When we make that social, we can see how we can create a more holistic approach which helps us to do this:

We can identify customer requirements when we run a social business by:
- Connecting with our customers and prospects online and Twitter
- Getting involved in their conversations with the focus on adding value and helping them out
- Listening to the language they use and what they like and dislike – what I have heard called the “unfettered conversation”

When we know all this through getting listening, and getting involved and being useful, it becomes much easier to anticipate customer requirements.
- We are already involved and hear what they are talking about
- We’ve got a relationship with them to be able to reach out and ask their opinions
- We can use tools like polldaddy to directly ask our twitter audience what they think, or use a link shortener to ask them using another online survey service
- We can see the response to what tweeps are interested in online, as a small tester for content that works and that we can create more of.

And as a result of all of this, we are in a much better place to satisfy our customer requirements. We are there when we hear things going wrong and are able to fix them, faster. We can use our contacts to put them in touch with the relevant people. And we have programs, products and content which we’ve taken the time to get feedback on, so we’ve built in ways to meet customer satisfaction up front.

Running a social business may not be the way you are used to working, but I think it adds a whole new level of engagement and discussion with your audience.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Marketing Benefits of Running a Social Business

CoTweet.com is a powerful Twitter-centric web application designed to help brands connect with their audience and join the conversation. Although used by some large companies such as Ford, Pepsi and Whole Foods I’ve seen little mention of the tool in the blogosphere and thought it deserved some attention.

Why use CoTweet.com?

• Integrated monitoring and response. By going to cotweet.com/search (after signing up) you can monitor any keyword you wish in a column-based interface. What’s particularly brilliant though is that you can quickly reply to tweets and are given plenty of options including an integrated URL shortener and the ability to schedule your responses.
• Fast and sleek interface. The problem I’ve found with most desktop applications like TweetDeck is they run fairly slow and consume large amounts of resources (mainly at the fault of Adobe Air I believe). CoTweet on the other hand is surprisingly fast and has a sleek Mac-like interface. It looks good but is not overpowering either; a good balance between aesthetics and usability.
• Support for multiple accounts. Many bloggers have multiple Twitter accounts to either differentiate between business and personal or for different projects. CoTweet handles multiple accounts beautifully making it easy for solopreneurs to connect with a range of markets and larger companies to widen their Twitter presence.
• Suitable for teams. For some this’ll be the killer feature. To my knowledge CoTweet is the only Twitter tool that allows multiple users to have access to the same account and assign different tweets to those users. Very useful if you’re a larger company with multiple staff managing the Twitter account, or if you’re running your business as a partnership.
• Gives you all the information you need. Simply click on the username of a Twitterer and a sidebar slides out with every detail about that user, a button to quickly follow that user and also access to past conversations you’ve had with them.

How to use CoTweet.com Effectively

1. Understand search filters. Twitter has quite powerful search filters that most people don’t make use of. Since CoTweet uses Twitter’s API, these same filters apply. A previous guest post on TwiTip covers 7 ways to use Twitter search, so that’s a good starting point. The simplest way to make use of search filters when using CoTweet is to add the line “-from:YOURUSERNAME -RT” (without the quotes) whenever you want to track a certain phrase. This hides your own tweets from and stops re-tweeted content from showing up to prevent duplication.
2. Monitor beyond your brand. Monitoring your own brand is certainly important but will unlikely give your exposure beyond your current boundaries. Consider monitoring:
   • Hash tags. Jump into the conversation beyond specific mentions of products.
   • Names (and Twitter usernames) of industry figures. One thing I do is monitor tweets that mention @tferriss because I know people interested in Tim might be interested in my site, and this gives me a chance to connect with them.
   • Other brands. See how the conversation is flowing around your competitors. If you start seeing trends (like, dislikes etc) you can work them into your overall strategy. Twitter’s search is essentially free market research.
3. Embrace every connection. No connection is worth more or less than any other connection. Reply to and connect with as many people as humanly possible. This may not be effective time-wise, but surprisingly strong bonds can be built in less than 140 characters.
4. Track results with bit.ly. By going to the Integrations tab under Settings you can connect your bit.ly accont to CoTweet. Whenever you use CoTweet to tweet a link you’ll be able to track the number of clicks it gets via the bit.ly interface. This is great for gauging interest in content you share so you can accurately tailor your tweets to your audience.
5. Read the official documentation. There’s plenty of features built in to CoTweet and for some it may be a tad overwhelming (especially those working at larger companies who have a bad case of inertia). Luckily they realised that and there’s plenty of detailed documentation.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



How To Use CoTweet To Join The Conversation

A subtly confusing aspect of Twitter, even for people who have been using the service for a while, is understanding the differences between replies, mentions and direct messages. These concepts are confusing because they’re different than E-mail and aren’t necessarily the same as on other social networks like Facebook. The goal of this piece is to help well-meaning people from inadvertently annoying others on Twitter, or worse, accidentally sharing private information publicly.

