Although not my words, I felt I should let some lost souls in on some important information. How to use Twitter, as a company. Yes, you can screw it up, so follow these rules. As posted by Jeremy @ pop-pr.

1. Don’t have your PR firm set up and be your Twitter account. That seems pretty simple, doesn’t it? But, well, I heard a story at BlogWorld Expo of a PR firm charging $7000 for a week of Twittering, and have heard other stories of astronomical figures on setting up and monitoring the Twitterverse. How is a PR firm supposed to respond if they have to go back to the client and get the okay first? Um, social media and quick time conversations like Twitter do not work that way.

2. Don’t follow everyone willy nilly. First, it makes no sense – if you follow someone, well, it does not matter unless they follow you back. Otherwise, you’re a corporate shill that is just talking to nobody. You’re talking to no one and it’s obvious that you just are doing it to do it. And, well, if that’s what you want, that’s great. I have a lot of the Zappos people follow me … but I so rarely wear shoes and they don’t sell Havaianas yet (come on guys, get on the stick). But, I like the company, and don’t follow all of them back. But, hey, they must like me enough to follow. My strategy? If someone follows the corporate account first, I follow back. If they Tweet about the company more than once, I follow. If they are a blog that I read that is in the corporate space (or a journalistic space), I follow to see what they are working on. Simple and easy.

3. Get Tweetdeck. At first, I was not a fan … but if you are in-house and doing Twitter for work, there is no greater tool. Not only do you get the stream, the replies and direct messages, but it keeps your global searches right there to reply. And, well, if you are doing a corporate Twitter account, scan for your name and other terms that refer to what your company does, and what its products serve. Seriously, it rocks. And, those that know me know that I’m stingy with the likes.

4. Be engaged. Be personable. Be responsive. There’s nothing worse than sending someone a direct message on Twitter … and hearing nothing back. You followed ME first, and yet you are unable to respond to a question? And, well, that’s just a direct message. If you are sent an @reply, and do not respond, do you REALLY want to be in the conversation, or you just glomming onto the next thing? If it’s glomming, well, you are not ready.

5. Be a person. The other day, I noted that I do not like corporate Twitter accounts with no name, but said in my more usual way. Seriously, this is supposed to be a conversation, and you want me to talk to someone with no name? No reference? No bio? Um, no thank you. No, really, go away.

6. Twitter is not for everyone. For another, longer post … social media is not for all corporations or entities. There are those that social media will NEVER be the right fit because of policies or legalities. Despite the mantra of the social media “experts”, social media is not a right fit for all companies. It’s a simple rule. In that, Twitter is not right for all groups – but that does not mean they should not be monitoring Twitter. You don’t even need to download Tweetdeck … you can use Filtrbox for Twitter searches (an added bonus to what is being said out there on blogs, and such).

If you are a corporation, though, what exactly are you trying to accomplish on Twitter? That should be the first question. For me, it was to monitor and participate and answer questions. It was cut and dry, and from engaging, I have been able to turn what were active detractors to active enthusiasts – by acknowledging, responding and helping. Simple as pecan pie.

Article Tags: social media | twitter

Filed under: Blog Relations, Social Media News