As we’ve entered the age of social networking, Facebook continues to garner attention – but it’s Twitter that now dominates the headlines, both offline and online. It seems that everyone is “Twittering” – from Ashton Kutcher, Oprah Winfrey, Whole Foods and Best Buy to your next door neighbor and local small business owner. In fact, in 2008 there were an estimated six million Twitter users in the U.S., with a projected 18.1 million users in 2010, according to eMarketer. Twitter also grew 1,382% year-over-year in February as reported by Nielsen Online.

Defining Twitter
While these figures are impressive, you may be wondering what exactly Twitter is and why it is important to you. Twitter is a micro-blogging site that allows people to post news and other important events to their group of followers. It enables your followers to be “in the know” on the latest developments with you/your company. It also allows you to more easily identify trends – which, in turn, will help you sell more. Users create an account, set up their profile and have 140 characters of text per “tweet” (aka post) to highlight a certain topic or news article/event. 

With Twitter, you establish an online community of people whom you connect with (follow) and/or they follow you. In Facebook they’re called “friends” or “fans,” in Twitter they’re called “followers.” Your followers will also have their group of followers, and so on and so on.  Those that Twitter engage in viral marketing every minute – all it takes is an interesting/relevant tweet for another person to republish it to their followers (this is called re-tweeting). As you imagine, a good tweet can be spread around the world in a matter of minutes.

At the end of the day, Twitter is an effective and efficient communication tool that enables businesses to join in the conversation and engage directly with their clients/prospects, the media and other key audiences. You can hear what other people are saying (or not saying) about your brand and other issues that matter to you. Remember, even if you ignore Twitter, those conversations will take place without you.

Beyond the Twitter Hype: 5 Tips to Getting Started
Before your business joins the conversation on Twitter, here are five etiquette tips that are important to know.

1. Define your strategy
Like you do for any campaign, you need to define your approach and strategy. What are you looking to accomplish by having an account on Twitter? Who is your target audience? If you have multiple reasons for establishing a Twitter account (i.e. customer support, brand awareness, public relations, humanizing your brand), you may want to look at creating different Twitter accounts for each area of focus.

For instance, Kelly Services has 15 different Twitter accounts; whereas Technisource has one, but does an excellent job at leveraging Twitter. In fact, Technisource appears to be the only IT staffing-related Twitter account that is really using Twitter to engage its audience. Their tweets are relevant, user-focused and insightful. In case you’re wondering what they’re saying, here’s an example: Jump-starting a tech job search | Career Advice – InfoWorld – http://tinyurl.com/cfhzav. 

Regardless of the number of accounts, make sure that you have consistent messaging and branding. As a reminder, Twitter should be just one component of your integrated marketing strategy, which should include other social media marketing tools such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

2. Be transparent
Companies should tweet as individuals. Be candid, be real. Twitter provides an opportunity for your followers to get to know more about your company – but most importantly about you. Your tweets demonstrate your ability to understand their needs and concerns – and that you are looking out ahead of the curve to help address and solve those needs. Your tweets should detail different areas of your life – not just work or business-related items. Like everything, do it in moderation – sprinkle some personal tweets throughout your regular tweets.

3. Join in the conversation
While following key people within your industry/areas of interest is a must, don’t just sit on the sidelines and listen in on the comments being said about your company or a topic of interest. Get into the conversation – especially if there are comments about you or your company. One of the key things with Twitter is to not only get engaged, but be real in your tweets. People want to hear what you have to say.

4. Add value
At the end of the day, people are interested in “what’s in it for me?” Make sure that your tweets are customer-centric – not self-promoting and self-serving. While it’s okay to have a few tweets that promote your business, too many and you will lose followers. Your tweets should focus on the needs/interests of your followers; after all they are following you for a reason.

5. Tweet frequently
In today’s busy world, front-of-mind awareness is everything. Like everything else, the more you put into it – the more you get out of it. The more tweets you have, the more likely you are to gain new followers. Good news is that you can leverage technology to reduce the amount of time it takes to make a tweet so you can post multiple tweets each day or week, whatever your preference.

Once you start Twittering, you will begin to wonder how you lived without having instant access to relevant, pertinent information. Next month we’ll address some next steps that you can take to make your tweets as relevant as possible. In the meantime, have additional tips or thoughts? Let me know. Or you can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/elizabethsmith.

Elizabeth Smith
Director of Social Media Marketing
ClearEdge Marketing