This piece describes replies, mentions and direct messages in terms of how they’re used from the Twitter web interface. Once you understand how things work on Twitter’s website it’s easy to map these things to use within Twitter clients like TweetDeck or TwitterBerry.

This is part 1 of a 2 part series. Today we’ll talk about replies:

Replies

In it’s simplest form, a reply occurs when you see something that another user has tweeted and you want to respond to it in a public way. A reply is any tweet that starts with “@” followed by a user name.

For example, if I wanted to respond to the following tweet I’d click on the reply button:

…and then the Twitter “What are you doing?” box changes to a “Reply to” box and the text is populated with “@makerstable:

I’d then fill out my reply and click the reply button to send the tweet:

@makerstable would then see this tweet appear in her Twitter feed -and- it would also appear in her list of “Tweets mentioning @makerstable”. This last point is important because “Tweets mentioning” or “mentions” for short provide a way for users to notice the tweets that are most important to them- tweets about themselves!

A reply doesn’t necessarily need to be a response to a specific tweet. It can be simply a message to a specific Twitter user. For example, if I simply wanted to ask someone on Twitter a question I could say “@BostonTweet Who makes the best burrito in Boston?” Further, the person you’re targeting with the reply doesn’t even need to be someone you follow on Twitter. You can reply to anyone and it doesn’t even need to be a response to something specific they’ve said recently.

When you reply to a user, that tweet is viewable to everyone on Twitter. However, it will only appear on other users’ Twitter feeds if they are following the person that the tweet starts with. Say for example you follow @makerstable in the example above. You would see my tweet that was a reply to her in your Twitter feed. If you weren’t following @makerstable, you would not. Either way, if you viewed all of my tweets (by clicking on my username in Twitter) you’d see this tweet.

How to use replies:

Replies are a great way to engage people on Twitter. It lets people know that you’re listening to what they’re saying and not just following their updates. It’s also a great way to respond to people who aren’t following you but have asked a question that you might be able to help with. Say you own a wine shop and you sell a particular wine. You could create a Twitter search for that wine and when you noticed someone tweet “Does anyone know of a wine store in Boston that sells Cakebread?” You could reply to them and let them know that you do. Using Twitter as a lazyweb can be powerful.

How not to use replies:

It’s not really that useful to frequently reply “ha!” “lol!” or “so true!” to something someone has said. This can be annoying when a group of people with similar interests follow each other and your well intentioned tweets begin to fill up someone’s Twitter feed. Also, it’s not a good idea to reply without providing context. Twitter has a notion of threaded conversations, but it also moves pretty fast so it’s a good idea to reply with context as to which tweet you’re responding to. Instead of “lol!” say “@mnik That’s hilarious! Whenever I hear the word ‘webinar’ I cringe too.”

Important points to remember about replies:

• Replies don’t necessarily need to be responses to something specific someone has said
• Replies are public so be careful what you say
• You can reply to someone even if you’re not following them
• Limit the use of inconsequential replies. Some people don’t like it when Twitter is used as a chat room.

Question of the Day: What other nuances about about replies weren’t obvious to you when you first started using Twitter?

[Read Part 2 of this post here]

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Concise Guide to Understanding Replies, Mentions and Direct Messages on Twitter – Part 1 of 2

As useful and fun as Twitter can be, it can also be both addictive and a major distraction. Many times in the past I’ve tried to write a blog post or work on some other big project and I’d lose my focus because I had Twitter open and kept getting drawn to it, wanting to tweet something, see what others were tweeting or just reply to somebody. Of course, this is a common and well documented problem with most social media sites, but I’ve found Twitter to be particularly bad, if for no other reason that it’s so simple and quick to use.

It’s now increasingly documented that multi-tasking, and just generally allowing distractions into your life is a poor way of getting things done. If you’re tweeting while trying to do your work, that work will take much longer and require more effort to do. If you don’t want to waste your time like that, try implementing these four tips when using Twitter:

Set limits

The first, and perhaps most effective measure is to set limits. That could involve having particular days on when to tweet, setting time limits or even tweet limits (how many tweets you will make per day). Rather than dipping in and out of Twitter when it calls to you, putting aside perhaps an hour a day or choosing Saturday to use it when you know you’re going to be least busy, means you can really give your tweeting the attention it deserves, and thus shut it out of your mind the rest of the time.

