Often it’s a struggle for businesses new to social media to determine how to tweet as a company. Do you send out a username and password to everyone and let them have a go? Should one employee handle everything?Do you setup multiple accounts or will one be enough? Decisions, decisions, decisions! Never fear, we have Tylenol tips for the headache that’s has taken over your brain after reading this paragraph.
Tips For Tweeting As A Company
A Single Account Or Multiple Accounts?
There are pros and cons to doing either and this is entirely dependent upon how you’d like to use Twitter as a company. We recommend using a single account if you’re only on Twitter for customer support and to enhance or strengthen current customer relationships. If you have multiple areas of expertise, we recommend using multiple accounts and reading tips 2, 5, & 6.
Use A CRM Tool
Using a CRM tool such a Hootsuite is a great way to keep track of who’s tweeting what and when. In doing so, you can organize your tweets as a company, and better prepare for tips 3 and 4 (see below
Keep In Touch (Internally) You have to keep in touch with your team. Consistent internal communication is important to make sure things are flowing smoothly. It also helps insure everything that needs to be done, gets done in a timely and orderly fashion. No duplicate tweets from YOUR company!
Don’t Spam Your Followers
Don’t spam your followers from multiple accounts nor from a single account with the same tweets. It’s annoying when people are following multiple company accounts for different news and you see the same tweets simultaneously. Spread them out and keep track of what’s being tweeted by your company. (see tips 1 and 4 for more info)
Different Accounts for Different Campaigns
If you’re using multiple accounts as a company take advantage of this opportunity to tweet about different deals, news, and topics of expertise across the various accounts. Designate each one for a specific area of expertise that your company offers. This helps users follow what they find most interesting from your company and keeps you from losing followers when other tweets would just be considered noise.
Unify Your Company Accounts Via The Username
The name game is a tough one to answer and we encourage you to find a solution that best fits what your company would like to accomplish with Twitter. For multiple accounts, we’d advise using your company’s name or brand somewhere within the username of the account. This let’s followers know whether there will be personal tweets in between or if the account is strictly for company use. It also helps to confirm whether someone is following an official account of the company, or if you’re company doesn’t get social media yet.
Does your head feel better now? Awesome! Now it’s time to share some your company tweeting tips with us!
What do you find most effective, tweeting from multiple accounts or a single account?
What tools are you using to tweet as a company?
Which tools did you find to be a waste of time for your company on Twitter?
What companies on Twitter have shown great work or improvement for tweeting as a company?
This is a guest posting by Shea Bennett. Shea is the founder of Twittercism, a blog that explores the various aspects of Twitter, from the great to the dark. We love Shea’s wits and guts, so we will be bringing his thoughts to you on a regular basis!
Consider this, if you will: I decide to write a book through Twitter, 140 characters at a time. Moroever, I do this stream-of-consciousness style, and just let it all flow out. I keep no backup. I write my book, tweet after tweet after tweet. Soon, thousands and thousands of my words are in the system.
For their own reasons, Twitter decides I’ve done something wrong, and suspends my account. All my work is lost.
What are my legal rights? Who owns those tweets? Can I get them back?
In Twitter’s terms of service, under a section called, “Copyright (What’s Yours is Yours)”, they state:
We claim no intellectual property rights over the material you provide to the Twitter service. Your profile and materials uploaded remain yours. You can remove your profile at any time by deleting your account. This will also remove any text and images you have stored in the system.
We encourage users to contribute their creations to the public domain or consider progressive licensing terms.
That’s fine, but under “General Conditions”, they also say:
We reserve the right, in accordance with any applicable laws, to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.
We’ve seen this happen before with accounts such as the fake Christopher Walken. The reasons for the suspension of that user were fairly clear, but what about all those tweets that he wrote? They’ve also been removed without a trace. The account had a loyal and amused following, and those tweets were funny and had value.
