Why Twitter? Twitter can be an amazingly powerful platform for…

Why Twitter?

Twitter can be an amazingly powerful platform for connecting to your community as well as
driving traffic to the various properties you want people to go. Having an event? Tweet it
out! Launched a new bag? Tweet it out!

The key to Twitter is the level of listening you do as well as talking. It is definitely supposed
to be an interactive program. And, in fact, this is where you build the majority of your
Whuffie (aka social capital). The more you interact on Twitter, the more people will interact
with you, which attracts others to you as well.

One of my favorite quotes about the benefits of Twitter is from Tony Hsieh at Zappos:

      You send an SMS text message to Twitter with your note, and your message will be
      automatically broadcast (like CB radio) to whoever is choosing to follow you (your
      friends). If people don't care what you're doing, they won't follow you, so don't worry
      about sending out trivial messages.

      At first, it will seem really weird and unnatural for you to do this, but just trust me on
      this one. You will find that it's actually a really good way to stay in touch with all your
      friends and know what's going on in their lives.

      So here's an example where Twitter came in handy for me when I first started using
      it. I would twitter "I'm at bar X" and it would be broadcast to my Twitter network. A
      couple of my friends happened to be close by, so they stopped by and we had a drink.
      Pretty cool.

      Here's another example: I was flying in to the Vegas airport, and I twittered
      "Just landed in Vegas airport." I would have never texted anyone that
      message, but in the Twitter culture, that's exactly what you're supposed to
      do. It just so happened that someone on my Twitter network was about to fly
      out of Vegas, so we met up at the airport bar and had a drink. I would have
      never known otherwise that this person was at the airport, nor would I have
      ever sent him a text message or called him that I had just landed.

Source: http://twitter.zappos.com/start

I love that story because it is exactly what Twitter does for us all of the time: it accelerates
serendipity.


What are Some Good Examples of Corporate Tweeters?

What kinds of interactions are beneficial? Well, take two very popular Tweeters: Zappos and
JetBlue. Here are a few examples:

      @ZAPPOS:

      Some photos of our company picnic are up now at: http://blogs.zappos.com - I think
      we had 1000 people show up! 11:06 AM April 20, 2008 from web

      I want to meet more customers. On Monday, I will select a random @zappos follower
     for free trip for 2 to Vegas for office tour & lunch w/ me 11:33 AM April 12, 2008 from
     web

     At Vegas airport now, waiting a couple of hours until my flight to San Jose, CA. 02:01
     PM April 11, 2008 from web

     @wisekaren I'm wearing Donald Pliner shoes to the wedding. 12:50 PM April 12, 2008
     from txt in reply to wisekaren

     Finished photo shoot w/ Forbes. 4 hours & they choose 1 photo. Behind the scenes:
     http://www.facebook.com/pag... about 24 hours ago from web

     @bryanbartlett now says he can't make it. Anyone else want 1 ticket to van halen at
     830 tonight at mandalay in Vegas? 07:48 PM April 19, 2008 from txt in reply to
     bryanbartlett

     Just landed in Vegas. Got lots of twitters about our new beta site
     http://zeta.zappos.com Thx for all the feedback, keep it coming! 01:17 PM April 18,
     2008 from txt

     -----

     @JETBLUE:

     @laughingsquid Thanks! Just wait until our new terminal at JFK opens!
     http://t508.com/ (Hope you had a great time in NYC) about 12 hours ago from web in
     reply to laughingsquid

     @BookingBuddy We're happy to support Runner's World, but don't worry, you can still
     channel surf and eat blue chips if you want! 02:58 PM April 16, 2008 from web in
     reply to BookingBuddy

     Two days left to win two trips on JetBlue to "The Simpsons Movie" premiere in LA.
     Enter now! http://tinyurl.com/2x6ql3 10:33 AM July 15, 2007 from web

     The term 'Interwebular Chronicle' makes me laugh. 08:57 AM July 05, 2007 from web

     View this month's selection of first-run movies from Fox InFlight Premium
     Entertainment: http://tinyurl.com/2o8q46 10:36 AM July 31, 2007 from web

     To all of our Twitter friends: enjoy your weekend! 01:11 PM July 21, 2007 from web

As you can see from these selections, both companies are really great at balancing
promotional tweets ("View this month's selection of first-run movies from Fox InFlight
Premium Entertainment" and "Got lots of twitters about our new beta site
http://zeta.zappos.com") with personal tweets ("The term 'Interwebular Chronicle makes
me laugh." and "At Vegas airport now, waiting a couple of hourse until my flight to San
Jose, CA.") with conversational tweets ("@laughingsquid Thanks! Just wait until our new
terminal at JFK opens!" and "@wisekaren I'm wearing Donald Pliner shoes to the wedding").
They also have fun contests ("I want to meet more customers. On Monday, I will select a
random @zappos follower for free trip for 2 to Vegas" and "Two days left to win two trip on
JetBlue to "The Simpsons Movie" premiere in LA.") to help increase their follower numbers
and keep people reading.
Stuff to Tweet About