Identify what you want to achieve

You like Twitter. You use it regularly. Why? Why are you craving all those followers and tweeting fifty times a day? So many people use Twitter without understanding what they’re getting out of it. Are you trying to promote a product? Make new friends? Interact with interesting people? Identify what you want to get out of your Twitter experience so that you can tweet with purpose and focus. Tweeting for the sake of it is a very easy-but-bad habit to slip into.

What value are you offering?

Sorry to say it, but the vast bulk of tweets are irrelevant. Tweeting every little thought and activity you have and do is pointless (and it has indeed caused Twitter a lot of ridicule in the past). If you think a little before each tweet as to whether it has value, meaning and worth, both to yourself, your followers and the wider audience, you will make your overall Twitter experience and the time you put into it much more satisfying and meaningful.

Cut out distractions

When I originally downloaded Tweetdeck, as useful as I found it to be, it was initially also a big attention whore. Beeping every time it updated, refreshing every couple of seconds… it was so distracting, it was difficult to not be drawn away from whatever else I was doing. I’ve now tamed it to the point where I can look at it when I want to. The same goes for whatever app you use, including any email notifications you might get from Twitter. And of course if that doesn’t work, just use the golden rule – close Twitter until you’re ready to use it!

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Tame The Beast: How To Use Twitter So It Doesn’t Suck Up Your Time And Attention

Do you own a small business? Are you having a hard time understanding Twitter?

As a small business owner and social media user going on two years now, I can honestly say that initially I did not really see the point or power of Twitter at all.

However, after sticking it out passed the learning curve, picking up a couple of followers, and following really intelligent people, thanks to Twitter, I get to make connections and learn something new every day. In fact, at this point I feel like Twitter is a tool that all small business owners should use as part of their overall efforts to build a distributed social media footprint.

Nevertheless, if you are like many in the small business community who have tried Twitter without success, then you might be fond of saying, “I just don’t get it.”

For numerous small business owners (including myself at one point in time) who are new to Twitter, and social media in general, there appears to be a common misconception that as soon as you sign up customers are going to fall from the sky in droves and you will immediately be inundated with more business than you can handle.

Small Business Twitter Frustration
Amongst the business people that I discuss Twitter with there appear to be two types of discouraged small venture owners who give up on Twitter at rapid rate.

Frustrated business owner number one feels like Twitter is analogous to entering a large cocktail party or hotel lobby where she doesn’t know a single soul. Yet, conversations are happening all around her and rather than trying to ease into the discussion, she gives up without talking to anybody because the sheer numbers are overwhelming.

Disgruntled Twitter quitter number two is the complete opposite of number one. He will get on Twitter, see all of the conversations going on, and assume it is the customer “candy store.” This leads to the sending out of many spammy messages, which spew forth details about his great products and prices. He will typically stop using Twitter when to his surprise nobody follows him back and he doesn’t receive one @ reply.

Twitter Tips to Help Small Business Owners
Recently, a friend asked me to help him with that “Twitter thing” because he wants more customers for his niche jewelry business.

After our very long discussion and Twitter run through, I thought that perhaps there might be other business owners out there who are beginners on Twitter and could use some help. Here are the 20 tips that I passed on to my friend:

1. Twitter is first and foremost a place to connect, learn, and listen.
2. Define your goals if you have any (e.g. business promotion, socializing, etc).
3. If you’re confused about where to begin on Twitter, but are interested in learning, take a look at the previously done Twitip post that highlights key people for beginners to follow.
4. Twitter allows you to interact with individuals who you might not normally come into contact with. If you want to interact with a celebrity or a person with a huge following then send a simple @ message or comment on something they are doing. If you get a response you can then take it from there.
5. Don’t be offended if folks don’t follow you back. It’s not personal. (Even if it is, it doesn’t really matter.)
6. Use a photo of yourself or your business logo in you profile.
7. If you’re interested in connecting with someone you might want to try ReTweeting some of their messages before you introduce yourself.
8. It’s probably going to take a good 3 to 6 months to get a following.
9. Find out who the influencers are in your industry and see if they are on Twitter. If they are, follow them.
10. Always follow Jeff Pulver’s rule of giving 95% of the time and asking only 5% of the time.
11. Utilize a Twitter photo-sharing site like TwitPic or Yfrog to share cool photos from your typical business day, or while plying your craft, so that people get to know you. It helps to build social trust.
12. Use Twitter Search with keywords to find information and conversations that are relevant to your business. It’s also a good way to find out if anyone is talking about you or your company.
13. If you are not part of a particular conversation that concerns your area of business, but you would like to participate, approach with caution.
14. If you are sending DM’s to your followers with something related to your business, make sure to use your social capital wisely. Overwhelming folks with DM’s can result in a rapid loss of followers
15. Don’t Tweet anything that you would not want to see on the front page of a newspaper or wildly famous website.
16. Do interact and connect and don’t hesitate to @ message folks who have 10x or 100x the number of followers you have.
17. Employ sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Reddit to find, and share amongst your followers, interesting stories from your particular area of business.
18. Create connections don’t spam. You most likely would not just walk into a crowded venue where you don’t know anyone and say, “Hi my name is Bob and I replace window screens and have great prices.” This method does not work very well on Twitter. (Should be a given but you still see it every day!)
19. Twitter is only one area online where you can begin to build a distributed social media footprint for your business. Do NOT rely solely on Twitter as your social media business promotion tool.
20. It takes a long time to build up a following and develop trust, but it only takes one Tweet to alienate every one of your followers.

