This is Part 2 of a 3 part series on Twitter Strategy for Business. Part 1 is here Part 3 is here
Previously I posted about twitter and business. In that article I discussed a businesses entrance to twitter. and introduced the problem many brands run into on twitter. Here I aim to suggest a solution. In the next article I will go into more detail on strategy, frequency and ROI.
The Perfect Trivium, a proposed solution
courtesy .finding.ireland. @ flickr
I explain better though examples. Meet Susan. Susan works for Widget Makers Inc. She has been tasked with selling more widgets and is supposed to get people excited about their new widgets while cutting their media placement (read: advertising budget). I recommend Susan create three twitter accounts. (twitter is only one aspect of a full social media campaign, see facebook strategy for another, more to come)
- One twitter account for personal example username: Susan1974
- One twitter account for the person behind the brand: SusanWMI
- One twitter account for the brand as whole: WidgetMakersInc
Here are a couple of real life examples:
- Personal real life example @JeanGWang
- Person behind the brand real life example @ScottMonty
- Brand real life example @DeltaPlexArena
So you have the three accounts setup, but what can be or should be said from each account?
Personal twitter account content
Typically people using a personal account talk about what they are having for breakfast or where they are going or meetings they are in or philosophy they are thinking of. Mostly I recommend posting what you want people to talk to you about. Do you want people to know about your office’s new pet pig? Would you want to be known as a money man? How about a person who knows SEO? If you talk about these things, and if you share some information or links you will find that people who have similar interests will follow you. Once they follow you they might add to a conversation you’re having. This is where twitter gets interesting, the conversation. This is after all Social Media!
Person behind the brand twitter account content
courtesy Walker Dukes @ flickr
This is a tough account for most people to understand. I recommend talking about industry specific things. In my day job I have a lot of IT vendors who take me out to lunch and talk about what’s going on in the industry. They will tell me why I should be concerned about a certain product or what impact the current news/trends have on my business. They are feeding me information constantly, all while being personal, they know my wife and kids’ names they know about my business and what I do. If they talk about a recent trip to a industry conference I know it will apply to IT products.
Similarly the fake account mentioned above for SusanWMI would talk all about the new Widget line. The account would interact with people who are talking about widgets or which widget to buy for their spouse’s birthday etc. SusanWMI is seen as a brand advocate. I can interact with her, tell her my complaints and know that she is a person and will get back to me tomorrow if it’s late in the day. I also know that the stuff she puts in this account will not be of a very personal nature, I will know nothing about Susan’s kids, or her dog, or what she ate for breakfast –unless of course it was a widget! I will know from her how cool it is to work for WMI, and how much fun they have talking about, creating, designing widgets. I might also learn the intricacies behind developing new products and the new FDA rules for lead levels and how it affects their product or it’s price etc. Are you getting the picture yet?
Susan would encourage conversations, and be actively searching the twitterverse for people to interact with. (This series does not deal with consumption of twittter, instead how to engage in conversations. More on consumption later.) She might ask questions like, “What color widgets would you like to see?” Or “What are your favorite memories of widgets from your growing up years?” She is the personal connection to the brand and desires people to interact with her.
Brand twitter account
This account can do many different things, but primarily is not a personal account. There is no personality. It exists to be a PR outlet for the organization. There might be coupons or discount codes, links to blog posts or news articles, mentions of what events they are sponsoring or new stores/developments. This is not a place for talk of traveling or if it’s cold in the office this morning.
WMI from our example above would probably post information of new stores that are carrying their product and new product announcements. They could offer links to articles and coupons. This would be a channel to follow for the employee or the consumer/client but they would not interact with it. or if they tried to Susan would respond from the Person behind the brand account.
Other accounts?
As if three were not enough to manage, there are other accounts to be considered. For Example an internal HR account with protected updates which exists to communicate with their employees or their sales staff via twitter. Since this account is private and not for public consumption it is not part of the Trivium.
So now you have the how to get on twitter, and the structure of the accounts, but what about the frequency of posting? What are the goals for these accounts? And ultimately what is my ROI for using twitter for my business?
Read Part 3: Twitter for Business Strategy Part 3: Applying the Trivium of Twitter Accounts.
Related Posts: (automatically generated)
10 Responses to Twitter Strategy for Business Part 2
Leave a Reply
Additional comments powered by BackType
[...] I’m not the only one Twitter Strategy for Business Part 2 Feb [...]
I’ve been on Twitter for a month, more out of curiosity at first, then becoming increasingly intrigued with the possibility of using it to network and build traffic for a small, non-profit entity for which I volunteer amazing amounts of time.
The entity (a private school) just launched: a faceBook Fan (Group) site, a much more dynamic web site, and is planning to do a traditional (mail) outreach to alumni in order to (1) drive them to the FB Group, (2) drive them to an alumni link on the new web site, (3) lay the foundation for alumni fundraising, and (4) bring the school up the list on web searches.
I’ve introduced the school to a couple of national school search sites and encouraged cross-linking with the new school site, and I’m going to float the idea that younger parents launch a regional blog or two in order to drive more traffic to the web site.
How can I use Twitter to tie this effort together, or is there a better process (your 3-account approach) to build this?
[...] This is Part 3 of a 3 part series on Twitter Strategy for Business. Part 1 is here Part 2 is here [...]
