Join the Twitter Conversation
You may have heard about Twitter, but perhaps don’t understand what it’s really about or why it matters. Twitter is often miss-labeled as a useless service for telling people what you’re doing, yet in reality it can be an invaluable business tool.
Here’s a basic run-down of Twitter: As a Twitter member, you can post public messages (or “tweets”) of up to 140 characters long. These messages can be anything you’d like: A random thought, a question for others, or a link to an interesting blog post you just read. You can “follow” Twitter members you find interesting to have their newest messages appear in an aggregated feed. Whenever you want to reply to, or refer to, another Twitter member, prefix their user name with an ampersand symbol (for example, @twitter) and a link will automatically be created to their Twitter feed.
The secret to Twitter is to not use it to simply answer the question “What are you doing?,” but instead as a platform for sharing valuable content.
Twitter as a conversation
Twitter can be a great tool for bouncing around ideas and getting questions answered. Tony Hsieh (@zappos), CEO of popular Internet shoe retailer Zappos.com, frequently uses Twitter to gather feedback from users about new ideas or features on their site.
Twitter as a promotional tool
Companies like 37signals (@37signals) and Pandora (@pandora_radio) have begun using Twitter as a way to share knowledge, communicate with customers, and promote their latest offerings. Coudal Partners (@Coudal) will often provide special coupon codes for their products exclusively to Twitter users. The Chicago Tribune even created the “Colonel Tribune” persona (@coloneltribune) to leverage social media services like Twitter.
Twitter as a support tool
Cable companies are often notorious for their poor customer service. However, Comcast is using Twitter to actively seek out those in need of assistance. Frank Eliason (@comcastcares), Customer Experience Manager at Comcast, uses Twitter to help customers experiencing problems with their service.
After recently having problems of my own with Comcast, I contacted Frank’s team for assistance. Within hours, I received a call from the Head of Executive Customer Service at the regional Comcast office to arrange a technician visit. After the issue was resolved, I received a call from another executive support representative informing me that I’d be receiving a credit on my bill to make up for the service issues.
Getting on Board
Twitter is quickly becoming a compelling tool to communicate with others in exciting new ways. By sharing valuable and unique content on Twitter, you’ll be developing a new way to promote your organization and constantly gauge what your customers think about your products or services.