Using Twitter for Customer Engagement

January 2010

Alan Belniak@abelniak

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Agenda

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Agenda

What is Twitter and Why is It Important

What’s Our Company’s Presence with Twitter

all About

Who is Involved and What’s the Philosophy

Vocabulary

Typical Steps

Re-tweeting

#hashtags and bit.ly

Frequency: the ol’ Quality vs. Quantity

dilemma

Tools

CoTweet

Other Resources

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PART I: WAIT… THE WHO AND THE WHAT NOW?

WHAT IS TWITTER

WHAT IS OUR INVOLVEMENT WITH TWITTER

WHO IS INVOLVED? WHAT’S THE PHILOSOPHY?

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What is Twitter… and why is it important Micro-blogging

140 characters It’s not the same as

Facebook or LinkedIn where you request to be friends note the verb… not

‘friend’; instead, ‘follow’ (no permission required)

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What is Twitter… and why is it important It started small, and is

now growing

Used often by marketers as a way to get real-time reactions and do marketing research real-time search brand management other uses

The reality is that Twitter is a platform that permits all kinds of things. It isn’t one tool, and it isn’t for everyone.

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Companies’ customers are using Twitter

Slideshare

Swiffer

Duracell

Dogfish Head

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What is (and will be) our presence with Twitter?

I created seven Twitter IDs, one each of our major product families. This allows our messages to be segmented.

We will start to use this to listen to what customers have to say, and push out messages to

customers together, we will engage our customers

This may seem like it is just another task to add to your list. But this supports your role in… marketing product management tech support it is really another tool (not another task) to

help you do what you are already doing

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Not all Tweets have to focus on your product or service

Method’s (the cleaning product) Twitter feed – note that not all tweets are related directly to their products

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Who is involved? What’s the philosophy?

You all reading this (and probably others) Let’s face it: media 2.0 isn't going away The meta-lesson of this education applies

to all social media, and not just Twitter Our customers are online, and social media

gives them a loud(er) voice. We can not engage through these channels

▪ we run the risk of alienating some of our customers that are using this and similar channels by not connecting with them there

Or, we can engage with our customers▪ start to build up brand trust, confidence, and loyalty

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Has anyone not heard about the Comcast story?

Look at the results for a Google search on ‘Comcast Cares’

Look what’s in the first position

Comcast pulled itself out of a deep PR well by engaging

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Another reason…

Brian is kind of a big deal

in the PR and social

media space…

Translation: Lots of people

listen to what he has

to say

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PART II: DIGGING IN

VOCABULARY

TYPICAL STEPS

RE-TWEET: IT’S NOT A STUTTERING BIRD

HASHTAGS and BIT.LY

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Vocabulary

Twitter (n) tweet (n) tweet (v) or twitter (v) follower number and

following number "the ratio" profile locked and blocked @ or @ message or at

message or reply or mentions

DM or direct message

Re-tweet, or RT (this is very important, as it helps you gain ‘street cred’)

# or hash tags

Fail Whale

FTW, FTL, and other such used acronyms (http://www.acronymfinder.com/)

FF or Follow Friday

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Typical steps (1 of 2)

Set up your own account at www.twitter.com (user ID, password, an e-mail address) This will be useful to help get you acclimated on your

own, before tweeting on behalf of the company Submit a picture or somehow-

related avatar, create your profile Be real. Be human. (more on this in a minute)

Send out a test tweet, dip your toe in thewater

Use @ messages to start generating some interest for your own account

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Typical steps (2 of 2)

Re-tweet, recommend people, and start engaging - helping and sharing are two huge currencies in social media

You’ll soon realize that using the http://www.twitter.com interface gets tired quickly consider one of the many tools

freely available (like Tweetdeck)

The notes section of this slide has additional detail, and sites to click through to help amass people to follow

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A Quick Note on Twitter Lists Your account page -

see the lists you created/the lists with which you’re involved This means the ones you

follow, and where you are listed.

Mass-following some of these lists is a good way to start getting your own followers

Consider pasting the URL of a Twitter list into TweepML.org

Also, search TweepML.org for interesting lists

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An example of not being human

Poor ratio, likely due to the content

Same message, over and over and over again

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Re-Tweeting: what’s the big deal?