Twitter doesn’t provide any kind of backup service within the site; external ways to ‘save’ your tweets exist, but they’re more than little crude. The majority of tweets are, of course, hardly worth keeping forever, but some are. And I can see many instances in the future where Twitter will be used for different purposes and more and more of these tweets will have value.
One obvious example is where Twitter breaks a news story before anywhere else because the submitter was on the scene when it took place. That tweet becomes a source – who does it belong to?
Moreover, say Twitter decides to produce The Book Of Tweets, and selects 10,000 of the greatest-ever updates for publication. Can they do that without the permission of the authors? Can anybody do that without permission of the authors? Where is the line?
This is a very hazy area and my gut feeling tells me that until a legal precedent is set it’s going to remain that way. Until then, you might want to think about it a little – who owns your tweets? And would you be happy for somebody else to make money off them without your permission?
This is a guest posting by Nathan Egan. He is the Founder and Managing Partner of the Freesource Agency, LLC. Prior to starting Freesource Agency, Nathan worked at LinkedIn and has wonderful insight into the world of social media networking. Follow Nathan on Twitter: @nathanegan.
Participating on the social web scene has become near-essential for companies. For a growing number of potential customers, the majority of research, referrals, and recommendations are being done virtually through social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and MySpace. There is an incredible opportunity for businesses to attract both customers and/or clients through social media. Here’s why your company needs a social presence too.
1. Customer Connectivity
Social media is arguably the most powerful form of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology that the business world has ever seen. Your company’s social presence will allow you to connect with your customers in new and dynamic ways, that among other things, will give you rich data and feedback to help you grow and sustain your business.
2. Communicate with Prospects
I always tell my clients: “Connect to your customers because your customers are connected to your prospects”. Social media is an extremely efficient marketing platform and a sales prospecting tool. When executed correctly, a good social media strategy will generate organic, inbound sales leads through your current customer base.
3. Competitive Intelligence and Market Research
Social media is an incredible tool for “listening” to your competition and monitoring trends in your target markets. The massive amounts of accurate and real-time information you can collect through these systems can be leveraged in many ways, perhaps most importantly, you can make real-time adjustments to your sales strategy based on what your competition is doing (or not doing).
4.Customer Service
Social media enables your company to build brand loyalty in powerful and dynamic ways that were never before possible. A well-executed program will increase customer satisfaction, give you easy access to real-time feedback on product or services issues, and drive down overall operating costs.
5. Talent Acquisition and Employee Retention
As a whole, social media has changed the game of recruiting and retaining top talent. Learn to leverage social media properly and your organization will gain significant competitive advantages in terms of available human capital.
6. Global Reach
No longer is your company restricted to regional or even national distribution and communication. Social media allows you to publicize press, advertisements and company news to the world in ways that have been traditionally cost prohibitive. For example, a public television segment airing in a small geographic region of the US can now be uploaded on to YouTube and distributed through Twitter, enabling the segment to be viewed by an international audience.
7. Social Media is a Freesource!
Generally speaking, social media is a completely free resource and all it takes is your commitment to learn how to use it! Social media is here to stay, the websites like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc may come and go but this style of communication will not. You owe it to your business to learn how integrate the appropriate platforms into your overall communication strategy - your ROI will be tremendous!
Share the companies you know with a great social presence on the web!
What advice would YOU leave for others that are hesitating to create a social presence?
This is a guest posting by Jeff Hurt (@JeffHurt), Director of Education & Events for National Association of Dental Plans. He has worked in events/nonprofit arena for more than 20 years. You can find more of his thoughts at Midcourse Corrections: Views From The Trenches.
A recent MarketingProfs poll showed that more than eight in 10 Twitter users, most of whom represent small business, expect their company’s use of Twitter to increase in the next six months.
Obviously, these savvy business and organizational professionals realize that Twitter, when used appropriately, can help them better serve their customers, engage in relationships and even, in some cases, lead to new business. Here are 10 tips from the Twitter Pros Playbook that can help you better serve your customers, 140 characters at a time.
