really does. No one wants to do business with an idiot; yeah, really that's true.

3. Avoid anything that has you cluttering up your followers with a stream of tweets only seconds or a few minutes apart.

While you can hold conversations on Twitter, do not have one where there is a long list of tweets back and forth over a few minutes. You are being inconsiderate to your other followers as it takes up too much space on their home page. After a couple of tweets back and forth, either take your conversation to DM or email.

There is also a service, twitterfeed, which is a great concept but one which I do not recommend. Twitterfeed allows you to have your posts from your blog feed into your twitter account automatically. Unfortunately, the service is not reliable. Your followers will suddenly get a week or more of your blog posts at the same time; again, no one wants their Twitter account to be spammed in that way.

I hope you avoid using these things on Twitter. Of course, I didn't mention using a hard sell approach with your tweets because by now you know that is totally wrong.

Twitter for Business: 3 Ways To Tweet The Latest & Greatest Content

One key question to ask yourself everyday is "What value can I offer my followers today?" One answer: Content that relates to your business and content that is just popular.

Here are 3 ways to tweet the latest and greatest content to your followers. They will also save you a lot of time on Twitter so you can enjoy other activities.

1. Google Alerts

Image by Industriarts via Flickr

To quote the Google Alert home page:

"Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

* monitoring a developing news story
* keeping current on a competitor or industry
* getting the latest on a celebrity or event
* keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams"

For Twitter, simply put in one or more keywords and let Google email you the results daily or weekly. From those results you will find all kinds of the latest content to tweet about.

2. Stufftotweet.com

This is a great site because it provides you with the most popular news, articles, videos and even tweets. On the home page, you will find a list of the most popular items on Amazon, CNN, Craigslist, Digg, Mashable, New York Times, TMZ, Twitter, Wikihow, Youtube, and more.

You don't always have to tweet about topics related to your business. You can also tweet about things that interest you.

3. Alltop

Alltop considers itself the “online magazine rack” of the web as it provides you with the top headlines from the web. While they have subscribed to thousands of websites, they allow you to find what you want in very little time.

All you have to do is search by category and you will get the latest, relevant information. If there is a headline you find interesting, just click on it.

You can use this site to tweet about your business or on what interests you. As Alltop explains it is “aggregation without aggravation.”

Overall, I have used all three of these sources and they are easy to use and a big help when looking for content to tweet.

Two Secrets About DM's on Twitter

1. Do not auto-DM (Direct Message) when someone follows you.

Image via Wikipedia

Twitter is a social network. If someone follows you, the last thing they want to get is some impersonal message from you. It is even more phony since it seems that people who auto-DM try to make these messages appear authentic and personal. Please, stop it!

Examples abound:

"I am looking forward to your tweets."

"Thanks for following me. I hope we can share some valuable messages."

"I hope to inspire you. Have a great day."

2. To stop these auto-DM's from swamping your account sign up with SocialOomph. (formerly Tweetlater)

Go to SocialOomph. On the right column, and near the top, you will see the text "DM Opt-Out." Select this link and follow the steps to eliminate those annoying auto-DM's.

It is free to use.

It will eliminate 90% of these auto-DM's.

It will not eliminate genuine DM's--those that are not automated.

I hope this helps you.