.FLYINGHEAD THE FLEXIBLE ENTERPRISE
.TITLE Twitter basics for business
.AUTHOR Jorge Sosa
.SUMMARY Raise your hand if you’re sick of all this Twitter hype. Good. Now keep your hand up if you’ve checked out Twitter and don’t understand what the big deal is. I mean, why putz around reading a sea of dispatches from narcissistic hipsters, obsessed with what they had for lunch, when you’ve got real work to do? OK, your hand’s still up. Good. Don’t worry. Your reaction is perfectly natural for any sensible adult. But, you shouldn’t judge Twitter by your first impression.
.OTHER
Raise your hand if you’re sick of all this Twitter hype. Good.
Now keep your hand up if you’ve checked out Twitter and don’t understand what the big deal is. I mean, why putz around reading a sea of dispatches from narcissistic hipsters, obsessed with what they had for lunch, when you’ve got real work to do? OK, your hand’s still up. Good. Don’t worry. Your reaction is perfectly natural for any sensible adult.
But, you shouldn’t judge Twitter by your first impression. I’m not going to tell you to join the cult and drink the Kool-Aid. But, I am going to tell you why Twitter might be worth a second look. I’ll also offer you some strategies for making the most of Twitter, should you decide to set up shop there.
Read on and … put your hand down already. You look silly.
.H1 Who’s on Twitter?
My personal observation — and that of the Web traffic trackers at [[http://www.quantcast.com/twitter.com|Quantcast]] — is that a good chunk of Twitter’s audience is comprised of young, tech-savvy adults. There’s a higher-than-average percentage of users with at least an undergraduate education. Females slightly outnumber males.
By Quantcast’s estimates, 6 million unique monthly U.S. users are hitting Twitter via the Web. This alone makes Twitter the third most popular social networking site, behind MySpace and Facebook. This also means you ignore Twitter at your own peril.
While Quantcast pegs the Twitter audience at just 1/13th that of Facebook’s, we’re still talking about a rabidly loyal following. [[http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1117/twitter-tweet-users-demographics|The Pew Research Center]] suggests 76% of Twitterers (or "tweeple", if you prefer, although that sounds vaguely dirty) use the Internet wirelessly, via a laptop, PDA or cell phone.
With dozens of mobile Twitter apps out there, tweeple are accessing Twitter from just about everywhere. More than just a microblog service, Twitter gives people a streamlined, simple interface for keeping in touch with friends, sharing news and information, and connecting with a worldwide community of geeks.
If you think your business might benefit from partaking in this communal stream of consciousness, keep on reading.
.H1 Build your audience
I’m not going to waste your time with a step-by-step guide to using Twitter. The site’s [[http://help.twitter.com|straightfoward help section]] is rather … uh … helpful and I won’t duplicate it here. Let’s just assume you’ve figured out how to create an account and tweet, that is, post a 140-character bulletin for the whole world to see.
When I say "the whole world," I’m only slightly exaggerating. Google indexes every tweet, so just about anybody surfing the Web should theoretically be able to sniff you out.
Let’s assume you’d like to narrow your focus a bit. Start by checking your email address book. If you use Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail or MSN, Twitter can trawl through your contact list automatically.
If not, you might want to hit up your teenage niece or nephew and have them enter your existing customers’ emails by hand. Yeah, it stinks. But as of now, those appear to be the options for reaching your current customers via Twitter. Alternately, you can just send your address on Twitter (usually in the form of Twitter.com/YourUserNameHere) out with your regular correspondence and let them track you down.
For example, my Twitter feed is http://twitter.com/jsosa1234, Computing Unplugged’s is http://twitter.com/computingunplug (because there’s a limit to the letters you can use in a name), and our esteemed editor’s is http://www.twitter.com/davidgewirtz.
To find new prospective customers on Twitter, you’ll want to use [[http://search.twitter.com/|the search feature]]. This lets you find people on Twitter based on what they’re chatting about. Particularly savvy tweeple mark their tweets with keywords or "hashtags", which are a boon if you’re looking for people talking about the IT field and not just people who use the word "it" in their tweets.
To search by hashtag, just precede the keyword with a #, as in #IT, #cisco, #film, #healthcare or #beer. There are many more advanced search functions, including a slick one that lets you narrow down results based on where tweeple reside.
Let’s say you want to find everyone who’s talking about wine within a 70-mile radius of Minneapolis. Your search query would look like this — near:Minneapolis within:70mi #wine — and would yield a list of geeky Twin Cities wine connoisseurs.
To use more advanced search techniques, check out the glossary of [[http://search.twitter.com/operators|advanced search operators]] or just use the [[http://search.twitter.com/advanced|advanced search form]].
