Twitter Policies and Ideas
19th April, 2010
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This month I thought a little recommended reading for your use of Twitter – just to show that there is a lighter side to this. I’ll go through things section by section:
- Signing up
Should you use your name or your company name, or a name within your organisation. Honesty will answer this question – what are you using the service for, to tell your friends about the colour of your coffee, or to attract new customers or to provide actual customer service. - Your Settings
Take the time to go through the process, add a photo or yourself or a company logo, make your Twitter pages yours, write a profile and add a customised background so that you can get your branding across – it is seriously worth the extra 20mins it takes. - Incorporate Social Media
Twitter can be added to your Facebook Profile Fan Pages, add to your LinkedIn account, managed via Ping.fm and Hootsuite.com – make use of them all, join the dots to make your life easier. - Writing Tweets
I don’t need to say keep them short – but certainly include links, menetion other people if you can and make them varied a good rule of thumb is to only try to ‘sell’ something every 5th or so Tweet. Remember your audience and give them what they want to hear. - Followers
Do not subscibe to a ‘follower building’ service, be genuine – visit everyone that follows you, see what they are saying and decide if they are worth following or blocking. - Following
Different rules apply depending on your goal:- – if it is personal – only follow people you are genuniely interested in – you want to be able to keep up and it is easy to find yourself with a couple hundred Tweets to read each day… You want to be reading 50-100 Tweets really for it to be manageable.
- – it if is to generate sales – for everyone one person that follows you – visit them and follow at least two of their followers – you’re trying to expand your network with like minded people.
- – if it is for customer service – follow people that are communicating with you and talk about you (journalists for example) – you want to be able to respond to their needs and questions
- Customer Service
Twitter is the ideal platform for customer service – follow #easyjet to see how it is done, you only need to make a few general updates a week to ‘remind’ people you exist no more, but you must respond to all queries that come in. - Twitter Vs Newsletters
I want to finish by suggesting that Twitter is a far better, easier and cost effective way to post news to your clients, customers and consumers. Once someone is following you the attrition rate is very small. You can send out quick easy news – which is far eaiser than compling a complex newsletter and finally costs are virtually zero, you can remind people of your existance two or three a week instead of just once a month.
Twitter can be branded, and used in a multitude of ways, it can be a core part of your offering and it has the ability to offer comprehensive customer service, the effect on you is between 3 and 15 minutes work per day, either reading, writing or responding to your customers.
For help or advice on best practice for your Twitter policies contact me on [email protected].