Twitter for Dummies - Laura Fitton [81]
Because Twitter usernames are short and frequently easy to remember, they can be a powerful way to introduce people and pass along contact information. In an interview, a reporter was surprised how easily Laura could rattle off half a dozen sources whom the reporter might like to talk to. Armed with these Twitter handles, the journalist used the profiles behind those usernames to get a quick snapshot of those users’ interests, abilities, and points of view, plus links to further detailed information about them and an easy way to make contact.
Here are some tips to make your Twitter-based public relations more user-friendly and successful:
Keep it real! The be-genuine Twitter rule applies at all times, even when you’re embarking on a publicity campaign (often especially when you’re attempting to drive sales or awareness to your product, service, or site). Twitter’s users can be very turned off by empty marketing banter.
Remember your balance. Just because you want to see fast results doesn’t mean that you should bombard your Twitter followers with link spam (numerous tweets that contain links to your business) or constant nagging about whatever you’re trying to promote. Remember to space it out. On Twitter, overly aggressive promotions can slow your progress and reduce your audience. Tread with respect.
Give your idea wings. Come up with a pithy or witty statement about your promotion that inspires people in your network to share and pass it along (to retweet the statement, or RT) to their own networks. Getting your message retweeted is much more effective than hammering your point home on your own.
Be genuinely helpful. Watch for conversations about topics relevant to your company or product, and provide unselfish solutions, ideas, and help to those conversations.
Listen to feedback. If someone asks you a question, answer it in your own public feed so that you can continue to generate organic interest in your promotion. Answer others who happen to tweet related questions, but make sure that your answers aren’t selfish or too pushy. How can you tell? Watch for effectiveness. Do people click your links? Do they retweet your messages without you having to ask? Do they complain that you’re being promotional, or worse, do they just not say much at all? Use trackable link shorteners so that you can see which of your tweets people are bothering to click or, even better, retweeting themselves (and passing your messages along for you). Sometimes, you may need to tweet a little less frequently to avoid letting spamminess make you less effective.
Offer incentives. We don’t mean free giveaways or money, but value. Give people an unselfish reason to pay attention to you. It takes more than just promotions. Followers listen to you for the value you add, and if you consistently add insightful and worthwhile thoughts to their Twitter streams, they’ll be there for you when the roles reverse and you need them.
Command and control is dead. Long live converse!
Many companies struggle to come to terms with how they might use social media because they are reluctant to let go of their old “command and control” models of corporate communications. What they need to realize is that they no longer “have control of the message” because anyone can publish — by commenting, posting on a message board, blogging, or yes, microblogging — complaints about the company in places that anyone can find them.
Twitter’s content is very search-engine friendly. When a static Web page, a blog post, and an active Twitter account all contain the same keywords, the tweets will probably appear above the Web page or blog post in the search results for that keyword. Don’t believe us? Try searching