Social Media Best Practices: What are your 3 tips for using Twitter as a marketing tool?

1. Be consistent

Don't start something you can't finish. If you're going to use Twitter, you need to maintain the momentum over a very long period of time. Make sure you have the time to do so. If you're planning on stopping, then tell people that that will be your last tweet. It's good manners.

2. Always respond

If you need to, get a dedicated resource to monitor Twitter for any mention of your company and respond immediately. People complain bitterly about companies on Twitter and it falls on deaf ears. But there are some companies embracing Twitter to the fullest and it makes the hugest difference to my perception of them. Afrihost used to respond religiously but then 6 months later just stopped. I had the highest regard for them and referred them to everybody because of the great service they provided. Now that it's stopped they are just another service provider. Companies that leverage Twitter well are FNB, Moyos, Edgars and Outsurance. You will get a reply from them if there's a problem or compliment.

Assist people if you're monitoring a search column, it helps position you as a thought leader in the long run.

3. Talk sense

Don't ever talk about food, your bodily functions, your emotional state or your children. Twitter is a business tool, would you go to a board meeting of a new client and tell them things like that? No, so don't do it on Twitter. There are Meformers and Informers. Meformers only talk about themselves and those aforementioned categories. Informers distribute and respond to useful information pertinent to their business demographic. And don't swear. Be professional.

1. Realise your total number of followers isn't an important indicator of success.
2. Actively seek to follow others who match your target market (by keyword/profile).
3. Listen first. Then participate.
4. Inject some personality into your posts and don't just use the channel to market.
5. Use retweets to make friends with key influencers.
6. Watch for hashtags relating to your market & get involved in those conversations.
7. Follow back. It's appreciated and helps your engagement.
8. Never talk about your numbers (followers vs. following).
9. If you automate. Don't admit it. (It's only really good to cover different time zones)
10. Incorporate your twitter feed into your website, blog, & other online resources.

1. The search box in Twitter is probably the best tool there is to actually use on Twitter. Searching is essential in using and understanding what activity is happening on Twitter. By searching using selected keyword on Twitter, you can connect with potential customers and also keep track of trending keywords.

2. HOOTSUITE is an awesome tool if you want to keep pushing tweets out automatically so you can schedule tweets for a whole week if you want. You can also manage all your Twitter activity from the HootSuite platform which is awesome.

3. Engage. Engage. Engage: Send tweets to those people talking about the subject in which you are trying to market for on Twitter. Engage in conversations. Treat Twitter like your own website/profile. You wouldn't want spam, etc on it so don't do the same to Twitter users.

1. Follow others to stay abreast of news and trends in your area of expertise
2. Share valuable content with your followers--prefaced by insights that get to the heart of the matter.
3. Contribute to the conversation by producing unique content that will provide value ot your followers.

It’s tempting to copy the words from one format and paste them into another. But don’t give in to that temptation. A style of business to business communications that’s ideal for one format might be disastrous for another. Different business to business communications formats demand different styles.

Examples:

A straight news release should set out the facts and let them speak for themselves: “Niftycorp today introduced its new line of color-coded flamdoodles.” Don’t gum it up with how Niftycorp is a leading provider, or how excited the CEO is about the new product. (It’s the CEO’s duty to be excited about his products. No news there.)

Blogs are a different animal. They are conversational and interactive. You can get personal: “It’s always exciting to launch a new product, but our CEO was patting a lot of backs this week when the new color-coded flamdoodles came out.” You still need to give us some meat, of course. Tell us what’s new and different. Maybe it wasn’t so much the new product, but the way the product was introduced. Maybe you came up with a creative solution to a last-minute hurdle. Maybe a customer found a new way of using flamdoodles that even Niftycorp never thought of. Blogs give you a lot of freedom to go beyond the plain-vanilla facts.

Twitter, on the other hand, forces you to say everything in 140-characters or less. You stick to the main point because you have no choice, and you point the reader to details posted elsewhere: “Amalgamated Fuddle found a clever way to use flamdoodles for inventory control. Watch the video at www [dot] fuddle [dot] com/flamdoodles.”

