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Top Five tips on harnessing Twitter for brands Author: Jamie Riddell, director of innovation, Cheeze
www.twitter.com/jamieriddell
www.twitter.com/cheeze_agency
The world’s gone Twitter crazy! You can’t visit a website or turn a page without reading about it - whether it’s
Jonathan Ross’ banter or
Nipp Tweeting from the Schipol air crash.Of course brands are keen to follow this trend and harness it to their own benefit. Some have been active for a while - smaller ones like
eSpares are doing a great job of harnessing the channel, larger brands like
Canterbury of New Zealand are just starting; and then you’ve got huge global brands like
Dell that have already seen over $1m of revenue from the channel. Charities are at it too -
Dogstrust and
Hearing Dogs are two that I’ve got closer to through Twitter.
Set to grow even further, Twitter may also spin out with the associated growth of similar ‘tools’ like www.Identi.ca, www.plurk.com and www.jaiku.com - owned by Google. Having a presence on Twitter now will help you understand the medium and benefit your brand and the consumer.
So for if you’re looking to harness Twitter - where to start? Here are five tips to get you going.
1. Get on there! There’s no better place to start than with yourself. Sign up for an account, follow some people - you can start with me - www.twitter.com/jamieriddell - and get tweeting a little. Find some people or brands in your sector and watch what they’re doing. You can gain a lot from interacting and watching before you reveal a brand presence.
2. See what people are saying about your brand using search.twitter.com
- grab the feed and watch it for a while. Is the conversation positive or negative? This will help you define what your presence on Twitter needs to be. It may also help you quickly find brand ambassadors who can amplify your presence. Don’t forget the detractors - connecting with them on Twitter and helping them may create a rapid turnaround in their opinion.
3. Work out what you’re going to say, and who’s going to manage it. In some cases an agency can help get you off the ground and hand over the running once you ’re familiar with the process. You can stick to a content theme, or reason why you’re on Twitter, but don’t use it as a broadcast channel. All tweeting and no listening will lose you credibility - very fast!
4. Get your brand onto Twitter. Grab a name - ideally www.twitter.com/yourbrandname, set up your logo and a template design and start twittering. If you can reference your brand on your own corporate page that will help establish credibility for the brand on Twitter. At this time there are no regulations or checks - it’s up you to manage your brand on Twitter. Connect it to your other channels - you can feed your Twitter feed into a Facebook Fan Page or your own website.
5. Start talking - follow people you find interesting. If you’re sending links to your site, think about adding tracking tags. URL etiquette in Twitter’s 140 character dialogue is to use a tinyurl type conversion, so add your tracking in before converting the url. This can help you understand what value this channel is delivering for you, over and above interaction.
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