If you are a Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, or any social network site user you’ve probably updated your status to tell your friends what you are doing at that very moment. Most of your friends probably have written a smart-ass comment or completely ignored you. I have on several occasions I posted a status that was completely absurd just to get a reply back since I knew people were reading my news feed and checking Facebook hourly. Well, now is the age that people are so attached to brands that they want to know what is happening in real-time with the company. Either they own the product or perhaps they are are an investor and want to know the latest and greatest.
Twitter, a San Francisco company started in March 2006, has made status updates a public way of spreading the word about what you as an individual or company doing. No longer is your network of friends reading your status but the public has access and can opt-in to follow you. The question is how do you effectively spread the word about your brand via Twitter. Here are some questions and to-do’s when wanting to get Twitter adopted at a company:
- Get all the influencers in a room and give them a demo of the potential of Twitter and examples of companies using it (consumer brands such as JetBlue, Southwest, and CNN). Examples of influencers can be executives (CEO, CFO, COO, VPs), top engineers in the company, top designer in the company, pr manager, marketing manager, event managers.
- Ask your influencers what do people want to hear about? Is it what they are working on? Which trade-show are they going to attend next? Which product was released today? There was got to be some piece of valuable, public data that changes frequently that your customers/users/investors want to know about.
- If you are successful in getting influencers within your company to adopt/use Twitter then the question is how to tell the world. The first step would be to update your corporate web site but that is easier said than done. Twitter is just one piece of the puzzle in your overall social media strategy. What other ways can people get to know you better – podcasts, vlogs, badges, widgets, and/or Flickr stream.
Definitely a lot of work needs to be done but I firmly believe this is a new way of communicating. Instead of an email newsletter where you hope people read it, heck even open it, status updates via social networks where your company has a presence should be your focus in 2008. If you aren’t thinking about social networks for your company and aren’t signed up on one yet gimmie a holla and I can help you out.
-Randy
rksar at yahoo dot com
My StumbleUpon Page
I’m working with my clients to figure out the best strategies for doing just this and I’ve shared your article with them. I think you’ve got a good 1, 2, 3 starting guide. One thing that I’d add though is that before you have people start corporate tweeting, I recommend that they get comfortable personally tweeting first, engaging in conversation, making relevant posts, etc. Then, and ONLY then, start tweeting company business. The experience with how the twitter ecosphere works will be very helpful.
The other thing that I suggest is that the combination of twitter and blogging is very powerful. That doesn’t mean just tweet your blog links, but use them as complements. Carry your blog conversations over to twitter, comment on things other people say, and reply to folks with relevant information.
I posted a bit back on companies I think are doing a good job on Twitter here: http://tinyurl.com/2j6fu7
Cheers,
Ryan
Good post Randy. It was great meeting you the other day at the Tweetup.
BTW, here’s something I blogged in a similar vein..
http://ericgonzalez.wordpress.com/2008/03/19/social-media-adoption-the-bong-framework/