Twitter is a powerful social media platform for businesses to engage customers, get feedback, and share information. The document provides tips for businesses to use Twitter effectively, including registering a professional Twitter account, following relevant accounts, using tools like TweetDeck to manage tweets, engaging with customers by asking questions and sharing content, and measuring success through increased engagement and feedback. Setting up a Twitter business presence requires understanding best practices like regular interaction, contributing to discussions, showing appreciation, and sharing company updates and successes.

1. Twitter for Business
Beginner’s guide to advance with Business Communication

2. The power of Social media had exceeded the limits of just getting in
touch with people to corporate branding.
Gone are days where people thought social networking as a non
Productive Platform, today from PR to HR all Business functions relay
on Social Media for their allied activities.
Now, let us look at some interesting Social Media facts.
Radio took 38 Years to reach 50 million users
Television took 13 Years to reach 50 million users
Internet took 4 Years to reach 50 million users
Ipod took 3 Years to reach 50 million users
Facebook took 9 Months to reach 100 million users
There are 1, 00,000,000 Video‘s in Youtube
Globally there are 2, 00,000,000 active blogs
A research study by Time Magazine says Social networking sites are
more popular than Porn sites.
People, are totally engaged than ever before. Social media had given a
way to variety of jobs across all industries.
How engaged are people in Social media?
73% of active online worldwide users have read a blog

3. 45% have started their own blog
39% subscribe to an RSS feed
57% have joined a social network
55% have uploaded photos
83% have watched online video clips
Now, 75% of the people spend at least one hour a week on social
networking sites and 19% spend more than 7 hours a week
You know, your boss is more active than you in social networking sites
Over four in 10 (43%) CEOs use online social media at least a few
times per week
20% have used social media to communicate with stateholder
groups. Of those, Facebook was the most popular (78%), then
MySpace (44%), YouTube (44%), Twitter (19%)
62% of CEOs believe social media can have a much larger impact
on reputation on sales of their products and services.
Numbers do not lie, now with an understanding that you wanted social
media to serve for the success of your brand, we are going further ….
Hundreds of tools are available to serve you with the same cause out of
which Twitter has lately become the most popular and productive
social media tool that can help you enhance your brand

4. Twitter is one such micro blogging platform which is been used widely
across the globe for business.
Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that allows
you answer the question, "What are you doing?" by sending short text
Messages 140 characters in length, called "tweets", to your followers
(In business they can be your customers)."
Some interesting facts, about Twitter
Twitter had grown 1,382% between February 2008 and February
2009 and expected to have over 100 million users by 2010, and
250 million in 2011
Around three million tweets are posted on Twitter every day
This e-book would primarily give you a clear insight on how to use
Twitter for Business.
However, Why Twitter?
Twitter is a Public Instant messenger
Twitter helps you to keep the market updated about your status.
You get a chance to interact with your customer base
Keep up on the buzz in your industry
Networking - Business is all about networking

5. How do I get started with Twitter?
Step 1: Register with Twitter
Step 2: Have a Professional Template or a Template, which would suit
your Business activity
How do I do it?
There are few sites which give free downloads of the Twitter Themes.
www.twitpaper.com
www.twitterimage.com
www.twitterbackgroundsgallery.com
If your want the logo to be a part of your Twitter Page, Just download
the Image of your Logo in a .JPEG format and upload it in Twitter (See
the below image for a Better Understanding)

6. Step 3: Start following people, make sure you follow who can
contribute to the community.
It is always better to have Like-Minded people in the Books.
Example: If you are a Web 2.0 Product based Company, follow People
who have a passion or at least interest in Web 2.0. Reason being People
who you follow will start sharing their Opinions and Feedbacks that
can help in Product Enhancement.
Try: www.search.twitter.com
Twitter search is an inbuilt option that helps you to find like-minded
people.

7. There are Some Third Part Sites, which can help you in finding them.
www.twellow.com
(They claim to be Twitter‘s Yellow Page; It gives you industry wise
Twitters.)
www.twitter.grader.com
(This helps you to find Twitters Local to you, Say you can find all
Twitters who live in ―LA‖ through their search feature.)

8. Step 3: Chose your Tool
Many third party vendor applications make your Twitting experience a
glorious one. (Instead of using www.twitter.com you can download
these desktop tools which has more inbuilt features and the interface is
also good)
TweetDeck shows you everything you want to see at once, so you can
stay organized and up to date.
TweetDeck serves the purpose of easy tweeting with an excellent
Interface and with TweetDeck, you can manage multiple twitter
accounts.
If you are a company with three major services, you can have three
different twitter accounts for three different services in a single
window, this way you will be in constant touch with the users of all
three services.
Google has more than 50 accounts for all their online services, also
many organizations in Service Industry had integrated, twitter with
their customer service department to serve customers online.

