Know-How Exchange : E-Marketing

Hi Dave,

I remember that post by Chris and since then I am just amazed at how valuable Twitter has become as a social media marketing application.

At that time I also did not understand its value to us as marketers and to our customers and how we could help our customers monetize that value.

However, fast-forward a few months and now my company is developing strategies and commercial Twitter applications for our customers.

But to directly answer your questions:

Q: Do you use Twitter?

A: Yes, and you can follow me @timpepperblue, but I believe that there are more valuable commercial applications for customers in spaces such as retail and hospitality (bars, restaurants, lodging) that have dynamically changing products and services that lend themselves to a daily Tweet.

Q: How do you use it?

A: I use it to post updates that I think have extreme value and relevancy to Internet & Mobile Marketing as well as helpful and cool applications that I find out about and use like for iPhones & software/ASP applications.

Q: My customers in the retail and hospitality industries use it to keep their followers updated on specials, coupons and events and it is also used to further direct Followers to their Facebook pages or websites.

Q: How many folks do you follow, and is this a productive use of your time?

A: I try to follow everybody that follows me or that post interesting and valuable Tweets but there are always Followers that post Tweets that just don't have any value to me or they over-Tweet so I sometimes remove them. However, I do try to keep my ratio as close to 50/50 as possible.

Yes, definitely, it is a productive use of my time on my account and it is a profitable use of time for my customer's on their accounts.

Q: Is twitter primarily a tool for marketing to twentysomethings, or can't be effective in reaching old guys like me?

A: Twentysomethings - not at all Dave. I know that people of all ages are Tweeting. There is something for everyone. Go for it, you'll be glad you did!

Who do you follow, and who would you recommend that I follow so that I can learn more about twitter?

A: You can see who I follow on my account by going to https://twitter.com/timpepperblue or as we post in Twitter just @timpepperblue

Ann Handley here at MP is one of the more recognized and well-followed Tweeters https://twitter.com/MarketingProfs with an insane number of followers.

I have a feeling you are going to get enough other responses here to keep you busy for a long, long time.

- Advice - Consider setting up separate personal and business accounts. You'll be glad you did a few months down the line.

I'll be looking for you following me so I can follow you Dave!

I currently use twitter as a micro-news service, allowing me to subscribe to industry experts and get real time updates about developments in the industry.

A great benefit of using twitter this way is that you can ask your community questions and receive instant answers.

As a courtesy I also post interesting articles I find - the process is pretty simple: I've created a FriendFeed account that automatically collects everything I share on Google Reader, StumbleUpon, Digg, etc. Friendfeed than automatically publishes the headline with a link to twitter. That way the process remains highly automated and manageable.

In the future I intend to use twitter for information purposes: it will be a microblog offering short tips and advice alongside with the headlines I share, and will serve as a marketing tool.

I have helped numerous clients set up twitter accounts for marketing purposes and they have all benefited from twitter in terms of expanding their market. Twitter is a great communication tool to reach a demographic that actively uses it and is excited about using brands they meet on twitter - the twitter hype carries their brand a long way.

As per what content they should provide I always advice to keep it relevant to their target audience - updates like 'I'm eating a sandwich' will get you nowhere.

The following topics are useful for followers:

• Add content about events
• Retweet other people’s great tweets
• Add tweets that are questions
• Add tweets that are links to great web pages you find
• Add random thoughts
• Add your blog posts

I advice clients to use the following tools / services to connect and market to their demographics:

Twellow - https://www.twellow.com/ is like a twitter phone directory that sorts people by industry. This can be a great way to find people in your industry.

Another directory can be found here - https://twitterpacks.pbwiki.com/ The nice thing about this directory is that you can also add your twitter links if you aren’t afraid to edit a wiki.

Twitter Search - https://search.twitter.com/ This little tool allows you to monitor anything you can search. It's the Google Alerts of Twitter.

TweetDeck – https://www.tweetdeck.com - This is a piece of software that you run on your desktop. You can post tweets from it, respond to replies from others and, this is what I really like, set up various searches and get updates in real time when someone tweets on a subject of phrase you are following.

TweetLater https://www.tweetlater.com/ - allows you to auto follow back anyone who follows me and auto send a welcome message via DM.

Twitturly https://twitturly.com is a service for tracking what URLs people are talking about as the talk about them. It sort of a real time link tracking popularity tool.

There are many more tools, but this is where I would get people started...

Hi.... as they have given all the necessary information needed. Twitter is for everyone and anyone the thing is you must be knowing how to use it. Its like a standing car and you dont know how to drive it.

Make your homepage, follow people of your business type.. make them follow you... put something interesting information appealing universally to tweets... make out some time focussing only to social media everyday... do your time management so that your time can be used productively.

Whichever article or information or link you post, dont forget to link it to your personal/proffessional website whichever you want to use. Make a column particulary for the twitter, where visitors who are coming to your website relate it to twitter.

Tanuja Thapliyal
Spreading Smiles :)

Hi Telemoxie,

Just to give you a representative response sample....
I do not use Twitter and have zero intention to start using it. I just do not see my benefit of:
1) twittering myself: as a professor, my thoughts are rather long-winded. No way I can get them to 140 characters
2) following tweets: given my addictive personality, I believe my time is better spend elsewhere

Cheers