Marketing Strategy

Twitter 202 – Now that it’s a new year…

… It’s time to wake up, shake off any End-of-Holiday Denial, and plug your brain back into its USB port.

If you’re anything like me, you gave your social media accounts a break over the holidays.  … no?  Oh well.  One day, I too will take my addiction devotion a step further.  But I digress.   2009 was the year the world learned Twitter 101.  We collectively passed that course – most people know what Twitter is and how it works.  So, welcome to your new class:  Twitter 202.

This year, twitter will only continue to grow as people become increasingly savvy about how to use it – for both socializing and business.  As such, everyone could use a few tips to keep ahead of the curve.  Here are some that I use myself:

Befriend Connectors. Connectors are Twitterers who spend a lot of time engaging in conversation.  You can tell them by looking at their profile:

- Tweets a lot – both on and off their usual topics

- Sends Re-tweets that are worth your time

- Engages in legitimate conversations (as opposed to blasting out links)

- Takes the time to make small talk with these people

If they like you, they will make your words heard to their legions of followers.

Choose your links wisely. Link to stuff your audience will like – it’s that simple.  Even if you use Twitter as a promotional tool, link to your own page judiciously.  You’ll only get so many chances before you’re on everyone’s ‘lameperson/spammo’ lists.  Conversely, how would you like to be on a list entitled ‘interestingpeepz’ or ‘coolcauses’?  That’s much better for business.

Get the #wurd out. Hashtags and keywords can help you find people interested in what you have to say.  Search for a keyword or hashtag, browse through the results, pick a user you like and strike up a conversation.  Odds are, you’ll end up following each other.

Build a storyline. If you want to engage your followers a little more, tweet in order.  This can be done in a couple of ways.  You can pre-write something you want to share and post it in parts.  You can also, in a less disruptive way, tweet about the same topic over a certain number of posts, in an order that makes sense.  Try referencing previous posts if they’re interesting and worth your followers’ time.

As the new year unfolds, there will be some of us who continue to tweet at random, spew links, spam, and otherwise bore the rest of us to tears with their Tweets.  However, as the world grows more aware of Twitter’s potential I predict that we will collectively tweet more coherently and intelligently.  Agree?  Maybe you’ve got some more tips and tricks to share.  Post here, or join our conversation on twitter.

Happy [belated] new year!

Alex

Tags: Marketing Strategy, Social Media, Twitter

Monitoring your brand on Twitter

A few years ago, consumers started looking at online reviews before buying a product or service. Today, who would buy a TV without first looking at different reviews and then finding the best price in a store nearby?

With the ever increasing presence of social media in our daily life, ordinary people have started to document their shopping experience. For example, if there is a line up in front of a restaurant, someone may write on Twitter: “stuck in front of XXX, my fav restaurant” with his cellphone. It doesn’t have a widespread impact because, unlike reviews, the number of people reading this messages will be limited. However, people that are reading this message will trust the sender and that innocuous cellphone message could have a deeper impact than a typical restaurant review.

Here are a few tricks to search for types of messages similar the cellphone example above. All the examples below are given with a fake brand named MegaBook.

1.    Look for your brand and add “:(” ex: MegaBook :(

2.    Use the “from:Twitterer” with someone famous. For example, if you’re in the social media business, “mashable” is a collective of web critics with a lot of influence. ex: MegaBook from:mashable

3.    Look for your brand with the “near” keyword ex: MegaBook near:Vancouver

4.    Search for unanswered questions for your product with “?” ex: Megabook ?

Finally, what do you do with all these conversations? Being in touch with your customers and engaging in conversations is a must; especially if your customer had a bad experience.

If your customer believes he received a bad service, respond as if you were speaking to him face to face.

1. Apologize. Even if it’s not your fault, the customer thinks it is.

2. Make sure you understand his problem. Reformulate and restate what you understand until you’re both on the same page.

3. Offer either excuses or something special (not necessarily free goods) that will encourage your customer to return.

On the other hand, if your customer was happy with your service, just a quick work to say “thanks for supporting us” is usually more than enough.

Happy new year!

Taotao

eMarketing Strategist

Tags: branding, Marketing Strategy, monitoring social media, Twitter