Are you feeling stuffed by the all-you-can-tweet buffet?
If Shakespeare were alive today, would he have written “To tweet or not to tweet”? I’m guessing yes, because with all the buzz around Twitter there seems to be just as much reason to avoid it altogether. With that in mind, I attended an excellent seminar today, hosted by a San Diego interactive media company, that addressed the topic of using Twitter for business. Not a new idea, I know. Seems like there’s yet another webinar, class or Meetup group every month advertising this very topic. This seminar was different though. The idea behind Twitter actually started sinking in. Here’s my findings:
- Twitter is like a cocktail party. Don’t just jump in on a conversation without taking the time to politely listen in first.
- Sending out tweets about personal stuff can actually be good for business. Not necessarily ANYTHING that comes to mind, but whatever it is that you find funny, interesting, thought-provoking, etc. By sharing your random thoughts with the world, you’ll actually be sharing a bit of yourself and laying the groundwork for some online relationships to be built. Just like at a business mixer, you may start out talking about your love of The Colbert Report, but a genuine connection with someone will eventually lead to the topic of business without feeling forced.
- Register for a free account with http://bit.ly/ and post short URL’s in your tweets which you can track over time.
- Use your account with bit.ly to post a link to your blog for even more information on your thoughts on the world. I recent example of mine: “I love you #apple but our relationship is strained. http://bit.ly/3YsDJo“.
- Do a manual review of who has retweeted (forwarded) your tweets the most, and use them to test out ideas and promotions before sharing them with the world.
- Once you jump onto the Twitter train, be prepared to monitor it regularly so you can respond within hours or even minutes when someone post something about your company.
- Negative comments about your brand are an excellent opportunity for you to step up and show that you care about rectifying the situation and making things right again.
- And my personal favorite: now you can include webcam video snippets in your tweets with http://www.bubbletweet.com/
That’s it for now. I’ll probably have more tips to share once I get an iPhone and start using Twitter on the regular. Tweet ya later!