1. Use Your Real Name In The Name Field, Not Your Username
If you put your Twitter username in the “Real Name field,” people will not be able to find you when they use Twitter’s “Find People Link.” Example, my Twitter username is @JeffHurt. When I first started using Twitter, I assumed that people would search Twitter for @JeffHurt, (one word, no space). Friends and colleagues were searching Twitter using my real name. They didn’t know I had removed the space between first and last name.
I later changed my settings and entered my real name so I could be found as Jeff Hurt and @JeffHurt. This made a world of difference and is probably one of the simplest, yet most effective things you can do to help others find you on Twitter. Even if you’re tweeting for an organization, put your real name in the “name field” and the company name in the profile bio and username.
2. Embrace “What Has Your Attention” Not “What Are You Doing” Ignore the heading “What are you doing?” above the update box on Twitter. Consider tweeting about what has your attention. People really don’t want to know about what you had for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It just creates more noise for many of your followers. Make your tweets relevant to what you’re thinking about, what has captured your attention and even what you’re reading.
3. Tweet With Others In Mind First
Take a look at your tweets. What do they say about you? Are the majority of your tweets about your company, products, and services? Are they all “me, me, me” related? Stop that! The blue bird of happiness will not land on your organization because you’re pushing your products and services on Twitter. You’re looking really self-absorbed and egomaniacal.
And by all means, do not just share case studies about your customers with your readers. You’re still pushing me, me, me, my, my, my products. You have to earn your readers’ trust and attention and to do that, you need to give in order to get. See next tip.
Be purposeful and intentional as you enter the Twittersphere. As you “Twiv to Twet” (give to get) and move away from self-promotional tweets, consider this tweeting engagement formula.
a. 70% of your tweets should share resources- sharing others’ voices, opinions, quotes, blog posts, articles, content and resources
b. 20% of your tweets should engage in conversations with others, responding, connecting, collaborating and connecting with others.
c. 10% of your tweets can be chirping, chitchat as Angela calls it, on trivial details or self-promotion.
5. Use A 3rd Party Twitter Client On Your Desktop And Mobile Device
If there’s one thing I stress above all others, using a 3rd party Twitter client is it. Tweetdeck, Seesmic, Twhirl for PC and Tweetie for Mac are four clients that many people use on their desktop to manage Twitter more effectively. These Twitter clients make your Twitter experience more robust than the Twitter web interface. One of the biggest pros is that you don’t have to hit the refresh button continually to see new tweets from others and you can see columns for all friends, replies and DMs on one page. For your iPhone, consider Tweetie, Twitterrific or TweetFon. For Blackberry, consider Twitterberry, Blackbird, or SocialScope.
6. Be Authentic, Real And Act Like A Human
Authenticity, sincerity, and humanness is the name of the game. Tweet like a real person, act like a real person, sound like a real person, be genuine and true to yourself. Tweeps in Twittersphere can see through your mockingbird calls and know if you are there to mimic a human, ready at any opportunity to pitch a product instead of engage in dialogue.
7. Identify Tweets With Links To Videos, Podcasts or Slide decks
People hate seeing a great tweet headline with a link and clicking it to discover that it’s a video that’s being downloaded or a PowerPoint slide deck. Use abbreviations like vid or PPT in your tweet. Also, if your tweet contains a link to questionable material, use the NSFW (Not Save For Work) abbreviation.
8. Twitter Is Not About Amassing A Large Number Of Followers
Contrary to the Ashton Kucher and CNN competition, it is really about the quality of connections versus quantity. Yes, everyone secretly wants to be voted the most popular Tweep in Twittersville but don’t fall into that bird trap. One of the easiest ways to find quality Tweeps and new people to follow is to participate in a Twitter chat. Twitter chats showcase the best of the best of Twittersville.
9. Stop Your Automated Direct Message Tweets To New Followers
They’re impersonal, pushy and often self-promotional which equates to a Twitter Fail Whale. Yes, it’s nice to send a welcoming tweet to new followers and if you do, keep it personal and human. Don’t send them a link to your latest method of how to gain thousands of new followers! We don’t want to know about that. Nor do we want a direct message with a link to your newest get rich quick scheme.