Bob, Non-profits could benefit a ton from free tools like Twitter. I encourage you and the non-profit to be strategic but to keep up the effort on social media!
regarding their situation and twitter, I look at it this way: you have your personal account, now I would create a person behind the brand account and a brand account, the brand account can just be a channel for normal PR releases and really an account for people to direct questions etc to.
The person behind the brand account for the school should be doing searches on twitter, finding people to connect with etc. They should be linked to from the website and the facebook page, we’re trying to connect with prospective students, alumni, parents, etc. where they are at.
But like I mention in part three of this series, what is their goal? I have seen a school in West Michigan use their brand twitter account to release information about school fights or cancellations, or general concerns for parents. This way the parents know by the time they get home what went on at school affecting all of the students etc. In this case the goal was for parental communication. Not for attracting new students or discussions at all.
What is their goal?
Blogs will be a really good addition to the strategy, and twitter could help that (twitter can increase blog readership.) But whose twittering about those blogs? how deep is their network? who is in their network?
Lots of questions, very few answers. But I hope enough information to keep you headed down the right path.
Good to see you here Bob, I look forward to more interaction!
You state above under the “Person behind the brand twitter account content” heading that, “I can interact with her, tell her my complaints and know that she is a person and will get back to me tomorrow if it’s late in the day.” Your comment on knowing she will get back with you tomorrow if it’s late in the day brings up an interesting question related to Twitter.
In last week’s social media gathering, it was discussed that some organizations have decided that if you are unable to respond to a tweet within thirty minutes, you should not respond at all. We have chosen not to adopt this policy and do our best to respond to all comments (though we do strive for timeliness), but I wondered if there is any rationale for one position over the other. From a PR policy, I think it makes sense to always respond when possible as a late response has generally been perceived more positively than ignoring an individual. And what about comments received over the weekend?
For a period, we were scheduling tweets over the weekend to continue a 7-day communication with the public, but ran into issues with negative responses that were not addressed within a 24-hour timeframe. Should businesses be hiring individuals to tweet 7-days a week or is it acceptable to the public to tweet just 5 days a week?
Thanks to Paul and Karen for the tutorials. This is exciting and complex at the same time and it’s fun scaling the learning curve. And as I try to tailor tools for my non-profit, I’m learning more and more that I can apply to my paying clients.
Paul,
First off – thank you for diving into this information and dispersing it to us all. You’ve certainly done a ton of work & it’s appreciated.
I should preface my comments by stating that I am on Twitter, and yes, I have found my share of useful information. It has served as a beneficial tool for me, though I have recently discovered feelings of contradiction.
There was one specific point you made that struck a chord with me, and I think it’s something I’ve been internally struggling with for some time. You mentioned that “an internal HR employee could communicate with their employees or their sales staff via twitter.” It makes perfect sense to use Twitter as an employee, quickly disseminating info to an internal team, but it makes me wonder “where did the personal communication disappear to?” So much of “relationship-building” is now done online, but how sustainable are those relationships? Where is the soul behind them (or the soul to social media?)
Aside from my uncertainties, I’m also wondering if anyone has commented on the longevity of Twitter? Not that I’m doubting its existence, just purley curious.
I’m sure there is a time and a place for when to use Twitter and when not to use Twitter, but regarding your comments on the HR employee, I do wonder if face-to-face engagement between two people has become a thing of the past? I would like to think (hope) not.
Interesting viewpoints that I actually will implement with The Box tomorrow morning. Thanks for breaking this down for me. I agree with the 3 blogs as a minimum. Now all we need are 5 monitors on our desks and a program like tweetdeck that can view/manage multiple accounts at once. Now on to part 3…
Good questions Karen,
My answer? “It depends!” If you are a corporation the size of IBM, and your goals are surrounded around customer service then I say yes you need to be on twitter 24/7 and at a minimum respond to people to let them know that you are working on something for them and will get back to them in 24 hours (or whatever) Once people know their voice is being heard they start to feel better. Social Media is about being open and honest.
But if you are a small to medium business, trying to make a go of things. Make sure you get paged with the important keywords and let the rest be answered in the morning. People understand. But if you are running an event (like a festival or a conference) be sure to have someone monitoring the twitterverse during that time responding to all requests/mentions.
Kelly,
Personal communication, where did it go? It’s still there, Twitter in this case (facebook and the other social networks in other cases) can never replace personal face to face communication. However they can augment it. Just like phone calls will never replace the face to face connection yet what 13 year old girl doesn’t spend hours on the phone? Similarly the social gatherings that are coordinated via online tools are where the real connection points happen, the conversation online just supports that connection.
And it also extends your reach globally!
Twitter might not be here to stay (anyone remember Altavista being over taken by Google) but the concept of micro-blogging will not go away soon. This may be new to you but it’s been around for over 5 years gaining support and traction. It exploded in popularity last year. (70% of all twitter accounts on Jan 1 of 2009 were created in 2008)
Mark, I totally agree, tweetdeck has saved me many many times the frustration of consuming twitter… but they are seriously lacking multiple account support. Go here to cast your vote and tell them how important you think it is: http://tweetdeck.uservoice.com/
[...] See more about the Trivium of accounts for a Twitter Strategy for Business [...]