Using Twitter for Business Purposes
Best Practices for Tweeting as a Brand, Marketer, or Employee
Nov 11, 2009
Twitter is a micro-blogging site that has millions of people writing what look like encrypted messages that combine #hashtags, @replies, text-speak and shortened URLs to broadcast messages to their followers, and to create searchable mini-websites with every tweet they send.
For some, the 140-character limit on "tweets" (messages sent on Twitter) is freeing, allowing a quick update without the time of creating and maintaining a blog posting. For others, the limit is a challenge to see how they can fit their entire message in the short text area.
Twitter's Courtship of Enterprise Users
Twitter has been courting business users for quite some time. Some of these ways have been overt, while others have been less than obvious. These include:
- Shifting the site's focus to "social search"
- Deployment of Twitter Lists
- Connecting with LinkedIn so updates to one status can be published on the other site
The Impact of "Social Search" on Businesses
The focus of the site's functionality on search was subtle, but when Twitter revised their homepage to make "search" the very first thing a user can do on the site, it shifted its focus entirely. Users now have to click on a menu item to log in. Search is certainly the top priority.
"Social search" is a relatively new phenomenon. Users of social networks will search for brands, stores or products prior to purchase. They ask their followers what they think, and they search the site for additional mentions of the brand. These conversations are taking place on Social Media every day, whether companies have a branded presence on the platform or not.
The difference is that businesses who do have an account (and who monitor mentions of their brands and products) can act on anything that comes up. Those businesses are seen as having superior customer service, individual attention, and they have the opportunity to voice their brand messages without the distortion of hearsay.
Business Benefits of Social Media Participation
At first glance, social media sites like Twitter and FaceBook take time out of busy schedules, and draw employee's attention away from the bottom line. If that's the case, then why are more and more businesses flocking to these platforms? The following is a list of some (not all) of the potential benefits that a business might see from maintaining an active presence on social media platforms:
- As mentioned above, enhanced opportunities for visible customer service actions and responses
- A way to respond to negative remarks or reviews about the business - where responses will appear next to complaints in search results
- A way to communicate with brand-loyal fans about promotions and news
- A quick, simple way to perform market research
- Some potential for increased traffic to company websites, if done properly
Best Practices for Businesses on Twitter
There is a culture on Twitter just as there is on any social site. It is important that businesses follow the "unwritten" cultural rules in order to keep the best image online. Following are a few important Do's and Don'ts:
- Do aim for transparency. If the company wants a brand presence, have the person or people who are tweeting on behalf of that brand include their names in the profile information. An officer of the company is best, but any representative is better than none.
- Do update the background image of the company twitter profile to include the logo and other key information.
- Do use relevant hash-tags
- Don't "hash-jack" - this is using hashtags for irrelevant trending topics to get more visibility
- Do respond directly to tweets that mention your brand with @replies
- Do include plenty of context in @replies to give readers an idea of what's going on even if they are coming in at the end of a conversation.
- Don't use the word "we" - i.e. don't talk too much about the company or individual. Talk about the industry, local events (if it is a local company), the customers and their needs and wants.
- Do use the word "you" - ask for feedback, responses, get a conversation started.
- Do "retweet" (forward) interesting or useful tweets - better yet, add something to them before sending
- Do follow other Twitter accounts, particularly those of customers, colleagues and competition
- Don't automate your Tweets, Direct Message Responses, or anything about the Twitter account - a delay because people are busy is forgivable, spam is not.
- Don't try to use Twitter to generate leads, or sell anything directly. Instead, count on the company website to do that. (That's its job!)
- Do include calls to action to the company website
- Do shorten URLs (link shorteners like bit.ly make tiny internet addresses that take up fewer characters in each tweet, and they encourage re-tweets!)
Ideally, a business Twitter account should only take about 30 minutes each day to manage, quite probably spread throughout the day in short increments. Tools like TweetDeck allow users to save searches on keywords (such as the company name, product brands, etc) and access these via an iPhone application or other easy, quick check-in.
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