I. Introduction
This guide serves as an overview of what Twitter is (specifically the “new” platform) and how it can help a company reach their business objectives. The appeal of Twitter and one of the reasons why it has become very popular is that it is extremely simplistic yet personal (provides a human element) when comparing it to other social media websites. Additionally, part of its appeal is its ability to quickly and effectively distribute information to a large audience.  Building up the popularity of a Twitter account requires a substantial amount of effort and maintenance, but the results that can be achieved by utilizing this social media website are extremely significant.
What is Twitter?
Twitter is a micro-blogging website that allows a user to write about pretty much anything. The user has a 140 character limit when posting (or “tweeting”) and is able to include links to particular articles / webpages of interests. A user can “tweet” about anything ranging from what they had for breakfast to a website that provides valuable SEO advice to a question to another Twitter user. Twitter allows each user to follow other users and interact with these individuals by sending them direct messages or by replying to one of their “tweets”. Other features of Twitter include the creation of a profile (name, website, “about me”), a profile picture, an easy to use internal search engine, custom background design,  integration with various 3rd party applications, and the ability to “tweet” via a mobile device.
II. Benefits
If used frequently, Twitter can offer a variety of benefits for a business including:
- Increases in brand awareness
- Effectively targeting a specific demographic
- Referral traffic
- Providing a “human element” to a company
- Generating buzz about a company or a new product/service.
- Directly interact with potential  and current consumers
- Easily distribute information
III. Process
1. Creating a Twitter Account
2. Building Up Your Account
3. Guidelines of “Tweeting”
4. Interacting with your Target Audience
5. Functionality - Location of Features
6. Â Tips and Tools
Creating a Twitter Account
1. Select a username and profile name that represents your business.
- The username becomes part of the Twitter URL (i.e. twitter.com/companyname).
- Twitter often shows up among the first page of Google for brand-related searches.
- Allows people who are looking for your account to easily find you via Twitter’s internal “find people” feature as well as through Google searches.
2. Create a profile that provides information about your company.
- Cater to people who might not know what your company does.
- Increase brand awareness and potential consumers.
- Include a link to your website.
- Increases total referral traffic.
- Include a profile picture.
- Increases the chances that a user will view/interact with your account.
- In most cases, should be either a company logo or your actual picture.
3. Do NOT protect your updates.
- Decreases the number of followers to a particular account.
Building Up Your Account
The key to building up a successful Twitter account is obtaining a large amount of followers who are actually engaged with your brand. Simply following a bunch of random people will decrease the probability that you will obtain a large number of followers, not be effective in reaching your target market, possibly result in a banning of your account if enough people report you, and is a complete waste of time. The following is a step by step approach of successfully building up a Twitter account.
1. Send an E-Mail Blast to Your Existing Customers
If you send e-mail blasts, you should dedicate a blast informing your customers about your brand joining Twitter. It is substantially easier to get an existing customer to follow you on Twitter than to get an individual who isn’t as engaged with your brand to follow you. To increase the success rate of this blast, offer them an incentive for following you (i.e. “All Twitter followers receive 20% off their next purchase).
2. Add a Twitter Logo To Your Website
It is becoming increasingly commonplace for a brand to add Twitter and Facebook logos on their website that link up to their accounts. This is another simple, but effective, strategy in obtaining qualified followers. You can draw further attention to the button by creating a unique design. Instead of having the standard lowercase t or the Twitter bird, design a “follow us on Twitter” button that is pertinent to your industry. If you are a restaurant, for example, create a Twitter bird with a chef’s hat.
3. Follow People Who are Mentioning Your Brand
Twitter has a internal search tool (http://search.twitter.com) that allows users to search for keywords contained within recent tweets. If you discover that a user is positively mentioning your brand within a tweet, retweet their post and then follow that person. A user who already has a positive perception of your brand is likely to follow you back.
4. Join Twitter Directories
There are numerous Twitter directories that allow users to submit their Twitter accounts to various categories. These directories are utilized by individuals to find Twitter accounts pertaining to their interests. It is highly recommended that you submit your Twitter account to the following directories.
Most of these directories allow you to submit your account to multiple categories (Twibes, for example, allows 10 category submissions). It is recommended that you submit your account to as many categories as possible to increase visibility.