Summary of why it is important Usual syntax

Add a follow-on message if you like

Avoid re-tweeting someone who re-tweets you. This isn’t to say not to do it, but note that it can appear self-serving.

Keep in mind the 140 characters; if you want someone to re-tweet you, give them room!

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#hashtags

Think of hashtags as bookmarks… or… tags Emergent – not sanctioned or issued by decree

folksonomy vs. prescriptive vocabulary Syntax Useful for linking groups of tweets together

e.g.: FollowFriday, or Red Sox, or Toyota Popular at conferences and seminars to track the

conversation in the backchannel e.g.: South by Southwest (#sxsw)

Advice… Don’t use a hashtag that’s too long – remember, the # and

hashtag text are factored into the 140-character limit Do use a hashtag that makes sense and is easy to use

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#hashtag effective practices

http://hashceratops.org/tutorial

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bit.ly

URL shortening service (http://bit.ly/) Reduces the length of long URLs to save room in

Twitter’s 140-character limit http://www.readwriteweb.com/readwritestart/2009/10/6-grea

t-twitter-quiz-and-polli.php - (85 characters long)

http://bit.ly/2yLZFM - (points to the same link, and is only 20 characters long)

Gives some insights into clicks on a link (screen shots on following slides)

Can be linked to a Twitter account for one-stop shopping example: swipe a URL, go to http://bit.ly, paste the URL, and

Tweet out that link directly from the bit.ly page – no need to go back to www.Twitter.com

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bit.ly data

Number of clicks from when you Tweeted it

Number of total clicks (others can create a short link of the same long URL)

Listing of where conversations are happening

Time of day and date information

Reference source and locations over the world

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more bit.ly data

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bit.ly’s link to Twitter account

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PART III: YOU, TWITTER, and YOUR COMPANY HOW DOES THIS

RELATE TO OUR TWITTER PRESENCE?

HOW OFTEN SHOULD I TWEET TWITTER SEND A TWITTER MESSAGE?

MY OWN ACCOUNT, COMPANY ACCOUNTS – HOW DO I MANAGE IT ALL?

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How do I manage the flow?

Consider creating e-mail aliases (work w/ IT) to have content automatically distributed

An e-mail address is necessary when creating a Twitter ID, so consider using the ones you create here

Another way to stay on top of the content is through RSS Learn how to use an RSS reader Get Twitter searches sent as an RSS:

http://search.twitter.com/advanced Or, use FeedMyInbox – an RSS feed delivered

in e-mail form, but only once a day(a digest version)

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Frequency: quality over quantity, but in the right volume Our (initial) internal recommendation: a minimum

of one quality tweet per day from each account Set up an internal group (a wiki, a Google doc, etc.) of

content you can share so you’re not all always scrambling for this

Set up a recurring reminder in Outlook (tasks or calendar entries)

Pre-create tweets of items (saved in the wiki or some other source, and copy and tweet at will, for you get writer’s block)

Good topics include: product news , company news, link to a press release (with a relevant comment) benchmark data… (cont’d)

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Frequency (continued)

Conduct an informal poll – ask a question, engage the audience (see notes)

Look at what your other company products are tweeting and perhaps link (RT) from them, if appropriate

Use @replies to others in your stream▪ This is what it’s all about!

What’s the competition doing? Can you comment on that (being professional and courteous at all times) ?

Don’t simply tweet inane, mundane information. Make it valuable. Don’t follow Twitter’s old advice (“What are you doing?”). ▪ Instead, answer, “what are you reading? What excites you?

What is it about the event you are attending that is interesting (and not just what is happening)?”

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Frequency (continued)

Conduct an informal poll – ask a question, engage the audience (see notes)

Look at what your other company products are tweeting and perhaps link (RT) from them, if appropriate

Use @replies to others in your stream▪ This is what it’s all about!

What’s the competition doing? Can you comment on that (being professional and courteous at all times) ?

Don’t simply tweet inane, mundane information. Make it valuable. Don’t follow Twitter’s old advice (“What are you doing?”). ▪ Instead, answer, “what are you reading? What excites

you? What is it about the event you are attending that is interesting (and not just what is happening)?”