10. If Your Tweets Are Missing, Don’t Show Up In Twitter Search, Or Are AbsentFrom a 3rd party Twitter Client, Contact Twitter Support
I’ve seen this happen many times. People decide to join a Twitter chat, they include a hashtag and when they hit their update button, their tweets never appear using that hashtag. As Twitter grows and evolves, they experience latency issues with Twitter API and Twitter Search used by many of the third party clients. Start with these Twitter resources to help your tweets be identified again.
BONUS TIP: Have fun!
What tips would you recommend to businesses that have begun to grasp Twitter and want to take their level of service up a notch? Tell us in the comments!
Hundreds of new Twitter apps are released everyday. We’re all aware of the more popular Twitter apps such Seesmic Desktop, Tweetie for the iPhone,Twitterfall for tracking searches, Cotweet for companies, and a host of others. They receive press and support on a weekly basis from the Twitter and tech community. And let’s be honest, who hasn’t used or heard of at least 5 of these Twitter apps?
Yet, every now and again you come across smaller gems such as DestroyTwitter, ReFollow, and TweetTabs. These are apps that can be extremely useful, but are not the talk of the town. They may not be for everyone or maybe no one knows much about these apps (yet). Today, we’d like to find out what they are and where they’re hiding with your help.
Community Q&A
What do you think is the most underhyped Twitter app on the web?
Is there a competitor app that’s more popular?
Why you think it should be valued more in the community?
Share your response in the comments or with our Blog Editor @Corvida on Twitter!
Earlier this week we stumbled across a very refreshing story that unfolded on Twitter. Dutch Twitterazi member @marlooz, had her laptop stolen while attending the 140 Character Conference (#140conf) this week. She immediately began to tweet her panic when she realized that her laptop was no longer with her.
Within hours of her tweets for help to find her missing laptop, many of her Twitter followers had donated and collected over $1500 to replace Marlooz’s stolen laptop. Here are 7 important tips that you can learn from Marlooz’s story to help you get help on Twitter quickly:
Tweet about your problem:
Include as many specifics as possible:
If your problem is location or event related, using the designated hashtag of the event can increase your chances of finding help:
If your problem is related to a particular company, direct it at the source.
Can you picture it?
Consistently tweet your problem until it is resolved, but be careful not to spam your followers.
Ask your audience for retweets!
Twitter Q&A
What else could we learn from Marlooz’s story?
How have you received help on Twitter? Share your story!
What are tips would you recommend to find help on Twitter?
This is a guest posting by Olivier Blanchard (@thebrandbuilder). Olivier is a Brand Strategist with 15 years of marketing management experience. He currently manages BrandBuilder Marketing, a marketing management firm that helps companies combine achieve their brand-building objectives. See original posting here
Yesterday, we redefined the term “follower” on Twitter and in doing so, discovered that followers are in fact not hapless little ducklings in search of a mama duck but actually community managers in their own right with a tremendous amount of power when it comes to helping brands gain traction in the social web (and particularly in communities like Twitter).
Now that we’ve covered that subtle yet fundamental topic, let’s look a little more closely at the two main strategies behind engagement: Breadth and Depth.
Breadth and depth are essentially opposite sides of any reach strategy. One focuses on quantity while the other focuses on quality.
Breadth
When it comes to engagement in the social media space (and particularly on Twitter), a focus on breadth looks like a numbers’ game: If having 5 followers is good thing, then having 10 followers is better. If having 5,000 followers is a good thing, then having 10,000 is better. And so on. (Now remember that we redefined the term “follower” yesterday and that we aren’t talking about accumulating points here.)
So in essence, a breadth strategy would look like this: 100,000 people on Twitter mention Brand X on a regular basis. The Social Media director for Brand X sees in these 100,000 people a vibrant yet untapped community. In his mind, reaching out to every single one and getting them to “follow” Brand X on Twitter would be a great thing. By doing so, that community of 100,000 fans would have access to the Brand X feed, have the opportunity to engage with it, spread their love, RT content, ask questions, etc. And that rocks.