When you find someone you want to share your message with, click on either their user name or photo. This will bring up their profile page. Click on the Follow button below their thumbnail picture and that user will get a notice saying you’re following their stream of tweets. If they check you out and like what they see, they’ll reciprocate.
.H1 Keep your audience
Now that you’ve found all these new potential customers, you’ll want to make a good first impression.
If you’re the kind of businessperson who has a strong spamming instinct, you’ll want to check that instinct at the door. Spamming is [[http://help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries/18311|against Twitter’s rules]], is extremely easy to block, and is a good way to generate ill will against yourself and your brand.
"Content is king" should be your mantra. And the best way to build a loyal following is to offer added value. For instance, instead of bombarding people with "Eat at Joe’s", take a tip from the good people at [[http://twitter.com/victors1959cafe|Victor’s 1959 Cafe]] and say, "Happy hour at victor’s 1959 cafe right now and till 6:30pm. $3 beer / $4 wine / $4 tropical mimosas."
Offering ways for people to save money on stuff they want, when they want it, is a great way to make friends.
If you’re in the consulting business, you can dispense pithy pearls of wisdom. Follow the example of Hal Croasmun — aka [[http://twitter.com/ScreenplayTips|ScreenplayTips]]. In case you’re wondering, none of these examples are paid endorsements. I’m just highlighting Tweeple I follow who seem to know what they’re doing.
ScreenplayTips offers exactly that, semi-regularly posting comments such as, "Tip 37: There’s a difference between rewriting and editing. If you edit a story that needs a rewrite, it usually locks in the mistakes."
Hal’s profile features a link back to his site, where he offers screenwriting classes. The beauty of being constrained to a 140-character limit is you can whet your audience’s appetite, and you never have to give away the store.
If you have something to say that’s longer than 140 characters, you can tease it via a tweet. You can’t use HTML in tweets, so you’ll have to type the Web address in. Twitter automatically converts it to a link. Because some Web addresses alone are longer than 140 characters, you’ll probably want to use one of the many URL-shortening services available to create a tiny virtual address for your link. I’m old-school and I like [[www.tinyurl.com|TinyURL.com]], but there are plenty of other choices out there.
ZATZ has its own URL shorting program, so when you subscribe to [[http://twitter.com/computingunplug|Computing Unplugged’s Twitter Feed]], you’ll see little short URLs starting with the ZATZ.com domain.
.H1 Interact with your audience
Twitter is not just a way to push content at people. It offers another direct channel of communication between you and your customers. This is not to say you’d want to spend all day keeping tabs on what your customers had for breakfast or watched on TV. But, the immediacy presented by a 140-character limit allows you fast, to-the-point, interaction with them.
You don’t have to bother reading the endless scroll of tweets to keep in touch, either. Customers can send you direct messages or reply to your tweets. Check your direct message inbox and @Replies tab regularly and you won’t miss a thing. It’s a perfect way to filter the signals from all the noise.
One last tip. Don’t set up a Twitter account and just leave it unattended. Until recently, no smaller an outfit than the Minnesota Department of Transportation had done just that.
.BEGIN_KEEP
Last summer, they proudly announced, "Hi Twitter! Mn/DOT is going Web 2.0! We welcome your feedback." Two tweets followed within a week, then came eight months of silence. If you’re just trying Twitter out and decide it’s not for you, simply deleting your account presents a better public image then leaving a dusty, neglected storefront.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Don’t forget to check out Computing Unplugged’s Twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/ComputingUnplug. Our esteemed editor has vowed he’ll never tweet his #breakfast. [McChicken sandwich and something that looked like twigs, which is why I’ll never comment on this again. — DG]
.BEGIN_SIDEBAR
.H1 Product availability and resources
Visit [[http://www.quantcast.com/twitter.com|Quantcast]]
Visit [[http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1117/twitter-tweet-users-demographics|The Pew Research Center]]
Visit [[http://help.twitter.com|straightfoward help section]]
Follow [[http://twitter.com/jsosa1234|the author’s feed]].
Follow [[http://twitter.com/computingunplug|Computing Unplugged’s Twitter Feed]]
Follow [[http://www.twitter.com/davidgewirtz|David’s feed]].
Learn about Twitter’s [[http://search.twitter.com/|search feature]].
Learn about Twitter’s [[[http://search.twitter.com/operators|advanced search operators]].
Learn about Twitter’s [[[http://search.twitter.com/advanced|advanced search form]].
Learn about what’s [[[http://help.twitter.com/forums/26257/entries/18311|against Twitter’s rules]]
Follow [[http://twitter.com/victors1959cafe|Victor’s 1959 Cafe]].
Follow [[http://twitter.com/ScreenplayTips|ScreenplayTips]].
Get small at [[www.tinyurl.com|TinyURL.com]].
.END_SIDEBAR
.BIO
.END_KEEP