To be sure, on a daily basis we are all trying to figure how best to utilize Twitter effectively as a small business tool. Certainly, this is not a be all end all list, so your thoughts and input on how small business can better tap into Twitter are appreciated.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



20 Must Read Beginner Twitter Tips for Small Business Owners

Now that you’ve joined the twitter bandwagon, you’re trying to figure out the best way to attract quality followers to your twittosphere. I don’t know too many folks who want a wave of spam bots following them, but sometimes that’s what we might end up with if we’re not careful with our twitter approach. What’s a twitter newbie to do when she’s new to the twitter-scene? Use the following twitter tips to create a presence that’s both clear and notable:

1. Did you create your twittosphere for a professional agenda? Identifying your niche market is the first key to attracting the audience you want on twitter. It’s also the most excellent way to develop enticing tweets to engage twitter users. If you’re on twitter for pure professional grounds, then you must offer tweets that invite potential clients. Remember, consumers (whether in virtual time or real time) want value for their purchasing dollar. As a professional twitter-tweeter, you must provide quality and relative information regarding your product (or service). And just like any bricks-and-mortar business, friendly small talk is in order. Tell twitter users about yourself — how you got started in your business, why you got started in your business, why you feel strongly about your business, who facilitates your business, and what makes your business a step ahead of the grain. Add a splay of links to your Website…but tread carefully; too much of a good thing isn’t always the best method to earn patronage. Offer links to associated information as well. There’s a right way and there’s a wrong way to achieve professional success on twitter. If every tweet contains a link, you’re probably talking at your twitter base – that’s the wrong way. If your tweets offer engaging dialogue, a random splay of links, and an answer/question-type format, you’re communicating with your twitter base - that’s the right way.

2. I joined twitter to establish friendships. If you joined twitter simply for personal reasons, then you’ve got just about free reign on how you approach your twittosphere. Common sense, however, plays a major role in how you develop and expand your personal twitter network, too. Don’t be the twitter playground bully and expect people to like you. If you come onto the twitter playing field to simply dump your negative energy, then you won’t attract quality friendships. Instead, you get what you receive: misery loves company.

Monkey-see, monkey-do… Our twitter followers often mimic our personalities (and visa vie) to some degree. For example, if you share music through Blip.fm or other twitter-aligned musical sites, you’ll find that your followers are more than likely music connoisseurs. If you like baking pies and pastries, your followers can probably offer you the latest recipe for homemade apple pie. And that is what it’s really all about; twitter — that is. Twitter is the social networking scene that allows ordinary…and sometimes extraordinary folks to strike common grounds in a mutual network of millions. Where else in the world can you go and have the opportunity to touch the mind, heart, and spirit of multi-generational cultures, creeds, and races?

3. Love…American style: I want to find true love on twitter. While twitter is a great social networking portal, I can’t say whether or not true love has blossomed on this media giant. Just like any social scene, individuals must exercise caution when attempting to develop any relationship – personal or otherwise. Unless you can confirm a potential significant other’s intent beyond a shadow of a doubt – tread carefully.  In today’s fast-paced virtual society, we get easily side-tracked by the now-moment of time. This often translates into making ourselves readily vulnerable to online predators, which have less-than-desirable intentions. Don’t offer personal information (home phone number, address, etc.) unless you absolutely trust an individual. Just because it’s twitter, doesn’t make it safer.

4. Trying to expand your group’s reach? If you’re like other hobby-loving creatures of habit, then twitter is perfect for you and the expansion of what it is you like to do. It’s also an excellent venue to expand outreach for independent causes like cancer, the Humane Society, and Eco-friendly organizations, among others. If your intention is to acquire more members and/or support of your cause, twitter gives you the perfect platform to get in contact with interested individuals. On twitter, you can post your concerns, your needs, and your goals. Learn who is researching resolutions, how you can become part of the solution, and where you can go to learn more. That works, too, if you’re offering information and resources about your group. But again, remember to keep your conversations light and friendly. Too much chatter and not enough dimensions to your communication can be a real buzz-kill.