But the flip side of that is Brand X only has a team of 3 people managing their online communities, and that isn’t enough to truly engage with 100,000 people. So what ends up happening is: While Brand X has a community of 100,000 “followers” on Twitter, its staff just can’t create deep connections with more than a few dozen of them. So by spreading itself too thin, Brand X might come across as having very superficial “engagement” on Twitter: Lots of followers, but not a lot of meaningful interaction. That doesn’t rock, and it evidently scares a number of companies looking to truly connect with their fans in Social Media.
Depth
The flip side of breadth is depth. On Twitter, a focus on depth looks like a private party: Small numbers, a tiny community, but lots of interaction between a brand and its relatively small number of followers. The idea is that engagement is about building relationships and true, lasting emotional connections. Numbers are the enemy here since you just can’t be “friends” with more than a few hundred people anyway.
So in essence, a depth strategy would look like this: Out of 100,000 fans of Brand X on Twitter, Brand X chooses to only truly engage with a few hundred (or a few thousand). That’s a manageable number, and any more than that would get in the way of “true” engagement. So what rocks here is that those folks with whom Brand X truly focuses on are going to feel ultra special about their relationship with Brand X, and that’s pretty solid.
But what happens to the other 99,000 or so fans Brand X chooses not to engage with? Well… hopefully, they can talk about Brand X amongst themselves and be perfectly happy. Better yet, maybe the chosen few will go out and evangelize Brand X to the other 99,000 as… good will agents of Brand X. They have big networks anyway, so why not create a tiered system of influence within Twitter? But see… that doesn’t really work. The reality of having too narrow a depth strategy is that the other 99,000 fans feel disenfranchised by Brand X. They feel ignored. Worse yet, they opt out of following Brand X and engaging with it on twitter because they find no value in what Brand X is doing on Twitter since they don’t seem to be on the Brand X radar anyway.
The result of either too rigid a depth or breadth strategy is a stalled overall engagement strategy. On one hand, you get numbers without purpose or value. On the other hand, you get an exclusive clique effect that doesn’t scale enough to matter. Neither is a good outcome.
Red Flag Diagnosis:
Too much breadth = 500,000 followers out of 500,000 fans but interactions with only 20 of them per day and zero impact on anything relevant relating to your business.
Too much depth = Only 5,000 followers out of 500,000 fans. Outside of your core fans, either nobody knows you’re here or nobody cares.
(And in some awful cases, you get poor execution in both, which looks like only 5,000 followers out of 500,000 fans, and interactions with only 20 per day. Ergo: Nobody cares, and you blow off the few who do. Double-whammy.)
The Engagement Strategy Trap: Depth and Breadth are not mutually exclusive
Strangely, I still see a good number of companies choosing to focus on either breadth or depth when they should instead combine both. And frankly… I wonder why any marketing professional would ever make that mistake when it’s so clear that in order to really have an impact, you always have to combine the two (not just in social media but in most other areas as well). Unless your brand is about exclusivity (Ferrari, Cartier, Ferre) “engagement” can’t stop at your core customers. Not in Social Media, and certainly not on Twitter.
Without some measure of breadth, depth becomes an exercise in navel-gazing. It becomes an echo-chamber. It goes nowhere. You end up chatting with your clique every day and congratulating each other on a job well done. Great. Awesome. Except… not.
Without some measure of depth, breadth becomes an exercise in scale without impact: You may have an enormous following, but what is it doing for you? Nothing? Ooops. It’s back to the drawing board for you.
So… if you are a major consumer brand with an engagement strategy in the Social Media space and your hundreds of thousands of followers don’t move the ball for you in some way (increased WOM, increased traffic to your website(s), increased conversations or social mentions, increased traffic to your stores, increases in transactions – remember FRY?) then you’re wasting your time “collecting” followers instead of truly building a community.
