Rules for using Twitter to promote your Kansas City business - What you mean there are rules?

With millions of people connecting through social media, advertisers and marketers are hustling to get in on the action. Twitter has grown from a million tweets a day in 2009 to 50 million tweets a day in February 2010. In the past year we’ve seen many companies and brands attempt to step into this new world only to fail miserably. After researching successful and analyzing successful tweeters, I have found a successful formula To be an effective marketer on Twitter.

Marketing and advertising on Twitter requires a bit of a shift in your mindset. Twitter is all about simple conversations; you can’t use press releases, marketing copy and other one-way communication tactics and expect results.The new social media requires interaction—with you and with each other. Matter a fact, customers crave it and if they don't get it, they will go else where on the web.Tweeting is one-to-one, with the benefit of being in a public space where other customers may overhear your conversation and interact with each other on your behalf. Here are my 9 Twitter rules:

#1 Know the rules - Get to know your friends and neigbors
It’s important to remind yourself of the fact that Twitter is a real life community and that every community has it’s own set of rules. Before you jump into the conversation, spend some time watching and learning. You’ll find that most people are very friendly and supportive, but it’s best to understand the ground rules first.

The easiest way to jump in is to ask for help. Seek out a pro in your community and seek guidance. This may seem strange at first because brands are used to being on the other end of the spectrum, typically telling consumers what to do. Asking for advice might have you feel as if you are making your brand vulnerable, but the fact that we as a community are helping each other out, is what makes social media great. 

Use twitter searches like Twellow and Nearby Tweets to find local tweeters. 

Another way to find local tweeters is to go Google and do a search of your community. Next, click on show options on the line that shows the number of results. On the left chose updates. The results will show local social media results with the keyword of your city.

#2 Connect person to person - People don’t talk to brands, they talk to people
It doesn’t matter how large your company is. On Twitter, people want to connect to a person. They are not interested in talking to your ‘brand’. Make your updates personable and human, not scrubbed and polished like news columns. It’s fine to be a little rough around the edges. Talk as though you are talking to a group of friends around a dinner table (just tone down the language).

If you can, identify a real person to write the updates to give a face to your Tweets. For example, Garmin's Twitter account (@JakesJournal) is headed by Jake from Garmin. Jake from Garmin is a person who manages Garmin's blog team and syndicates their post on Twitter.

By using Twitter, Garmin is offering an alternative, less corporate confined outlet for customers to receive support. Customers are able to ask questions and be communicated with on their own turf; no more having to wait in long lines, no need to press 3 for more options!

#3 Create a conversation - Twitter is a two-way street
Some companies might eye Twitter as another ‘channel’ to conquer. This kind of thinking is dangerous with interactive marketing. Maybe that is why Twitter is managing to handle 50 million tweets a day. Social Media is not about building a channel; it’s about creating a conversation. Your job should be to get people talking by posing questions, asking for input and connecting people as a trusted third party.

Creating a conversation requires something that many marketers are not used to: actively listening to customers. The new age of marketing and advertising as evolved into social interaction. This back and forth motion is what makes social media wonderful and helps build an emotional connection between your brand and consumers. Since consumers now have more choices and are able to jump from brand to brand in an instant, this relationship has become more crucial than ever.

You'll find more valuable friends when you can engage in a conversation. During my research I asked questions to 35 tweeters. Out of 35 only 2 responded back with me with 48 hours. Do you think I revisited the tweeters who didn't reply to my simple questions? Not only have I not revisited their accounts, but I also think they are using Twitter and all of social media the wrong way. 

I'm tired of people just trying to sell me something, aren't you?

#4 Promote a dedicated ambassador - Make Social Media a part of your plan
Social Media outlets like Twitter work best when they are frequently updated. You’ll find that the most prolific companies on Twitter have tens of thousands of updates. This may seem like a lot of work, but it doesn’t have to be; these updates tend to be short, quick and off-the-cuff.

I find that it works best when a single person internally to act as a social media liaison. It is ok for more person in the company to be tweet about the company. Just let it start with one person and have the rest of the team retweet and create discussions about new products, services or news. 

When designating ambassadors for your company, be sure to establish some “rules of engagement”. This will serve as a guideline on dealing with and deciding on conversations they should participate in and which ones should get escalated within your organization.

Remember it is all about engaging a conversation with your customers.

#5 Have something to offer - Give people a reason to follow you
People love to pass on information and if people are following your brand on Twitter, they are already showing a proclivity to your message. So why not reward them? Offer inside information, special offers or just one-to-one conversation with customers who follow you through Social Media. People love to spread valuable news and entertaining stories.