5. Use Relevant Hashtags
A hashtag refers to adding a # symbol in front of a word within a tweet. When this is implemented, it transforms the word into a clickable link. This link reveals all other tweets containing that specific hashtag. Hashtags are mainly utilized to categorize tweets. If I’m tweeting about a new Google feature, for example, I might say “Google changes their ranking algorithm. #seo #internetmarekting”. These hashtags are used by numerous users to find accounts relating to their interest. By adding relevant hashtags to your tweets, it can help increase exposure to your Twitter account.
As a general rule, no more than 2 or 3 hashtags should be utilized per tweet. Additionally, it is recommended that you search for the hashtag before you use it to ensure that others are also using it within their tweets.
6. Identify and Interact with Key Influencers
Chances are, there will be numerous influencers pertaining to your industry that have a presence on Twitter. An influencer is described as someone who has a large number of followers and has an account that is being frequently interacted with by other users in the form of replies and retweets. By retweeting and replying to these influencers posts, it helps to put your account within their radar, increasing the chances that they will retweet your posts in the future.
7. Include Twitter Account in Press Releases
If you are launching press releases, make sure to include your Twitter account within the content. Inform readers that by following your brand on Twitter, they will be receiving updates about your company, discounts, and whatever else you are communicating regularly through your Twitter account.
8. Create Twitter Lists
Another way to draw attention to your account is by creating industry specific Twitter lists and adding relevant users to it (including your account).
Guidelines of “Tweeting”
You might be able to build a large amount of followers, but how you are actually utilizing Twitter will determine whether these users will continue to follow and engage with your account. There are many methods that can be implemented that will help to ensure your Twitter account continues to grow on a regular basis.
1. Tweet frequently
Your account should not go longer than three days without a tweet. The longer you go without tweeting, the higher probability that people will stop following your account. Do not overdue this. Tweeting too much could “annoy” users and cause them to stop following your account.
2. Convey the appropriate types of messages within your tweets
The more “successful” Twitter accounts usually have an adequate balance between conversational, self-promotional and industry-related tweets. Typically, conversational tweets should encompass the majority of your tweets in most cases. Tweets should reflect your business, industry and/or company culture.
3. Don’t include links with every tweet
Makes an account look “spammy”. Reassures followers that the account is not entirely self-serving.
4. ReTweeting
If an individual has tweeted something relevant to your industry/company, you should “ReTweet” the post. To “ReTweet” a post, type in RT @username tweet you wish you repost. You can opt to click on the “retweet” button directly underneath the tweet, but the RT @username format tends to get noticed more often. The individual whose “tweet” you are “retweeting” is more likely to post about your account/”tweets”.
5. Offer an incentive/deal
Promote a discount that will benefit your consumers. People often respond to “tweets” that will benefit them in some way. Inform individuals that future incentives for Twitter followers will also be promoted. Will also entice users to keep following your account.
6. Promote a new product / service well in advanced
Generate buzz/word of mouth by discussing a new product or service well before its launch date.
7. Avoid direct messages in most cases
Direct messages used to have value in their infancy, but now are considered a portal for spam. Most direct messages that an account receives are automated and only serve to promote a website, brand, or Twitter account. Additionally, there are many users who will unfollow a user if they receive an automated direct message from that person.
It is recommended that direct messaging only be used to distribute information that you do not wish to make public. Example:, if you launch a contest through Twitter and need the winner’s phone number, you would most likely use direct messages over public tweeting.
8. Shorten URLs
Shortening a URL in a tweet is not only common, it is expected. A shortened URL makes a tweet look a lot “cleaner” while providing the ability to add more characters within a tweet. http://bit.ly will not only allow you to shorten any URL, but will provide analytical information such as the number of individuals who clicked on the link. Additionally, you can create custom bit.ly URLs for your website.
Interacting with your Target Audience
1. Reply to “tweets”
Hover over the tweet you wish to reply to in order to reveal the “reply” button on the bottom.
Replies should be directly correlated with the particular “tweet” and type your reply after the @username.
This is an effective account building method.
2. Start a Conversation
Asking a question is a great way to draw attention to your account
For example: A discount travel website asking “How has the economy affected your ability to go on vacation?“
Incorporate the user’s response with your business.
