Twitter for Business is a workshop presentation I delivered to SME's in Worthing on 2nd September 2009. What is Twitter; Why a business should be using Twitter and the Tools that you can use.

1. Twitter for business #twitterworkshop By Andy & Sara Headworth

2. Today’s Workshop What is Twitter? Why Twitter has become so important so quickly Why your business needs to take note How to get started Which Twitter tools and applications you should use Real life example with someone in this room……..but who?

3. What is Twitter? Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access.

6. wasting your time

7. about following what all the celebrities are doing each day

8. tweeting the daily news feed from your relevant industry

10. developing your business network

11. gaining new knowledge

12. listening to your customers

14. 6,000 SME’s using every day in UK

15. 47% 18-34 age group

16. 31% 35-49 age group

17. 21% 50plus age group

19. 12 Big Twitter Questions Will Twitter change the way you work? Will traditional marketing die? Are there now new rules of business because of Twitter? Is newspaper advertising dead? Will your staff need to spend all their time on Twitter? Are you too busy for Twitter? Is Twitter just for my kids? Isn’t Twitter just a fad, surely it won’t last long? Will Twitter instantly bring you business? Shouldn’t we wait and ‘just see what happens’ with Twitter? If we start using Twitter for business, won’t people criticise us? Can Twitter add value to our business?

20. 12 Big Twitter Answers No No No No No No No No No No Yes Yes

21. “Go fishing where the fish swim”

22. Of key relevance to a business considering using Twitter Audiences aged above 25 have experienced a huge 84% growth in Twitter adoption over the past 6 months 20% growth happening within the 55+ age range Isn’t this your customer / client base?

23. Ten reasons to use Twitter for business Branding Traffic Networking Notify customers immediately Promote latest news Find prospective corporate clients Get feedback Make friends with your peers Track your competitors SEO – your @name – inbound links – Google

25. Know your end goals before you start Twitter is a powerful tool that can provide you access to a whole new world!. From networking to participating in stimulating conversations to building your brand and having some fun , you will get more out of Twitter if you begin with a goal in mind. My goals on Twitter are: Expand my network, by engaging with like minded people Promote my brand (website, blog etc) Identify potential business opportunities Find new sources of knowledge (people and websites etc) Sharing expertise , knowledge and opinion Have some fun

26. www.twitter.com Here And don’t tick this box!

27. Register your names Fill in the bio AND upload a photo Make sure you enter your website URL Use one of the platforms: Tweetdeck or Seismic Desktop And remember… only140 characters

28. The Essentials Tweet: an update message with a maximum length of 140 characters, visible by everyone including Google Following:you see the tweets when people you follow update them Followers: they see your tweets when you update Twitter @replies:you reply with @username, and engage in conversation Direct Messages: if you follow each other, you can send private direct messages to each other – DM’s # hashtags: allows you to create categories, groups or topics for tweets that others can use as well

29. The Essentials Cont’d How to make sure you get people following you You must have a photo (or logo) as your image Your bio must be complete – it is searchable Understand the dynamics of Twitter – don’t sell, share Variety Info-tweet Re-Tweet (RT) Help Tweet Postman Tweet Smiley Tweet - entertain Finally the ‘you’ tweet Engage with your followers Don’t be afraid to disagree or comment Develop a tweeting strategy Keep message consistent Be interesting NOT boring Use other media – photos or video

30. Finding Followers 1. Twittersearch .com– the primary twitter search tool 2. Twitter peoplesearch.com - Twitter searches the “real names” people enter in their bio fields, it’s a good place to begin your search. 3. Tweepz.com -Tweepz lets you limit searches to specific parts of Twitter’s user information (like name, bio, and location), filter results by follower/following numbers, location, and other extracted terms, and greatly improves on the layout of the search results. 4. TweepSearch.com – TweepSearch lets you search by Twitter name or location, or search a specific username to get a list of all friends and followers. 4. TwitDir.com – TwitDir is another search engine 5. Twellow.com– Nearly 6 million Twitter user profiles are indexed in Twellow and placed into a huge number of categories. You can search the entire lot of profiles, or confine searches to a single category. 6. wefollow.com - It is a directory of Twitter users organised by interests. Alternatively you can of course just x-ray Twitter with Google - put into Google; site:twitter.com "add what you want to search for here"

32. MLM, Porn, dating sites, geeks, quoters etc

33. Do you know what you like reading on twitter?

34. Your industry, promotions, gossip, news, competitors etc?

35. Would you follow people who keep trying to sell you something?

36. Would you follow someone if they had no bio, photo and didn’t engage ( @reply)

38. My Top 10 Tools for Twitter manages the scheduling of your tweets www.socialoomph.com feeds an RSS feed into your Twitter stream. This is how you can post your blog to Twitter automatically http://twitterfeed.com allows you to share photographs easily on Twitter www.twitpic.com automatically find you people to follow based on keywords www.twollo.com this great tool will tell you all the Re-Tweets (RT’s) on Twitter for a specific URL. Great tracking tool for your URL’s BackTweets.com

39. Cont’d http://bit.ly/ - this converts URL’s into short URL’s (as there is a 140 character limit in Twitter.) It also tracks your tweets http://mrtweet.com/ - your Personal Networking Assistant for Twitter, helping you identify relevant followers, recommending you to other users http://Tweetbeep.com– a tool that simply informs you when anyone is talking about you on Twitter Google alerts – (not just for Twitter here) Just an awesome tool that searches Google and tells you when you are mentioned (whatever name you choose) http://hashtags.org - allows you to create and track trends, keywords, subjects or groups Sara’s Bonus http://140it.com/- helps you get your tweets down to 140 characters!

40. Groups on Twitter www.tweetworks.com- The best of the bunch because it’s so quick and easy to setup a group. Another good option is the ability to post messages just to your group or to the group and the public Twitter timeline at the same time. Tweetdeck– create and track groups Seismic Desktop - create and track groups

42. Create a hashtag by adding a hash symbol (#) to the front of an appropriate keyword as you write your Twitter update (for example, #twitterworkshop.

43. Track the tagged conversations that interest you. Twitter updates that include a valid hashtag are indexed at Hashtags.org, organized by tag, and available as individual RSS feeds. This means that you don't have to be a Twitter user to follow the conversation — it's visible to anyone.

45. Follow us on Twitter @worthing @sironasocialmed @saraheadworth @andyheadworth 01903 680048 Call us today to book one of our fixed price packages to help get you started with social media