Twitter for Business: 11 Guidelines

Swing your megaphone carefully.

[tweetmeme source=”MarkBrimm”] Twitter can be used for brand-monitoring, marketing, campaigns and PR functions within the social media sphere. Many businesses and other types of organizations already use Twitter as an easy first step into the social media community pool. Many are not, however, because of either a conflicting business model or simply due to an uncertainty about how to proceed. Often there is a fear of “getting it wrong”. For the more adventurous, the big temptation with Twitter is to jump headlong into campaign and promotional projects and “work out the kinks later”. This is a huge mistake for any company or organization with a reputation to care for. It’s best to slow down and experiment a while in a safe environment first before incorporating a “Tweeting” initiative within your organization’s communications.

Organizations should carefully select a Twitter rep from communications qualified individuals within communications and keep PR firmly in mind no matter what the exact purposing of the profile being used. Twitter is an extension of an overall communications strategy. Individual CEOs may have a Twitter account, and this speaks to the organization’s comprehension of Twitter’s social nature, but non-C-level employees should probably not be officially representing your organization. Don’t focus on ramping up followers and list subscribers like a superhero out of the gate.  Quality follows are everything, and software can’t teach you how to use it wisely.  Slow down for the good of yourself, company or cause. It’s worth it. You can always automate once you’ve learned who to follow and who not to, what to tweet, and what not to, and why.

In the end, there are no hard and fast rules. Being careful is the name of the game. Here are some basic guidelines for organizational Twitter communications:

1)      Choose your Twitter rep and profile info carefully from communications considerations—always keep PR firmly in mind, even if using Twitter for marketing. Only smaller outfits and can get away with being “extra-cheeky”, not IPOs, government agencies or NGOs.

2)      Experiment with every Twitter app you can for the good of your organization in a safe environment (like a test profile, connecting to test profiles on other sites and applications–all test profiles). If in doubt, always use a test profile, not the one you will use for your organization. In fact, avoid using the company name or other identifier. What if you flub up big time? You don’t want that reflecting back on the entire organization.

3)      Don’t spam fellow “tweeps” and followers with repeat tweets and sales-pitchy DMs. If you need to push something, be creatively unique in how you go about it. Don’t pitch your widget, converse about it. One way some pitch is to bracket the pitch with a joke or a winningly clever cautionary preface. Spamming via social media is an instant problem. Just don’t do it.

4)      Follow those who stand to support your brand or cause. Don’t follow political causes or religious institutions, for instance, with your corporate or government agency profile, and so on. Think with your PR cap on when you Tweet and follow / unfollow.

5)      Tweet in viral manner when possible by networking with partners and friends, but show restraint and discretion. 100 characters allows for multiple ReTweets (RTs). Remember, conversations about your brand or cause are kind of what it’s all about. Don’t be stiff. Respond to others who talk to you as a rule. Unless it’s Weird Frank…nobody talks back to Weird Frank…

6)      Be business-casual: nothing too raunchy, personal or political (unless you are a political cause), etc.

7)      Be discreet. Have your Twitter rep clear any tweets that are legally “iffy” before they go out. Train them to ask first. Give them guidelines on what to avoid tweeting about or who to avoid tweeting to. Also, remember to promptly go back and delete any iffy stuff that leaks through. Spelling is not always a deletion-worthy offense, but problematic messages are. Twitter’s own website allows deletion of your own tweets from your Twitter profile’s feed. The many sites and apps that republish those tweets after they have already gone viral…won’t.

8)      Use multiple profiles when representing multiple business units or departments. This keeps things focused. It also spread out the safety net in case somebody flubs on one of those profiles and you need to take action of some kind to correct the situation.

9)      For CRM via Twitter: Monitor your keywords thoroughly via Twitter apps AND via available social media and  blog search tools (like backtype and HootSuite, etc.). Always respond privately. When a resolution is complete, if your customer is impressed and tweets how you fixed the problem out loud, people will look on you more favorably than if you try to maneuver your customer into a corner (this can be fatal online—imagine the big company bullying the customer, okay that’s not going to play, obviously).

10) Don’t change your Twitter name around. Nail it down to what it should be well before you start courting followers. Why? Several reasons. One is consistency. You don’t want people unfollowing you because they don’t know your new name. You also risk trust in other ways. A changing profile name is often the tell-tale sign of a “sleeper”–a spammer who wanted to fool people into following him or her and then goes on a spamming spree out of the blue. And yet another reason has to do with SEO. Because your PageRank for your Twitter profile is an extension of your organization and your website(s) in many ways, tweets and profiles CAN impact your PageRank for your official website, way over there, as well as your Twitter profile, way over here, via the complex ways that inbound links are aggregated and in how they support the PageRank and rankings of any and all sites that you and your followers link to or re-tweet. And since PageRank (whether your profile on Twitter or your site receiving beneficial Twitter-originated links) doesn’t heal for many moons, it matters a good deal. If in doubt, starting a new Twitter profile can often be the better move, unless you already have lots of followers. You can change your Twitter name if you must, but it will probably zap your PageRank for many months (unless Google changes something in that department soon), so don’t say I didn’t warn you.

11) Use list-creation in a way that supports your organization. Many don’t create lists for the first 6 months of using their Twitter profile because they’re not sure what to create a list about. Some local businesses use lists to support local cultural stuff or to promote their partnering companies, support local emergency authorities, etc.. Some national organizations use them for listing need-to-know organizational contacts or store locations. Whatever the reason you use lists, just make sure you’re respecting the privacy of any individuals who may want to remain anonymous. Private consultants can use lists to show personal breadth of interests, but corporations, government agencies and other orgs should probably just keep it official and PR-friendly.

That’s it. Have questions? Just ask. If you’ve already tried some of these tips out, let me know how these worked for you (or didn’t).

[tweetmeme source=”MarkBrimm”]

–About the Author:

Mark Brimm is Digital Marketing Director for Interface Communications Group and SocialLabsMedia.com, as well as Founder of Marcana and co-author of AdWords University: The Complete Guide to AdWords. He is currently writing a forthcoming book on social media strategy.

Are You Telling People You Got Nothing?

Doesn't everybody already assume that you're going to do something with the ball?

[tweetmeme source=”MarkBrimm”]

 

It seems a small thing. The little URL that Twitter gives you in your profile. Many simply don’t have a URL to promote. Or maybe some think it’s unseemly to do so. But when you think on it, it’s the only link to the rest of the you that’s waiting for your followers, and especially your growing fans. If you don’t have a URL, you’re probably not focused enough on what you’re doing on Twitter.

 

People use Twitter for many reasons, one of which is pure socializing. I get that, but it’s not a long-term strategy. No one is purely a social being. We need to eat, earn a living, make plans. No one expects  you to be one-dimensional. Having something to share, even if you’re not selling anything, is a crucial part of your Twitter profile. It tells people “there’s more here if you ‘d like to go there.” Sooner or later, there are going to be people who want to go deeper into “you”. I try not to have a profile that doesn’t have a purpose other than being social.

There is really just one good way to post your Twitter profile URL: in as short a number of characters as possible, preferably with your brand right up front, preferably without a “www’ getting in the way. If your domain name is simply too long to be seen at a glance in the profile, then use a shortened version. What’s more, you should pick a domain that is focused on one particular type of activity, or at least make sure your URL matches the nature of the tweets for that profile.
  

I came to realize early on that without a clearly defined purpose, a Twitter profile simply falls flat in the scheme of things. A URL is a clearly defined way to introduce that purpose, even if it’s not something you’re trying to shout at the top of your lungs. Just sayin’? [tweetmeme source=”MarkBrimm”]