Key message: do whatever it is you need to do to make this a regular part of your day, time-boxed so it fits into your schedule, and coordinated with your other team members so it appears (from the outside, at least) as a well-oiled machine.

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Guidelines

Does your company have any guidelines? You might want to make some. Go here to get started.

Essentially an extension of an employee handbook. Don’t over-think them. Ours are summarized below.

DO Be authentic – disclose who you are and for whom you work Be positive – this is a chance to engage with people; pretend it’s like meeting

them for the first time at a party Be respectful

DON’T Lie or pretend to be someone else – authenticity matters Be negative with respect to the competition Disclose sensitive information, especially with respect to earnings, acquisitions,

or recent deals (unless pre-approved)

REMEMBER Whether you think you are or you aren’t, you are always representing the brand

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CoTweet

www.CoTweet.com the site support

Lets multiple people tweet through one account

Lets one person tweet through multiple accounts

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PART IV: REFERENCE

SITES TO HELP YOU UNDERSTAND MORE

MISCELLANEOUS

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Sites to help you understand more

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o&rel=0&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&fs=1 – Twitter in plain English (CommonCraft video)

http://mashable.com/2009/06/24/twitter-brand-best-practices/ - Twitter best practices for brands

http://thesocialmediaguide.com.au/2009/05/30/the-ultimate-list-of-twitter-tools/ - Desktop and Web Clients

www.twitter.com/ and then a user name http://search.twitter.com/advanced –? :) :

( {sentiment} http://www.bit.ly –URL shortener http://www.hashtags.org/ - good to see what’s been said

around a hashtag http://pelfusion.com/tools/30-twitter-tools-for-managing-f

ollowers/ - tools to manage followers

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Still more

http://www.gradontripp.com/2009/08/27/can-you-judge-a-book-by-its-cover-umm-maybe/ - notes on why your bio and profile matter

http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/ - a Twitter 101 Guide http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/best_practices - best

practices http://danzarrella.com/retweet-etiquette.html - tips to

increase your chances of getting re-tweeted http://mashable.com/2009/10/06/retweetable-tweets/ - more

tips to increase your chances of getting re-tweeted http://tweetbeep.com/ - tweets sent by e-mail on the hour http://mashable.com/2009/05/23/video-for-twitter/ - sharing

video via Twitter http://mashable.com/2009/05/19/twitter-share-images/ -

sharing pictures (also see www.yfrog.com)

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… it never stops

http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/ - great list of ideas

http://www.OneRiot.com, http://www.Collecta.com, and http://search.twitter.com/advanced - social pulse aggregators

http://translate.google.com/translate_t# http://www.subjectivelyspeaking.net/?p=201 – how not to use Twitter http://delicious.com/abelniak/twitter+howto?detail=2 – a curated list of

Twitter tools http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/case_dell - case studies http://business.twitter.com/twitter101/resources - other Twitter resources http://mashable.com/2009/01/21/best-twitter-brands/ - 40 brands on

Twitter (you’ve heard of these brands) http://mashable.com/2009/07/03/twitter-filter/ - filter your Twitter stream http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/ - The Twitter Guidebook by

Mashable! (the closest thing to the definitive source on Twitter; some of the links in this list are repeated here)

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Call To Action

Create your own account and test the waters Start generating some of your own followers Look for a meeting request from me to talk

about CoTweet, and to get the company accounts log-in information

Work with your teammates to set up a cadence and schedule that might work for you

Think of questions for each other, and for me Ask me questions Share content and experiences

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Summary

You can say a lot with 140 characters Connecting to customers on Twitter aligns with our

corporate social media strategy This is a shared challenge and responsibility, across

many organizations and functions – let’s make the most of it!

Use this deck as a reference; share what you learn with the others

Focus on quality, and create a cadence of communication that’s right for you

Use the tools available to ease any perceived burden and optimize your time

Start!

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Parting thought

YOU WANT THIS… BUT YOU’VE GOT TO GO THROUGH THIS…

*minus the boots

Thank You

Alan Belniak

@abelniak // http://www.twitter.com/abelniak

http://www.SubjectivelySpeaking.net