Likewise, if you are a major consumer brand with an engagement strategy in the Social Media space and in the last 12 months of activity in the space, you’ve only managed to attract 5,000 “followers” out of your 500,000 active fans and customers on Twitter, somebody’s playing too much golf or computer solitaire or something. Your “engagement” program is barely on autopilot.
If your goal is “engagement” and you ignore the majority of your fans , you’re completely missing the boat. First: Whatever you’re doing, it isn’t creating value or relevance, and you are failing in that regard. Second, if you aren’t reaching out to your fans, acknowledging them and making new connections every day, you just don’t understand what engagement is about.
Repeat after me: Engagement without reach doesn’t work.
So the key to successful engagement in Social Media, especially on Twitter is to combine breadth and depth in a way that makes sense, and in a manner consistent with the overall goal of the strategy. Reaching out to 100,000 fans doesn’t mean all 100,000 want to chat with the Brand X team every single day. Some will engage daily. Others will engage weekly. Others monthly. Many more won’t engage at all. They’ll just listen and share and be happy to be part of the community without being particularly active. Some will crave more attention than others. It’s okay. Let your fans, your “followers,” you community tell you how much engagement they need. Let them tell you what kind of engagement they want from you. Every single person is different. There is no cookie-cutter model for engagement that works for every single person who’s a fan of your brand. Don’t sweat the depth vs. breadth. Work on both. Measure both. But most importantly, LISTEN to your fans. Invite them to join you on Twitter. Give them a reason to “follow” you so that you can have that kind of dialogue and feedback. Follow them back. If many never drop by to say hi, that’s okay. Let them dictate the pace and mode of the engagement.
And believe me, they’ll tell you if you’re dropping the ball or doing a great job.
Remember that engagement isn’t about YOU. Engagement is about the value you bring to your community, and the community, not you, decides what is valuable to them. Your community on Twitter is not what you want it to be, it is what IT wants to be. (If it is 500,000 strong, embrace all 500,000 even if it seems inconvenient at first.)
So stop worrying about too much or too little, stop worrying about depth vs. breadth, and just reach out. Set up shop on Twitter, listen to what is being said, introduce yourself to folks who seem to care about you (Brand X), and start there. When people say hi, say hi back. When people ask a question, answer it. When people pay you a compliment, say “thank you.” When they complain about something, try to solve their problem. When you have something cool or valuable to share, share it. When someone wants to talk to you about their cat, count that as a blessing and understand that in that interraction lives the very essence of the bond between you, the brand you are paid to represent, and the person sharing something personal with you. This is invaluable. The conversations and relationships you foster on Twitter don’t just stop with the medium. They cross the digital/real world barrier. What happens on Twitter translates into people’s perception of you in the real world.
So like the old commercial says, get out there and touch someone. Be a courteous, engaging Twitter host, and make your time in social media count for something. You’ll be glad for it.
* * *
Bonus Section: Outtakes from this morning’s failed video shoot.
If you’ll notice, the end of today’s video about engagement is cut off and some of the post’s points are never actually made. Why? because of lawn mowers cranking up in the background AGAIN. The video shoot was aborted and one of the draft/backup vids was used in the post. Pretty annoying, but kind of funny… Kind of like all of the yard debris (pollen, grass, etc.) on my black shirt. Oh, and I hope you’ll enjoy the little background music. It was so
Which of these strategies of engagement do you use?
Do you have another strategy that works best for you? Share it with us in the comments!
What strategies of engagement would you recommend staying away from?
See the original article on our Blog Editor Corvida Raven’s personal blog SheGeeks.net. Be sure to follow @Corvida on Twitter!
Lots of Twitter guides around the web tell you what you should do on Twitter, or the tools you should use, but rarely explain how to do these things. When joining Twitter, finding a "tweeting", or messaging, balance will be rocky at first. Don’t worry, that’s expected and we’ve all been through it. Don’t give up!