Using the economy question, if a user states that they are no longer able to go on vacation because of the associated costs, you can reply telling them all about the great travel deals your website offers. It is important to note, that this should only be implemented occasionally to avoid being perceived as a “self-serving” account.
It may take multiple questions to obtain a large amount of responses. Do not give up if your first attempt does not yield the results you desire. The amount of responses will increase as you continue building up your account.
3. Use Twitter for Customer Service Inquiries
A Twitter user that asks a public question about your brand on Twitter, should receive a public response (even just to say “I’m not sure, let me get back to you on this”). Often times, companies will avoid responding to negative inquiries (i.e. “I am dissatisfied with your company and your products”) because they are considered adding “fuel to the fire”. However, by responding to these negative tweets, it can help turn a negative situation into a positive one and can help retain a customer. For inquiries that require a substantial amount of back and forth interaction, it is okay to inform the person to contact someone via e-mail or phone.
4. Retweeting
I prefer to use the “reply” feature to retweet other users’ posts, but Twitter does offer the ability to retweet by simply clicking a “retweet” button. To implement this action, hover over the tweet and click on the “retweet” button located on the bottom of the tweet.
5. Search for Relevant Tweets
Use http://search.twitter.com to find relevant tweets pertaining to your brand or industry. This will help to find Twitter users to interact with. If you prefer not to implement daily searches, you can set up Twitter alerts through a program like TwitterAlerts.net or you can set them up through a 3rd party software like TweetDeck. This way, you can carry on with your daily tasks and receive automatic notifications every time a new tweet appears relating to the specific keyword phrase.
Functionality - Location of Features
This section is especially important for individuals using the “old” twitter as you will eventually have to start using the new platform. Below is a list of the various functionality described earlier in the document and where they are located.
What’s Happening? - This will be the box that you use most often on Twitter. If you are posting from Twitter.com, this will be where all tweets are implemented. You also have the ability to add your location to each tweet if you prefer.
@Mentions - @Mentions is where all replies to your account are located. If a user tweets “@(yourusername)” their tweet will appear in this section. This is located underneath the “what’s happening” text box.
Retweets - The “Retweets” link displays 3 options: Retweets by others, Retweets by you, Your Tweets, retweeted. “Retweets by others” will display any tweets retweeted by users you are following, “retweets by you” will display any tweets that you retweeted, and “your tweets, retweeted” will show any of your tweets that have been retweeted. This is located directly to the right of the “@Mentions” link.
Search - As mentioned, you can use http://search.twitter.com to find tweets by specific keywords. However, you can also utilize Twitter’s internal search by using the “search” tool bar directly on the home page. This is located towards the top left side of the page. The difference between this internal search bar and http://search.twitter.com is that http://search.twitter.com has an advanced search feature that allows you to breakdown tweets by location, links, and other categories.
Searches - Twitter provides the option to save individual keyword searches. After you save a search, it will appear in the “searches” link located to the right of the retweets. It is recommended that you save searches for keywords that you are commonly searching for like your brand.
Lists - Lists are a way for Twitter users to organize other Twitter users by category. If you’re following more than a handful of people, it can be difficult to keep track of all tweets by sorting through your timeline. With Twitter Lists, you can organize these users any way you wish (i.e “Industry Experts”, “Employees”, “Friends”, etc.). The lists link, which is located to the right of “Searches”, is organized by four categories: “Lists by You”, “Create a List”, “Lists You Follow”, and “Lists Following You”. “Lists by You” will show any list that you previously created. “Create a List” will bring you to the page to create a new list. “Lists You Follow” shows lists that you are following, but that you did not create”. “Lists Following You” displays any list that has added you.
To add someone to a list you created, access their profile, select the “list” icon and check off which list you’d like to add them to. Something to note, other users cannot add people to a list you created, but can follow your lists (unless you set it as “private”).
Trends - The 10 most popular tweeted keywords will be displayed under the “trends” category (located towards the right side of the page). You can sort these tweets by worldwide or by a specific location. This is useful in assessing what are the “hot topics” for that particular day on Twitter.
Messages - The “messages” link (located towards the top of the page) shows any new direct messages you have received on Twitter and will also allow you to send direct messages to other users.
Who to Follow - Twitter will list some accounts that they recommend you follow based on who else you are following and the type of tweets you’ve been posting.