5. I want to explore my philosophical side on twitter. Now that’s a topic I can personally get into. On twitter, there’s an explosion of diversity. From orthodox religious individuals to those seeking Zen enlightenment — spirituality and philosophy is alive and well here. Twitter is home to psychologists, spiritual mentors, personal and professional coaches, psychics, astrophysicists, astrologists, astronomers, actors, musicians, clerics, engineers, and more. The best part about the twitter climate is that every one has something to offer to the virtual hemisphere of knowledge. Teaching and learning is an everyday occurrence on twitter because it’s almost guaranteed that you will learn something new each time you login. And if you’re a real people-person, you’ll be able to share your ideas, philosophies, theories (and maybe conspiracies)…and in return, you’ll gain a wealth of retrospection, investigation, and potential answers.

Most importantly, keep it real on twitter. Don’t go beyond your area of expertise. Don’t lead individuals on with superficial tweets. Don’t give advice when no one has asked for it. Don’t be rude. And yes, learn how to “listen” on twitter before you respond; part of being a good communicator, means knowing what to tweet and when to tweet it.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



5 Common Sense Twitter Tips To Keeping It Real On Twitter

As Twitter continues to define its niche, many companies are hiring individuals for the sole purpose of being the brand’s face on Twitter. For companies with a bigger grasp of the online scene, these individuals often do much more than just Tweet, but being the brand’s bird is still a crucial part of the job. Since being a professional micro-blogger is a new experience for most people starting the position, I thought it would be helpful to offer some advice based off of my experiences.

Be Colorful

There are a variety of ways a company can approach Twitter, but the one that will excite customers the most and produce industry conversations is approaching Twitter in a personable, lively, and chatty manner. Your natural instinct may be to place professionalism as the rule of thumb for all of your tweets; I know it was for me. But when it comes down to it, behind all of the corporate Twitter accounts, and all of the non-corporate, are real live people. They’re just not interested in talking to a company that feels stiff and rigid. People are eager for a new kind of company that still offers them the services and products they want, but will talk to them like people. This remains true even if your company’s product is b2b and not aimed directly at consumers. Ultimately, what matters is that all businesses are run by real people who are not interested in communicating with text on a screen – they are interested in communicating with other people. So, be colorful, liven up, be liberal with your use of @replies and spread some big smiles. It goes a long way.

Guidelines and Scenarios

This part might seem a bit somber and less happy-go-lucky-social media-lovey, but it’s important. There’s no doubting that being a colorful character is important to success on Twitter. If you want to create conversations, you have to be friendly and interesting. Because of this, you might start to feel like you’re getting paid to be a social butterfly. You are not. You’re getting paid to represent the company. It’s a very fine line between being a socially active company run by real people, and being an individual who isn’t afraid to speak his mind. When you’re the company bird, you should be afraid to speak your mind. You shouldn’t be panic stricken or quaking in your boots, but you should maintain a healthy fear of your own personality. The best way to make sure you are being true to the company is to have a good review of the company’s previous branding efforts and the image they have tried to create. Remember that you are a part of the marketing department and your actions encompass a wide range of activities from public relations to customer service. Keep the company’s goals in mind for their brand and image and use this as a guideline for checking those questionable tweets. Also, have a sit-down with your supervisors to go over possible scenarios. Make sure you are ready for common situations like: client interaction, new customer acquisitions, complaints, debates, questions on company policy (know your company’s policies like the back of your hand), and interaction with competitors (hint: be friendly). Knowing how to handle these scenarios will streamline your company’s interaction with the public, which is one of the biggest benefits of using social media for business. If you have to double check every response with someone else, then you are completely losing this benefit and arguably completely wasting the company’s investment in social media. By being properly prepared with a set of guidelines and potential scenarios, balancing your colorful character with the restrictions of being a brand representative will come much easier, and I promise you won’t end up looking like a sad ugly duckling.

Do More

Twitter is great. It provides a myriad of opportunities for individuals and brands to interact with each other. However, Twitter isn’t enough by itself. If your only responsibility at a company is Tweeting, you may consider what else you can do for the company. If you’re already in a position to take advantage of other mediums and forms of content, do so. There is a lot that goes into being a good company Twitterer, I know I’ve had my fair share of slip ups. But if you look at the top Twitter accounts, you’ll find that almost all of them create other forms of content. A brand that chooses a single medium, puts all of their eggs in that basket, and uses it as the sole means to create conversations is completely missing the mark. Marketing is a holistic engagement, and conversations occur much less frequently when they are detached from exciting and relevant content.