9. How does Tweetdeck works?
User Interface:

10. Features: (From TweetDeck Webpage)
Twhirl
If you find Tweetdeck as an application that is bigger in size then you
need to try Twhirl, which is comparatively very smaller and an
application with self explanatory feature.

11. User Interface:
Features: (From Twhirl Webpage)

12. The Most important aspect about Twhirl – it is small and sleek, which
makes your Twitting Experience wonderful.
Online Applications:
CoTweet: If you feel you do not want a desktop Twitter application
then you can opt for CoTweet a complete web based application that
will remind you of your Outlook Mail Box.
CoTweet has an option to integrate multiple Twitter accounts that you
hold for different services.

13. CoTweet is a Simple application with good interface and Integration, it
has an additional Option to schedule your Tweets
CoTweet is the most popular Web Based Twitter Application which is
been used by Corporate.
Other Online applications:
After choosing you desktop Twitter application, you still have to
explore the online applications to create more visibility for your brand.
www.twtpoll.com
Opinions make great products
An interactive application that can help you conduct polls, here you get
a chance to conduct mini surveys with multiple Question Types
(I strongly recommend this because feedbacks can help you to enhance
your service)

14. www.Tweetube.com
Now video Tweeting is possible through Tweetube. Upload the videos
on any Video sharing portal, fetch the URL of the Video and share it
with your members.
Through Tweetube, you can keep a track of the Video‘s that are
uploaded from your end month to month.
The video can be a Birthday celebration/Product Launch/Interview of
your companies Top Team member, which you would like to share with
your customers/followers
www.twitpic.com
Twitpic has become one of the most popular Twitter applications that
allow you to share the Pictures with your Twitter Connects.
www.monitter.com
Monitter does exactly what it is supposed to do. Yes, it tracks the
visibility of your brand through your search options.
If suppose organization is put-up in LA and you wanted to know what
people speak about your brand in California, monitter helps you in
finding it.
www.exectweets.com
ExecTweets – A web based Twitter application by Microsoft, which
helps you to follow Top Business Executives in Twitter.

15. This can help you in two ways.
You may get to know, if they are in need of your kind of service
You get to interact with Leaders across diversified businesses
Step 4: Best Practices
Interact with the Members
Contribute to the Ongoing Conversation.
Convey your Thoughts.
Appreciate ideas. (There is an option called Retweet(RT) with
twitter. if you find an Interesting Tweet by any of your members,
you can actually RT the same message which calls for an
appreciation)

16. Make the Forum more interactive
Engage your followers
Ask for Opinions
Listen to your customers and their Concerns about the product
Listen to what the market speaks about your Opponents (an
Outsiders View is always different from what you normally hear
from your customers)
Take the Feedbacks more constructively; this can make your
product Robust.
Share interesting facts: about the growth of your industry
Link to articles and contents of your website (White
Papers/Presentations/videos)
Use Twitter to announce Job Openings – You might get
immediate responses
Use Twitter to announce discounts and offers
Focus on the conversations that matter — Know when you need to
jump in.
Find your prospects through Twitter (People may be more
interested in your service)

17. Step 5: Share your Success
Twitter, can be used as an extension of your Corporate Blog.
1) Share the links from your corporate website with Twitter.
2) Share the New Product or Service enhancement details through
Twitter
3) Share the details of corporate honors, Awards and Accolades.
4) Share the details of Service Offers and Promotional Activities.
5) Share the details of New Product launch.
6) Create a curiosity of ―What Next?‖
When your share the details make sure, you provide the authentic links
and Source.
For links (URL) which are very big in length use www.is.gd to shorten
the URL (Most of the time twitter does it)
Note: With one twitter account, you can explore all these tools. You do
not need to register repeatedly.

18. About the author:
The author is a Social Media Evangelist/Marketing Blogger, whose avid
interest in the field of marketing and technology has helped him to
keep pace with the latest trends.
He works as a ‗Marketing Analyst‘ at Hyderabad, with a leading
research firm headquartered in San Francisco and aspires to contribute
more to the field of ‗Creative Marketing‘.
Email: hairaman@gmail.com
Phone: +91-9704165275
Blog Space: www.iamshiv.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/hairaman
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/iamshiv
Download my other e-Books:
15 Essential Online Tools for Marketers
What Makes a Great Marketer?