Twitter For Business

Twitter for business
#twitterworkshop
By Andy & Sara Headworth

Today’s Workshop
What is Twitter?
Why Twitter has become so important so quickly
Why your business needs to take note
How to get started
Which Twitter tools and applications you should use
Real life example with someone in this room……..but who?

What is Twitter?
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access.

Twitter for business is not about……
sharing what you had for lunch today
wasting your time
about following what all the celebrities are doing each day
tweeting the daily news feed from your relevant industry
tweeting endless “buy my product/service” links
Twitter for business is about…….
building your brand
developing your business network
gaining new knowledge
listening to your customers
engaging

Why Twitter has become so important so quickly
7 Million users
6,000 SME’s using every day in UK
47% 18-34 age group
31% 35-49 age group
21% 50plus age group
40% US vs60% International

Twitter reached 23 million unique users in June
according to Compete, which was a 16 percent growth compared to May.

12 Big Twitter Questions
Will Twitter change the way you work?
Will traditional marketing die?
Are there now new rules of business because of Twitter?
Is newspaper advertising dead?
Will your staff need to spend all their time on Twitter?
Are you too busy for Twitter?
Is Twitter just for my kids?
Isn’t Twitter just a fad, surely it won’t last long?
Will Twitter instantly bring you business?
Shouldn’t we wait and ‘just see what happens’ with Twitter?
If we start using Twitter for business, won’t people criticise us?
Can Twitter add value to our business?

12 Big Twitter Answers
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
Yes

“Go fishing where the fish swim”

Of key relevance to a business considering using Twitter
Audiences aged above 25 have experienced a huge 84% growth in Twitter adoption over the past 6 months
20% growth happening within the 55+ age range
Isn’t this your customer / client base?

Ten reasons to use Twitter for business
Branding
Traffic
Networking
Notify customers immediately
Promote latest news
Find prospective corporate clients
Get feedback
Make friends with your peers
Track your competitors
SEO – your @name – inbound links – Google

Know your end goals before you start
Twitter is a powerful tool that can provide you access to a whole new world!. From networking to participating in stimulating conversations to building your brand and having some fun , you will get more out of Twitter if you begin with a goal in mind.
My goals on Twitter are:
Expand my network, by engaging with like minded people
Promote my brand (website, blog etc)
Identify potential business opportunities
Find new sources of knowledge (people and websites etc)
Sharing expertise , knowledge and opinion
Have some fun

www.twitter.com
Here
And don’t tick this box!

Register your names
Fill in the bio AND upload a photo
Make sure you enter your
website URL
Use one of the platforms: Tweetdeck or Seismic Desktop
And remember…
only140 characters

The Essentials
Tweet: an update message with a maximum length of 140 characters, visible by everyone including Google
Following:you see the tweets when people you follow update them
Followers: they see your tweets when you update Twitter
@replies:you reply with @username, and engage in conversation
Direct Messages: if you follow each other, you can send private direct messages to each other – DM’s
# hashtags: allows you to create categories, groups or topics for tweets that others can use as well

The Essentials
Cont’d
How to make sure you get people following you
You must have a photo (or logo) as your image
Your bio must be complete – it is searchable
Understand the dynamics of Twitter – don’t sell, share
Variety
Info-tweet
Re-Tweet (RT)
Help Tweet
Postman Tweet
Smiley Tweet - entertain
Finally the ‘you’ tweet
Engage with your followers
Don’t be afraid to disagree or comment
Develop a tweeting strategy
Keep message consistent
Be interesting NOT boring
Use other media – photos or video

Finding Followers
1. Twittersearch .com– the primary twitter search tool
2. Twitter peoplesearch.com - Twitter searches the “real names” people enter in their bio fields, it’s a good place to begin your search.
3. Tweepz.com -Tweepz lets you limit searches to specific parts of Twitter’s user information (like name, bio, and location), filter results by follower/following numbers, location, and other extracted terms, and greatly improves on the layout of the search results.
4. TweepSearch.com – TweepSearch lets you search by Twitter name or location, or search a specific username to get a list of all friends and followers.
4. TwitDir.com – TwitDir is another search engine
5. Twellow.com– Nearly 6 million Twitter user profiles are indexed in Twellow and placed into a huge number of categories. You can search the entire lot of profiles, or confine searches to a single category.
6. wefollow.com - It is a directory of Twitter users organised by interests.
Alternatively you can of course just x-ray Twitter with Google - put into Google;
site:twitter.com "add what you want to search for here"

Who do YOU follow and WHY?
At the beginning…………..anyone!! 
As your numbers grow, you need to be more selective:
Would you follow anyone, anywhere just because they followed you?
MLM, Porn, dating sites, geeks, quoters etc
Do you know what you like reading on twitter?
Your industry, promotions, gossip, news, competitors etc?
Would you follow people who keep trying to sell you something?
Would you follow someone if they had no bio, photo and didn’t engage ( @reply)
Would you be interested if all they do is sell their product/service?

Making Twitter Manageable
Tweetdeck
Seismic
desktop
…and of course mobile phones

My Top 10 Tools for Twitter
manages the scheduling of your tweets
www.socialoomph.com
feeds an RSS feed into your Twitter stream. This is how you can post your blog to Twitter automatically
http://twitterfeed.com
allows you to share photographs easily on Twitter
www.twitpic.com
automatically find you people to follow based on keywords
www.twollo.com
this great tool will tell you all the Re-Tweets (RT’s) on Twitter for a specific URL. Great tracking tool for your URL’s
BackTweets.com

Cont’d
http://bit.ly/ - this converts URL’s into short URL’s (as there is a 140 character limit in Twitter.) It also tracks your tweets
http://mrtweet.com/ - your Personal Networking Assistant for Twitter, helping you identify relevant followers, recommending you to other users
http://Tweetbeep.com– a tool that simply informs you when anyone is talking about you on Twitter
Google alerts – (not just for Twitter here) Just an awesome tool that searches Google and tells you when you are mentioned (whatever name you choose)
http://hashtags.org - allows you to create and track trends, keywords, subjects or groups
Sara’s Bonus
http://140it.com/- helps you get your tweets down to 140 characters!

Groups on Twitter
www.tweetworks.com- The best of the bunch because it’s so quick and easy to setup a group. Another good option is the ability to post messages just to your group or to the group and the public Twitter timeline at the same time.
Tweetdeck– create and track groups
Seismic Desktop - create and track groups

Hashtags #
The hashtag or #tag added to a tweet acts as way to create categories, groups or topics for tweets that others can use as well.
Create a hashtag by adding a hash symbol (#) to the front of an appropriate keyword as you write your Twitter update (for example, #twitterworkshop.
Track the tagged conversations that interest you. Twitter updates that include a valid hashtag are indexed at Hashtags.org, organized by tag, and available as individual RSS feeds. This means that you don't have to be a Twitter user to follow the conversation — it's visible to anyone.
Let’s say a group of folks are attending a workshop and tweeting their notes in real time. If everyone at that workshop were asked to add something like #mkt101 to their tweets, everyone present or not can see and share all the notes in one place.

Trending Topics
Top 10 Today
This is why they are a trend

Follow us on Twitter
@worthing
@sironasocialmed
@saraheadworth
@andyheadworth
01903
680048
Call us today to book one of our fixed price packages to help get you
started with social media

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Twitter For Business

by Andy Headworth on Sep 04, 2009

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Twitter For Business — Presentation Transcript