I hope this has been helpful to you if you’re starting a new job as a company tweeter or looking into the possibility of hiring for this position.

[Image credits: paraflyer and Ross Mayfield]

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Being the Brand’s Bird: Guidelines for the Professional Twitter User

Part 1 – Journaling
Part 2 – Link Lists
Part 3 – Conversations
Part 4 – Thought Leadership
Part 5 – Monetisation

Please share in the comments how you felt about this series! Would you like to see more series posts like this, or do you prefer the shorter, one-off posts?

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 6 – Corporatisation

Corporate Blogs only started really emerging within the last few years.  Apple, in particular, used blogging effectively in the launch of the iPhone – and it put them in a unique position to deal with teething problems when it first came out.  After their notable success, I saw other corporations start following suit.

Corporations only tend to adopt a trend once they are convinced it’s gone mainstream, or unless it’s going to give them enough of a competitive advantage to offset the ‘risk’.  When corporate blogging started emerging, the conventional media changed how they portrayed blogs – from thinking that blogs were a fringe element, to almost an unspoken assumption that this was a solid trend.  More stories about blogging started hitting the papers and radio, especially of the “blogging is dead” kind (that usually only happens when a trend is alive and well, and just taking off, funnily enough).

You’d have seen the same thing recently with twitter.

Of course some journalists had been writing about blogging for years, or even running their own blogs, but when huge companies that employ thousands (which usually means changes in policy and processes are incredibly slow) start making changes to incorporate a new technology like this, then the arguments about whether it’s worth doing tend to stop, interest spikes, and those who haven’t already adopted it start to massively jump on board so they’re not left behind.

That kind of mass entry, though, is bound to result in a change in user demographics.  With a change in the type of users and their focus, there was a change in the nature of blogging.

When blogging was about people and personalities, it attracted people and personalities. It was a form of remote friendship – hence the term ’social media’. Even when bloggers got big enough that their followers were more along the lines of fans than close friends, the relationship was still person to person.

Once blogging started including companies and corporations, it shifted away from that.  After all, a corporation doesn’t tend to have much of a personality. Instead, corporate blogging tends to be about communication strategies and customer relationships.  Where bloggers developed business plans, corporate blogging came in from the other end, and was designed to fit into their already existing business plans. It had to play nicely with other strategies and business methods already in place.  Corporate Blogging is an add-on part of doing business, where personal blogging was a form of business in itself.

Some early efforts tried to use blogs as a method to broadcast their catalog, exactly the same way some companies first thought to use twitter.  Most of those have learnt that online users want interactivity, not just advertising. Now, both blogs and twitter are being fit into the communication strategy as a two way means to provide support, as well as to broadcast notices.

Online computer and technology companies, of course, were the first to jump on board both trends. Dell computers, for example, has a whole page listing the twitter accounts for their various branches and departments. If you look at those, you’ll see that most of these twitter streams are about dialog (customer support and brand management) as much as about special offers – and that they also tend to point people off-site.  Interestingly they link not just to Dell pages, but include other social media, like facebook.

To a corporate brand, the twitter audience is only part of the customer equation.  Sure it’s important, and needs to be valued, but their objective is to connect with customers from anywhere and everywhere, AND cross link each segment to the others, to maximise the reach of their communication strategy.

The lesson to be learnt from this is a simple one.  Raise your sights.  Twitter is a means of communication, but should only be a part of your business strategy, not the entirety of it.  If you want to build a business online, don’t limit your focus to just your site and twitter – there’s the whole web out there, and to maximise your reach and credibility you need to be tapped in to more of it than just one tiny part.

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 7 - PR and Politics

As you know, the emergence of corporate blogging led to a shift in focus – and a similar thing is going on now with twitter.

When a person is building up their readership or follower numbers, they usually consider that an end in itself. The goal is to get the biggest score, right? For a corporate blogger or twitter account, though, it’s part of an overall strategy called “brand management”.  It’s not just about letting more people know about your company, it’s about controlling what impressions people associate with you – reversing any damaging publicity, building positive public relations, and turning bystanders into customers and then into raving fans who’ll go out and get you more customers.  Selling has already been covered under the post on monetisation, but the rest of it comes under the heading of “Branding”.

The professional bloggers had already picked up on this, and some were doing it even before the corporatisation trend hit.  Their blogs had become businesses, which meant that they had to include branding in their strategies.  Blog names became brands instead of individuals, even though we knew the individuals.  You subscribed and followed Problogger, Copyblogger, or the Fake Steve Jobs – even though you knew that you were respectively reading the work of Darren Rowse, Brian Clark or Daniel Lyons.

