COMMUNITIES & CONVERSATIONS
@DELL
Microsoft Office O utlook .lnk
Stefanie Nelson
Dell Inc.

TWITTER
 What is Twitter?
 A little about the Twitter audience
 Why Twitter for Business
 Twitter best practices
Twitter don’ts

 How to measure success
2

WHAT IS TWITTER?
 Text-based, limit 140
characters
 No images, no pictures, no
apps
 Only those that follow you
on Twitter will receive your
Tweets
 But anyone can view your
Tweets and responses on
your Twitter page
 Users will Re-Tweet (RT)
what they like so their
followers can see it
 Direct Messages (DMs) go
only to the recipient
3

TWITTER AUDIENCE IS GROWING
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TWITTER AUDIENCE IS GLOBAL
Source: Twitter.com
5

WHY TWITTER?
 Your customers are there
 Your critics are there
Can a $35 membership at SAMs club
 And they are talking about you really save yu that much money?
Easter slice and bakes 99 cents
Just read in CE Pro that Best Buy will
at HEB, getchu some!
replace magnolia employees with
cheap labor. Is that true? Hmmmm!
JC Penny’s is my fav. store at the moment. Going
home tomorrow with my new purse (which is
Why doesn’t Walmart offer
awesomely green) and two new dresses.
paper bags?
I wish that walmart and costco would have Twitter is a great tool to
help influence how our
nursing/feeding rooms like malls.
brand is perceived

BEST PRACTICES

HAVE AN OBJECTIVE
Help change Increase reach for Address customer
perception of offer messaging to service issues
H&R Block being help rapidly move
only brick & bubbles of inventory
mortar and raise
awareness of
online and
software products

BUT BE FLEXIBLE
Began Twittering to communicate online
and software offerings, but discovered
that they could gain advocates by
helping people with tax questions
Began Twittering promos but
found a good way to engage
customers and improve CE
Social media is still evolving. Be prepared to evolve with it.
9

BE RELEVANT IN YOUR TWEETS
Know your target audience and speak to them

BE LOCAL
Speak to your
audiences in their
individual languages
Target retail
customers by giving
them information for
the store nearest
them
11

MAKE IT EASY TO FIND YOU
Use
“Follow us
on Twitter”
buttons on
you site, in
Create a page on your
your site highlighting marketing
Twitter offerings

BE SELECTIVE ABOUT WHO YOU
“FOLLOW”
• Follow everyone who follows
you if your focus is customer
care
• Otherwise, follow only other
Twitter accounts that are
relevant to your audience:
• Follow only other
company-owned Twitter
accounts to help raise
awareness of the other
properties (cross-promote)
• Follow other Twitter
accounts that post
information your audience
would find interesting
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TWITTER DON’TS
Don’t be inactive
Last Tweet in May
2007!
Auto DMs (direct messages) – don’t do canned
responses, especially with blatant sales pitch
Hey, thanks for following me! Here’s how you can
buy my stuff…

MEASURING SUCCESS
 Measurement/tracking
– Track your sales via tracking
URLs, toll-free numbers, etc.
– Interactivity: Responses and
Re-Tweets
– Problems resolved
– Brand perception over time
– What about followers?
– Go for quality over quantity
– Each of your 500 followers
may have 500 followers of
their own
– Interesting and relevant
messages are often re-
tweeted
15

KEY TAKEAWAYS
 Have an objective
 Speak to your target audience
 Be prepared to change your objective based on how
followers interact with you
 Make it easy to find you
 Tweet frequently (find your frequency sweet spot)
 Don’t Spam with auto-DMs
 Measure against your objectives
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Happy Tweeting!
17

OLDER THAN MOST SOCIAL MEDIA
AUDIENCES
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