Social Media - In Your Ear vs. In Your Face

I first imagined Twitter to be like attempting a relaxed conversation in a loud restaurant. Twitter can be used for frantic messaging and meaningless updates, but that is the quickest way to lose a following –also the reason I don’t go back to noisy restaurants.

In a business environment, Twitter can be leveraged to fulfill your need to communicate within a time constraint much better than the blogosphere. Tweets are short (only 140 characters) and informal. You can send them from anywhere using free software to time their release and target audience. If the idea of texting still gives you “thumb anxiety”, don’t panic. You can organize when to disperse tweets, shorten links, and send tweets quicker from the comfort of your PC’s web browser than via your mobile.

Benefits in Business

Twitter can provide potential clients with the feeling that your company has an open door policy. This makes you more approachable for feedback. Suggestions on improvements, upgrade ideas, positive testimonials, and the free flow of ideas that this format encourages can all be leveraged --if you’re paying attention. Twitter can also provide you with the industry buzz, interesting articles and upcoming events announcements in a more consolidated manner than browsing the web.

 Your acceptance in the community rests on ensuring that all tweets are not self-serving.

Still, you can tweet upcoming industry and company events, alert people to product upgrades and new partnerships, add commentary on industry trends and send out interesting links that have value to followers.

Among some of the businesses currently tweeting is brand giant Dell, who uses the social network to offer deals, keep fans current on the latest technology and to stay in touch with their customers. Dell started tweeting in 2007. Since then, their revenue has increased by over $3 million, thanks to Twitter activity alone. Additionally, Dell has experienced a jump in new product interest. But, Twitter is not just for the big names. Small business are hopping on the band wagon too and seeing the results. IndustrialInterface.com provides sales referrals and matching between engineers and suppliers. The company uses Twitter for lead generation, interacting with customers and promoting their brand. Their tweets, in combination with other marketing efforts resulted in over 20,000 hits to the IndustrialInterface.com website in October.

Where’s the ROI? A couple of things will help you gauge your effectiveness. First, how many followers do you have and are you keeping them? Second, are you receiving valuable feedback you wouldn’t have otherwise? Third, link tracking – what links do people click on, which do they retweet? Both can be tracked with free, third party software and will be a good indicator of who your audience is and what they respond to.

Social Anxiety

You will be entering a new social arena, so it’s time to remember some etiquette techniques. Do you come up to a group of new people and automatically try to dominate the conversation? I hope not. The first key to understanding how your market interacts in a community, such as Twitter, is to listen.

Start following relevant industry twitterers. Once you’ve found the rhythm of things, join in some of the conversations, re-tweet news pieces and tweets you find interesting, and start bringing value to the community with your own industry-focused tweets.

If this is your first foray into social media, you may not have a following, so after you become a little established and comfortable in the community, start inviting others to follow you including your clients, media, and others who will be interested in what you have to say.

Temper Your Motives

Twittering is a dialogue among peers, not an opportunity to yell marketing hype across the room. Have patience and don’t force feed. Opening the door to communications among your clients and other industry experts can provide you with valuable feedback on your product, insight into industry trends, allow you to promote events, track popular links, and most importantly build relationships.

You might not be able to afford the door-to-door salesman right now, but social media sites such as Twitter can provide you with some of the same results if you don’t just add to the noise, but facilitate conversation!

Read Twitter 101 here.

Third-party software that will help you streamline and track your success:

http://twitteranalyzer.com

http://hootsuite.com/

http://www.socialoomph.com/

http://bit.ly/

Cain Miller, Claire, “Dell Says It Has Earned $3 Million From Twitter.” Bits blog. June 12, 2009. December 3, 2009. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/12/dell-has-earned-3-million-from-twitter/

Trevino, Cynthia, “How to: Use Social Media to Increase Visits, Leads Like IndustrialInterface.com.” Small Company Big Image blog. November 2009. December 3, 2009.

http://www.smallcompanybigimage.com/how-to-use-social-media-to-increase-visits-leads-like-industrialinterface-com/