Once you create a brand, though, you need to protect and grow it.  I’m not just talking about legal actions here, either.  Brand managers use advertising and other online tools to keep growing brand awareness, and just as importantly, damage control any negative publicity.

This is where the dialogue side of blogging came into it’s true strength.  In the old days, if you bought, for example, a stale pack of potato chips, you MIGHT call the free customer number on the packet, and let the company know – especially if you thought they might refund or send you something in return.  Then again, you might have just gono over to a competitor brand and told all your friends about your bad experience, so they shifted too. The company had no way of knowing, let alone doing anything about it.

These days, besides the customer service phone lines, companies can actually seek out & respond to those conversations with your friends.  They can see that you’ve just written a post about how your latest juicer didn’t include the right attachments, and comment back – putting their customer relations out there for the world to see.  Facebook made the process faster, and of course twitter pushed it right up to real-time.

It’s probably this aspect of blogging, and then social media, that made politics jump into using it.  After all, I can’t think of a group more concerned about managing public opinion, perceptions and publicity than politicians. Can you?

Blogging – and twitter – are not just about responding to bad publicity – although they have empowered brands to do that as never before.  They also have a fantastic ability to generate positive publicity as never before.  It’s generally called “going viral”.

Here’s where the warning comes in.  Going viral is a great thing – IF it’s done correctly  (it can go horribly wrong) and if you’re prepared to take advantage of it (ask the numa numa guy).  If it happens accidentally and you aren’t set up to cope, you can end up looking worse than if you’d just grown your brand the slower, surer way.  Same if you try too hard, and it doesn’t come off.  Like fire, it’s not something you should play around with.

The main lesson you should probably get from this post is that if you’re building yourself as an online brand, you need to start nurturing it – monitoring & controlling the impressions people have of you. Social media is a great way, maybe even an essential way, to do it.

If you want to use blogging or twitter for explosive growth, you can take the risk and turn to the viral side. I do, however, highly recommend you learn the skill from the master, first. There is really only one world class expert on the ‘how to’ of going viral, and that’s Seth Godin. Yes, he’s on twitter too.

Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 8 (Final) –   The New Cycle

Blogs have been around for a while now, and there’s one aspect that keeps on recurring.  Before blogs the same trend was happening with websites.  Since it ties in so very strongly to a blogger’s success & reputation, even though it’s not noticeably happening within twitter, I believe that given time, it will.

I’m talking about the cycle of specialisation.

Yes, if you’ve been reading along, I have already started covering this in post 2 on link lists.  Developing a successful topic niche, though, is also tied in to a bigger cycle, and that’s what I’m going to talk about in this final post.

The big name bloggers all had topics they became known for writing about.  In the beginning, these topics emerged as the internet was evolving.  Being a webmaster used to be a topic, as did Internet Marketing, and Traffic Generation.

As each of these fields developed, they grew to cover a range of subtopics.  The field of Internet Marketing, for example, split to cover Copywriting, Article Marketing, Ezine Marketing, Pay Per Click Marketing and many others.  Each of these sub-fields then became niches that the next generation of writers adopted and became the go-to experts for.  The cycle has continued and now, as an example, the field of Pay Per Click Marketing is way too broad, and you look for someone like the Google PPC expert instead.  In another few years, that will have further developed into a new level of niche experts – and so the cycle goes.

Twitter, for now, is mostly seen as an add-on strategy for bloggers or webmasters, and the names already well known are expanding into offering content via twitter.  There will come a time, (provided it sticks around, of course) when it will have it’s own range of experts – microbloggers you go to for answers on emerging niche topics that blogs haven’t yet started to cover.

The strength of twitter as compared to blogs is its immediacy.  You look to twitter to find what’s happening right now.  We saw it come into its own in big events like the inauguration of Barack Obama, or even the Victorian bushfires in Australia.  It’s fantastic for covering breaking news, and if you happen to be the one breaking it, you become the celebrity go-to person instantly.  Of course, since everything happens so fast, that celebrity isn’t going to last very long once the next news item comes along, but that cutting edge of emerging niche areas is where the twitterati are going to emerge.

Researchers in specialist fields can get their results out instantly, and get the jump on others doing similar research by being the first one published.  Similarly, as new online niches develop, and search engines fail to find sites or blogs that cover them, it will be services like twitter that jump in and deliver up the names that are already talking about them, as well as what they have to say.

That’s where the window of opportunity lies.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Parts 6, 7 & 8

As blogging went mainstream, and more newcomers started flooding the market, the earliest bloggers were given a bit of momentum forward into the online equivalent of celebrity status – they were the trend-setters.

Not all of them took advantage of this push, though, while some of the newcomers rapidly adapted to blogging and took it by storm, getting their own place high up in the heirarchy with amazing speed.