If you’re taking any of the thousands of tips available out there and you’re still not seeing good results, try tweaking your Twitter habits with this guide.
But I’m Doing What They Said!
The rules and tips for getting started on Twitter need better clarification. While the tips are right, they are being done wrong. Here are three of the most common tips that could use some clarification:
Follow a lot of people
Reply back to everyone
"Tweet" a lot
Clarification On: Follow A Lot Of People
Following a lot of people does help you get more involved with Twitter. Isn’t that one of the primary reasons for using Twitter? Tip:Don’t do it all at one time. This is the worst advice to give a new Twitter user without any type of clarification on how to build followers in a way that doesn’t come off as spam.
When you first start using Twitter, you should build up your stream first. Send out about 20 messages that actually mean something. Talk about your interest, tweet a link to something cool that you read, or something you found out about today. This way, people can get a better feel for how beneficial you’d be to them if they followed you in return. After about 20+ messages, start following about 10 people. For every 20+ messages, follow 10 more people.
What’s the point? Ease your way into following a lot of people. DON’T follow a lot of people (30+) at one time. People find it easier to decide whether or not to follow someone back based on your stream of Twitter messages, also known as "tweets".
Clarification On: Reply Back To Everyone
Reconsider replying back to everyone when you first join Twitter. That isn’t how you should begin using Twitter. Would you really want to follow a new Twitter user that’s using Twitter like it’s AIM/MSN/Yahoo Messenger?
If you’re going to reply back to everyone, wait a few minutes before replying, especially for messages that don’t require an immediate response. Streams full of @ replies are a turn off to more established Twitter users that you may want to befriend. Mix up your tweets with replies, general tweets, and throw in some links every now and then.
Clarification On: "Tweet" A Lot
As a new Twitter user, it’s hard to find a balanced way to build up your stream. Unless you have a reason to tweet a lot, don’t! This is the quickest way to be classified as a spammer.
As you’re following/followers builds up, your twittering habits will naturally follow suit. Sending out 10-20 messages a day on Twitter is fine. It might be perfect for some of your followers. Keep these numbers in mind when you first join Twitter.
Find Your Tweeting Balance (Twalance?)
There are thousands of articles being written to help those that are just hopping on the Twitter bandwagon. Those that are new to Twitter will take them to heart and apply these suggestions as best as they can. Lately, some of them have been following me, but I’m hesitant to follow back.
I’m not the only person with these concerns and users may be wondering why they’re not being followed back. This article may have given you a clue. We hope these suggestions can help you improve your Twitter experience.
What current Twitter tips would YOU clarify to your new followers?
Recommend a tip to one of your new followers or someone new to Twitter in the comments or using the hashtag#twitter101!
Have you checked your inbox lately for email subscription updates from the services you’re using? If you have, then you’ve seen plenty announcing support for Twitter comments and/or replies. From Disqus’ Social Media Reactions and Twitter Sign-In, to 12seconds.tv’s recent integration of @replies and DM’s in your real-time feed, services are aggregating as much of Twitter as they possibly can into the dashboards of your social profiles. Why are they doing this? How does this benefit you?
Keeping You Up-To-Date
Real-time. It’s the hot new trend these days. You can admit it; you’re addicted to getting real-time updates. Twitter replies and comments are important updates to. They’re signals that someone has said something to you or about you. If that’s not the first thing you’re tracking, you need to go back and reprioritize. Developers understand that making sure you get the information you need as quickly as possible regardless of where you are ranks high on your list of must-have features. Plus, it’s a huge time-saver.
Spread Your Brand
While it may seem like more fragmentation, this information helps spread the word about your brand into new communities. They carry a lot of weight since Twitter can be a personal tool and ranks pretty high for getting opinions on brands. You can think of doing all of this as your own digital version of word-of-mouth marketing. It’s easy to integrate and can be setup in no time.
Giving Thanks To Your Community
As the web moves closer and closer to real-time, tapping into what’s being said about your company gets easier. But, did you forget about sharing that information with new connections? We get so caught up in the stats and our successes, that we forget to let the community know what they’ve helped us to accomplish.