The opposite of a Tweet might be a podcast. Here the tone should be even more conversational than your blog: “Welcome to the Niftycorp podcast for Feb. 30. Today we’ll talk about some of the creative ways our customers have been using our new color-coded flamdoodles. It’s always exciting to find out that our favorite product has possibilities we never imagined. With me today is Arthur Flern, head of the shipping department at Amalgamated Fuddle...”

It may sound like a lot of extra work to tailor your message to each medium. In a sense, though, it gives you more freedom. Are you frustrated that your draft press release isn’t working? Take a second look. You might have Twitter material there -- like a heartfelt gripe or tweet asking help from peers on getting over whatever hurdles.

1. Give more than you receive – This is especially true in the first few month/year of using twitter. Share more from those in your network and those whose blogs you read regularly. If you are like most, you have spent considerable time in networks like LinkedIn and the blogosphere reading and participating in discussion groups much longer than you have in Twitter. You will build your followers in Twitter much faster if you open your existing networks of thought leaders and experts to the twittersphere.

2. Act as a facilitator rather than simply a promoter. Integrate twitter into all of your social networking communities. As you participate in or lead discussion threads in networks such as LinkedIn Groups, Facebook, FOCUS and others, share those discussions via twitter to bring more and more into the conversation.

3. Establish a balanced mix of subjects in your daily/weekly tweets. Some content that you tweet should be original from you (1/3 or less), some should be from others you follow and retweet (1/3 to 1/2) and the rest should be random observations of events in your daily business life. Also be sure to add your own comment to what you retweet - it helps personalize it so that readers feel like you read what you forwarded.

I am looking forward to reading what others suggest.

All good answers here. I like to keep it simple. My three tips: Links, Content, and RTs. Include links in your tweets, whether images or sites that provide additional information; blogs, websites or other social media sites. Tweets with links are more likely to be clicked. Content. In order to be continuously 'present' on Twitter, you have to have an ongoing supply of relevant, useful content. Building, collecting, creating, harvesting that content is critical. Content should support, not sell, your product/service. RTs or Re-tweets. Use them. They will help identify your audiences, speak to your key publics, and build good-will. RTs can broaden your reach as well. I'm sure there are hundreds more best practice tips for using Twitter as a marketing tool.

Here's a few tips for using Twitter as a marketing tool. To make an impact on Twitter, you must HELP!
Have signature content
Engage Others
Listen First
Participate in Twitter chats on your subject matter.

Here's a few more things to keep in mind:
Know your target audience
Communicate with your audience consistently
Use a 4:1 ratio of promoting other people's contact over your own
Use Retweets (RT) and @replies to tell people why you love their content.
Do not use automatic DMs (direct messages) to send links to people you do not know. Use DM to explain what you do, Its not good to them invite them to Facebook.

Here's also a link to a brief video of a talk I gave on this subject at the annual #140 conference in NYC. http://www.ippio.com/view_video.phpviewkey=db8790df275fcebb37a1

(1) Listen and seek first to understand
(2) Connect and nurture relationships
(3) Strive to serve your followers
(4) Don't broadcast

1) Stop broadcasting discounts and coupons. Start **prompting** customers to “signal” (respond!) what they're most interested in, when, where and why; capture this information and...

2) Publish useful, relevant tools, services and information that fit within customers' momentary context. Compel prospects to participate MORE in these services & tools. (which are part of a "content marketing" lead generation program)

3) Monitor (using Twitter's advanced search) for latent and explicit demand (a la Paul Dunay of Avaya) and place leads into a formalized follow-up process aimed at closing sales.

Across the above, **design marketing processes** to guide empowered customers toward destinations they choose. Set aside the tactics long enough to develop a plan first.

Attention is no longer the goal. Leads and sales are all that matter. "We sell or else" (Ogilvy).

On Thursday a slightly longer piece is slated at www.thecmosite.com -- on this subject.

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