The difference between these thought leaders and the majority of bloggers is the same difference we see affecting who gets promotions at work, makes it as a ’star’ in Hollywood, or even gets nominated to run the local Rotary Club.  It’s simply this: in order to lead others, you have to be willing to get out the front and lead others. Much easier said than done, I know.  After all, the ones that sit in front at school are picked on for questions, and it may be a movie cliché but the sketch about asking for volunteers to step forward, and one person gets picked because everyone else steps back, is more true than we’d like to think.  Leadership is something we’re not only encouraged, but trained to avoid.

If you want to go professional, though – on twitter, on your blog, or in life – you have to be willing to step out in front and take the risks and responsibilities that go with it.

Let me be clear here, though.  You don’t actually have to do this.  It’s not only possible, but fairly easy, to build up a modest following by taking the lessons of the last 3 posts on board; sharing of yourself, offering solid value and building relationships.  If you’re happy there, by all means stay there.For those willing to move on further, though, this is where you distinguish yourself from the pack.

The biggest lesson to advance yourself to this next level is: You have to be fearless – or at least appear to be (it’ll come if you fake it long enough).

You still need to edit what you say, but this is where you stop editing out those things you’re only holding back because of what others might think.  Be up front about what you believe every now and then, and if you get some controversy going, great!  People that don’t think along the same lines will either argue with you (getting you more publicity as well as giving you the chance to put your reasons forward) or if they’re really opposed to your thoughts, leave.

You may be surprised that this is where I tell you that’s a good thing.

The people who leave you because of something controversial you’ve said can actually get you more followers, believe it or not.  They talk about your stand, so they can tell people how they disagree, and some people come looking for you so they can see your side of the story (or so they can pick a fight with you too).  Some of them may stay.

To become a thought leader, you want to lead people who are happy to have you lead them.  I’ve already mentioned that most people are happier being followers than leaders (to paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, most people “prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.”) but the internet is big enough that you should find plenty of people who like your point of view, or at the very least admire you for having the strength of your convictions, and decide to keep watching.  That’s the nuts and bolts of how you start to get a following.

Next issue, we’ll cover one of the biggest topics in blogging, and rapidly in twitter too – turning that following into an income.  Monetisation.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 4 – Thought Leadership

The Blogging community grew bigger as more blogs were started, and existing blogs shared the love by linking to them.  Of course if you know SEO, you’d know that this meant the search engines started paying attention to these, and more people started discovering blogs. The community stopped being small, but started to distinguish between the well known and established bloggers, and the newcomers who were still learning the ropes.

This is where conversations come in.  Bloggers would read a new post by someone, with their editorial comments on it, and write an answering post on their own blogs. Naturally, this added fuel to the SEO fire, as cross linking gave blog sites some serious weight.  As the art took off and gained momentum, and more people wanted to start blogging themselves, software started making it easier to create and update your blogs, and eventually the ability to comment was born.

Enter the era of interactivity. (Don’t try saying that after a few drinks, ok?) Bloggers could now do more than just put their opinions out there – they could get feedback and, more importantly, develop a following.  For the bloggers that had come from the beginning, this was a major step forward – they could write responses, as well as just diarize their thoughts.  They could build their own reputation and grow their audience.

Twitter uses the @reply for exactly the same thing.  This is the essential tool for making contact with people you’re following, who are asking questions you know the answers to, or to catch the attention of people you’d like to connect with.

@replies turn twitter from a one way monologue into a dialogue.  They’re an important part of any twitter user’s toolbox.

The lesson you need to take from the successful thought-leaders of the blogging world in this stage, though, is the importance of holding conversations that include, and don’t exclude, your other followers.  Have you ever stood waiting at a party where someone you wanted to talk to was so involved in a one-on-one discussion that the rest of the room might as well not have existed?  That’s what you want to avoid.  Don’t cold-shoulder the room.

Remember that not everyone will know what you’re replying to when you send a response to someone else – try to phrase your reply so it’s not one-sided and people have no idea what you’re talking about.  Put it in context, like the second example tweet below.

@questionasker Pirates of Carribbean. Years ago.

@questionasker – last movie I went to see was yrs ago: Pirates of Carribbean”

Anyone reading the second one knows what you’re answering, and may even join the conversation.

Finally, It’s important to remember that, just like any party, conversation should be mixed with mingling, too.  Keep giving out comments and links that others can appreciate and/or react to (which can start more conversations). You build the community, AND your followers, that way.

© 2008 TwiTip Twitter Tips.



Twitter Tips for Beginners: Lessons from the Evolution of Blogging Part 3 – Conversations