Twitter for Business - Learn the basics of Twitter and why it should be a part of any coporate social media campaign.

1. Twitter for Business Presented by Shelly Wolfe & Aimee KrummenacherWSI – We Simplify the Internet

2. What is Twitter? It’s an online messaging service to distribute ideas, comments, & news over the internet. • Began in 2006 as a side project at a podcasting company in CA • As of March 2009, unique visitors have grown 1382% in just 3 years to over 10 million users

3. Twitter Demographics • 47% Male; 53% Female • Over 70% of users are 18-49 • Average User Income: $0-$60K • Over 60% are college educated *SocialMediaToday.com, March 2009 (http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/78505)

4. Why Use Twitter for Business? • Twitter basics • Listening & mind-reading • Conversations & interaction - Customer service - Building relationships - Online reputation management • Goal setting & measurement

5. Twitter Basics

6. Create a Business Account • Account is free • Use your business as the name • Focus on 160 character description to highlight Twitter user with brief keyword rich description • Add custom background • Include relevant contact information, web address, email, etc.

7. Following vs. Follower • Following: You’ll receive updates from that person/business & is great for networking • Followers: People who follow you, may not be reciprocal • RSS feed allows you to follow without showing that person you are following/unfollowing them • Make sure to follow people/experts that are relevant to your industry • Good rule of thumb for following: no more than 50 per day• Don’t have to follow everyone who follows you

8. Custom Backgrounds Tweeting Tips • Be interesting • Be conversational • Follow relevant people

9. Listening & Mind-Reading

10. Tracking Trends • Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com) • TwitScoop (http://twitscoop.com)- The bigger the word, the high number of mentions in Twitter - Helpful for researching topics before they hit the mainstream trending topics • Twopular (http://twopular.com)- Trending topics for different time segments- Measures popularity of topic over that given time

11. Important Topics to Listen for: • Your own name • Twitter account name • Company, brand & products • Competitors • RSS Feeds • backtweets.com – searches links that link back to your website that aren’t your domain

12. Conversations & Interactions

13. Tweeting Tips • Be interesting • Be conversational • Follow relevant people

14. Tweeting Best Practices • Stay within 140 characters (your username counts) - Use + instead of & - Leave out (.) and other punctuation - Abbreviate - Eliminate (I) and “to be” - Use numerals instead of numbers • Twitter character basics - d = private direct message - @name = public direct message - RT = retweet - # = used to denote a trending topic Tweeting Tips • Be interesting • Be conversational • Follow relevant people

15. Tweeting Best Practices • Be conversational - Ask & answer questions - Post facts, news, events, comments, etc. - Share experiences/opinions • Use hashtags (#) when appropriate • Avoid spam and don’t become a spammer • Be interesting • Average person tweets over 4x per day Tweeting Tips • Be interesting • Be conversational • Follow relevant people

16. Re-Tweeting Best Practices (RT) • RT news, events, interesting facts, humor, how-tos, etc. • Stay within 140 character limit • Can re-state message • Don’t change the URL • Give credit where credit is due: @Name Tweeting Tips • Be interesting • Be conversational • Follow relevant people

17. Goal Setting & Measurement

18. Goal Setting • Who is going to tweet, manage Tweeter, or implement a co-Tweet • What do you want your campaign to accomplish? • Use Twitter Best Practices • Link back to your sites, publications, blogs, events, etc. • Perform a live tweet • Promote specials, coupons, fundraisers, contests, etc. • Connect with local media • Integrate with other social media Tweeting Tips • Be interesting • Be conversational • Follow relevant people

19. Variety of Business on Twitter Tweeting Tips • Be interesting • Be conversational • Follow relevant people

23. Tweet Measurement • TweetStats (http://tweetstats.com) • Bitly (http://bitly.com) • Google Analytics Results

24. Suggested Follows @wsiroi @ShellyWolfe @evee26 @AimeeSTL1 @WSISummit @ChrisBrogan @joelcomm @timoreilly @hubspot @TweetReport Resources• The Twitter Book, Tim O’Reilly and Sarah Milstein• Mashable.com• HubSpot.com• InSocialMedia.com