Once you have been using Twitter for a while, you’ll notice key people that like to talk about your company (aka “Influencers”). These people are worth more than you can imagine! Encourage users by converting them into brand ambassadors: Invite them to your private product launches, let them contribute to new feature requests, ask them how you can improve. Not only will you gain firsthand, unfiltered information on how your products are used in the real world, you’ll also activate a network of ambassadors to give you the best thing you could ask for: positive word-of-mouth.

Your influencers are your companies bullhorns. Seek them out and share quality tweets with them. Your influencers will share valuable information with their followers. That is how they became influencers. 

An influencer can get your message out to thousands of people in a short period of time.

#6 Twitter and your website - Integrate your messaging
Twitter is a very flexible technology, which is what makes it so powerful. The fact that Twitter can be set up to automatically update your followers every time you post a blog entry or that any RSS feed can be re-broadcasted through your Twitter postings, are great examples of Twitter’s strengths. 

Another great option is the ability to add buttons, badges and widgets to sections of your other sites (articles, pages, etc.) so that visitors are able to “Tweet” it’s contents. Each article or page can be linked with a button that allows customers to send an update to their followers with a quick blurb and a link to your page. Again, people generally only Tweet interesting or compelling content and a list of products or features may not be very intriguing to them.

Find awesome add-ons here: http://twitter.com/badges and http://sharethis.com/

#7 Tracking Conversations - Listen and Learn
By using the @reply feature, it’s easy to discover people talking about your brand. The Twitter search function also allows you to search by your company or product name. Use these tools to discover the things being said about you in real-time. Stay on top of what’s being said about you by frequently checking your @replies; you might be surprised by what you find.

More advanced tools also exist that allow you to graph conversation activity over time, as well as monitor positive and negative sentiment amongst users. Using these tools help to provide you with a more in-depth understanding about what people are saying; which in turn will help you develop more relevant conversations. Companies likeTrendrr, Infegy, ScoutLabs & Radian6 offer more robust monitoring tools.

Start a hashtag (#business name) for your business, product (#product)/or service (#service) to help track tweets.

A club that I participate in is the Social Media Club of Kansas City. Their hashtag is #smckc. Hashtags help your customers, followers and members easily follow you.

My favorite Twitter application for monitoring Twitter is Hootsuite. Hootsuite is an online application that  allows you monitor multiple twitter accounts, conversations as well as delaying tweets. If you use Hootsuite correctly, it can help easily monitor conversations on Twitter. 

#8 Start a Tweetup - Meet in Real Life

Twitter is a great tool to create online conversations. The positives are numerous. If you want to add to Twitter, start promoting tweetups. A tweetup is nothing more than a meetup, a live meeting or gathering. You could promote a club or organization. If you are a business you could promote a daily discount or if you are a restaurant you could promote a lunch special.  

Meetups have been popular for several years. Tweetups have increasingly become popular the past couple months. A tweetup is gathering of people to socialize and network. There are claims by some businesses that 1/2 of the daily revenue comes from promoting tweetups. A restaunrant in Virgina claimed that they had 60% more lunch patrons due to promoting lunch tweetups and a BBQ restaurant in Texas reported recently that 73% of their sales come from promotions on Twitter such as tweetups.

Tweetups don't have to be for only the hardcore tweeters. Anyone can attend. The fun is socializing and sharing.

If you want to see how a tweetup works, come to our next tweetup on March 10th. The March 10th tweetup will start at 5:30 the Fox and the Hound Restaurant. If you want to sponsor a door prize contact me. If you know Martin and myself, we will have some networking activities planned. Our hashtag is #kcn.

#9 Most Important - Remember Who You Are Tweeting to

People who read your tweets really don't care about you. They really care about themselves. Remember this! Share worthwhile content that will save them time, money, make them feel good or will help them improve their life.

What do I mean? Lets say you are in real estate like myself. Do you think my customers only want to hear about real estate? What happens if they have bought a home from me, do you you think they want to hear about real estate from me everyday? Experience tells me that an average person moves every 5-7 years, so I need to find lots of content to fill in. My goal is to provide information so when my customer is ready to move or know of someone ready they think of me.

What do I tweet? I tweet coupons that can save my customers money, ideas about decorating, things to do, people who can help make their lives easier. This morning I tweeted about a professional organizer. He can come into my customers homes and make their lives easier. Directly, that tweet will not benefit me. Indirectly, I'm promoting a business to my customers that will help them. Hopefully, my customers and followers remember me.

If you have a product or service that you want to reach 100,000 people, send me a tweet. 

Why not start using some of these rules for Twitter? It is an easy way for followers to find you and an easy way to get found on Google.

If you have any ideas, please share. In the meantime if I can help you, send me a tweet.

@DowellTaggart

Let us know what you think or add to our blog by writing a comment.

Blog post written by the Dowell Taggart Team of RE/MAX Best Associates

Your Kansas City Real Estate Marketing Masters!

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