These integrations are a way of saying thanks to your community. It also introduces newcomers to current community members, and we’re suckers for good recommendations. So don’t be afraid to spread what’s being said about you on Twitter across the rest of your social profiles, unless you haven’t read: “8 Tips To Help Companies Avoid Image Fiascoes On Twitter”.
Do you?
Are you taking advantage of these opportunities? Share some of your reasons why you think it’s important!
If you haven’t taken advantage of these opportunities, why not?
Share your hashtag tips in the comments or on Twitter using “#hashtagtip” and we’ll add the best tips to this post along with a link to your Twitter account!
Hashtags are popular on Twitter now more than ever! With popularity has come numerous questions asking what the heck hashtags are, why they should be used, and how to get started on using them. We’ve been listening to your tweets and present you with a guide to using Twitter hashtags.
Hashtags Defined
You see them in Twitter messages and 1-2 are always trending on Twitter Search. We’re talking about hashtags. Hashtags are created by prefixing a word with a hash symbol:#hashtag. You can think of them as bits of context or meta-data for Twitter messages that pertain to a specific topic.
Hashtags (Twitter Fan Wiki) are a useful way of tracking specific conversations on Twitter. However, the uses don’t stop there. You’re probably using hashtags when you tweet about contests, conferences, events, or specific brands and companies. They are also used to grab some of the largest “pulses”, or happenings, on Twitter. Some people are using hashtags to recommend music today (#musicmonday). Others have used hashtags to express their feelings about Twitter’s recent reply changes (#fixit).
How-To: Create and Use Hashtags
Making a hashtag is very simple. Previously you would have to follow @hashtags on Twitter. Now, you can simply start tweeting with your hashtag and it will be counted in Twitter Search and quite a few Twitter search and hashtag tools (see below). When creating your own hashtag, pick a creative name, but also make it simple to retweet and understand by making it under 10 characters and choosing a word(s) that are on topic to the information that will surround your hashtag. Chris Messina (@chrismessina), credited with starting hashtags, has a great article on making the most of hashtags.
There are no rules or regulations on how many hashtags you can make or what they can say. In light of this, it’s recommended that you exercise control over how you use hashtags. Some people find hashtags to be irritating for very good reasons. If you’re using 2-3 of them in 1 twitter message, you could come across as a spammer to your audience. Who wants to see that in their Twitter stream all the time? So, be sure to exercise control and show your audience that you understand how to use hashtags.
You should be smart about using them not only for your benefit, but also for the benefit of your audience and those that might find the tweets surrounding your hashtag to be valuable. We recommend using a hashtag when you have valuable information to share about a tweetup, conference, or contest that you’re participating in. You can also use hashtags to poll your Twitter community.
Tracking And Using Hashtag Applications
We recommend making a stop at Hashtags.org to see what hashtags are trending right now. You can also use hashtags.org to see if a hashtag has been used yet. For more Twitter hashtag activity we recommend:
Real-time search dashboards such as Monitter and Twitterfall are great for keeping track of tweets with a particular hashtag. If you’re using a Twitter client that has built-in search functionality, it might be easier to save the hashtag you’re tracking as a saved search. Tools such as Tweetmapper and the Selective Twitter Status app for Facebook creatively use hashtags to indicated a particular action you’d like to initiate.
Recommended HashTags To Track
#womentofollow - Recommendations of awesome ladies on Twitter
Share your hashtag tips in the comments or on Twitter using “#hashtagtip” and we’ll add the best tips to this post along with a link to your Twitter account!
How are YOU using Hashtags?
What shouldn’t they be used for?
What hashtags have you created?
Which hashtags do you use a lot?
Have any tips or stories you’d like to have us feature? Email us at: corvida (a t)mrtweet.com . Be sure to follow @MrTweet for more great Twitter content and our Blog Editor Corvida Raven (@corvida) for more awesomesauce technology insights!
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