Favorite - Just like you can save a search term, you can also save a tweet as a “favorite”. This is useful if you want to reference a specific tweet at a later date. In order to save a tweet, hover over the tweet and click on the star next to “favorite”.
Settings - On the top right corner, your twitter name and icon will be displayed along with a dropdown menu. Clicking on the “settings” link will reveal a variety of different settings related to your account.
The “settings” link will allow you to do the following:
Account: Change your username, change your e-mail address, let others find your e-mail address, change language setting, chage your time zone, automatically add locations to your tweet, show photos and videos from other users, and “protecting” your tweets (keep them private from users who you don’t approve. This is something that should not be checked if you are looking to grow your Twitter account).
Password: Change your password.
Mobile: Allow users to find you by your phone number and receive text messaging notifications.
Notices: Notifications via e-mail alerts.
Profile: Change you profile picture, name, location, web address, and bio.
Design: Change your background theme or upload custom theme.
Connections: Most 3rd party Twitter applications will have you login via “Twitter Connect” (a way to automatically login to the program via Twitter without having to create a new username and password). Any 3rd party application in which you implemented this action will appear under connections. You can also revoke access for any of these 3rd party applications within this tab.
Tips and Tools
There are many different methods that a person can use to achieve great success on Twitter.  Make sure you frequently test different strategies to see what works the best for your particular account. The information below serves as additional tips that will aide in meeting your marketing objectives.
1. Frequently test different strategies
Not every strategy works for every Twitter account. Make sure you measure the results relating to every strategy that is implemented.
2. Analyze “important” metrics
People will often analyze Twitter followers and not much else when it comes to analyzing results from their campaign. While this is an important metric, it doesn’t necessarily tell the full story of how your account is performing. Below are additional metrics that can be used to analyze your Twitter success:
-
- Engagement Levels: The number of replies and retweets related to your account. The higher the number, the more people are engaged with your account.
- Brand Mentions: The total number of brand mentions on Twitter. If you’re increasing your popularity on Twitter, you’ll notice an increase in this metric.
- Ratio of Followers to Following: In my opinion, an account that is following 100,000 users and has 10,000 followers is a lot less impressive than an account who is following 20 users and has 1,000 followers. An account that is truly successful on Twitter will grow followers naturally. If you start to follow 10,000 people at random, chances are at least a few will follow back. However, if these people aren’t viewing your tweets or interacting with your account, they are not qualified followers.
- Traffic from Twitter: Are people visiting your website from Twitter and has this number grown? Additionally, you should analyze the quality of this traffic in terms of page views, average time spent on site, and bounce rate.
- Value Added Metrics: Some benefits of Twitter cannot be analyzed via hard numbers. Say, for example, a dissatisfied customer posted on Twitter about how they will never buy from your company again. If you reached out to this person, resolved the issue, and turned them into a future customer this illustrates success related to Twitter, albeit one that can’t be tracked through any sort of hard metrics.
3. Do not neglect your account
It is extremely easy to go a week or even longer without logging into your Twitter account. It can take two months (or more) to restore the popularity of your Twitter account just by going a couple of weeks without “tweeting”.
4. Use 3rd Party Applications
There are many 3rd party applications that make it easier to post, search, and interact on Twitter. Below are some 3rd party applications that we recommend to help get you strated.
- TweetDeck: Organizing @mentions, messages, keyword searches, and lists in one place.
- SocialOomph: Scheduling tweets to publish at a later date.
- HootSuite: Manage multiple accounts from one location
- Twitter for iPhone: Twitter application for the iPhone
- UberTwitter: Recommended Twitter application for Blackberry
- Twidroid: Recommended Twitter application for the Android
- CoTweet: Platform that allows you to assign tweets to other individuals. This is useful if you have multiple employees managing one Twitter account.
- TwitPic: Posts and organize photos on Twitter
- Dlvr.It: Automatically feed blog posts (and other RSS) directly onto your Twitter.
- Involver - Twitter: Create a custom Facebook Tab that organizes your Twitter stream.
5. Read your Direct Messages and @replies frequently
Make sure your messages and replies are checked on a daily basis. You might miss a great business opportunity by neglecting them.
Now go get Twittering!!!
By David Neuman