There are no rules about what you should tweet out, but a balance of the following is
recommended:

    1. Personal thoughts and reflections that suit your brand - this helps people feel
       more trust towards you and your brand and strikes up conversations
    2. Events (both your own and other events your audience may find interesting) - this
       makes things interesting and, perhaps, gives you a way to meet your followers
    3. Contests ("The first three people who answer this trivia question get....") - they
       drive more followers and interest in what you tweet
    4. Replies (@twittername) - this comes from listening to your followers (you have to
       follow back to see their tweets). The more personal the reply, the higher the impact.
    5. Direct replies (d twittername) - this isn't in the public timeline, but people are
       really touched when you answer them directly. This is helpful to answer people
       when it is a private matter or when you want to show concern (i.e. someone reports
       an accident, etc.)
    6. New blog posts - you should keep these to one per day at the very most and you
       should also promote other people's blog posts that are of interest
    7. Announcements - if it is interesting, tweet it
    8. OH's (overheard) - someone say something in the office or when you are out and
       about that cracks you up? Type OH: "well, if you don't mind, im trying to work on
       my love life" or something else funny (sometimes used to offset potentially racy
       comments...if you didn't say it, but are just REPEATING IT, then it's okay)
    9. Rickrolls or other fun internet games - this shows you are a bunch of fun and
       has people trying to do the same for you. Spreading as many internet memes as
       possible is good.
   10. Lyrics and quotes - especially fun are the lyrics: Never give the game away | Try
       to keep me entertained, baby | Don't make it too easy | Leave something for me
       and my imagination as the musical notes make for lots of questions
   11. Links to media you create - video is fun, podcasts, perhaps interviews that are
       posted online about you, etc.
   12. Shout outs - @twittername rocks! Thanks for the great link: http://insertlink.com
       These make people feel great, too.

Tweets that make people laugh are awesome, but tweets that make people think are even
better.

How to Tweet Without Losing Your Soul

So, before you even ask. Yes. Twitter takes time. It takes a bunch of attention and love and
care. There ARE ways to minimize the work and keep up to date, though:

    1. Run a twitter client on your desktop and connect it to Growl.
       For desktop clients see: http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Apps My favorites are Twhirl:
       http://www.twhirl.org/ Snitter: http://snook.ca/snitter/ and Twitterific:
       http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific

    2. Take twitter on the road! If you have an iPhone there are great sites like:
       http://pockettweets.com/ or the twitter mobile experience at http://m.twitter.com.
       You can also just send your text messages to 40404. That's pretty simple. Check
       out the apps page again for more options on other phones like Blackberries.
    3. Keep a good track of who is talking about you, so you can reply back!
       http://www.tweetscan.com/index.php?s=timbuk2&u= You can track all sorts of
       keywords there as well as watch who is replying to you (there is also a tab on the
       main website for your replies). You can always plug the results into your RSS
       feeds...

    4. Put a twitter widget on your blog! http://twitter.com/badges

    5. Hook it up to your Facebook page! Only update your status in one place at a time
       and have it show in multiple places! Details here: http://explore.twitter.com/

There is also a great listing of fun apps to use with Twitter here: http://blog.twitter.com/
search/label/apps Watch out, though. It's totally addictive!

How to Talk Twitter

There is a glossary of terms over here: http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Twitter+Glossary where
you will find that MOST terms used on Twitter start, not surprisingly, with 'Tw'. Like tweet,
meaning one post on twitter, and TweetUp, which is a Twitter Meetup. But the basic terms
you need to know are the commands to put in front of what you are saying. Like:

D twittername - direct message (not public, goes right to the Tweeter in question)
@twittername - public reply
Follow twittername - start following someone
Leave twittername - stop following someone
on - turns your notifications on (on your phone or however you are receiving tweets)
off - turns notifications off
help - accesses the other commands as you may need them
there is more here: http://twitter.com/help/lingo

There are also some things that have come out of the community like:

hashtags or # - put a hashtag in front of a 'tag' for easier tracking (i.e. This speaker is
really nailing it. I think her slides are brilliant! #web2expo). This is really useful for
conferences, events and specific topics of interest. You can read a little more about the
history here: http://twitter.pbwiki.com/Hashtags You can track hashtags at
http://twemes.com/

A Couple of Extra Things

Before I wrap this up, there are a few other 'Tweet like a pro' ideas:

    1. Shorten your URLs at: http://tweetburner.com/ where you can also track stats on
       these links!
    2. The mother of all places to find everything awesome Twitter is:
       http://twitter.pbwiki.com/
    3. Want to set up a 'group' tweet? This is way cool: http://grouptweet.com (have
       multiple employees send messages to d timbuk2 with a message that you can
       aggregate at @timbuk2)
    4. Give people beer for good deeds with Foamee: http://foamee.com/

Now you are ready to tweet like a pro!
_________________

Prepared by:

Tara '@missrogue' Hunt, Citizen Agency

http://www.horsepigcow.com (blog)
http://www.citizenagency.com (company)
San Francisco, CA 94107
415-694-1951