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Twitter is the new big thing. Ashton Kutcher has reached 1 million followers. Oprah Winfrey recently posted her first tweet.
What was Oprah’s first message? It was “HI TWITTERS. THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY."
Twitter is free social networking and microblogging site that allows you to post messages of 140-characters at a time. Want to know more about how twitter works? View this video on youtube: Twitter in Plain English
Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/GEMSSolutions
How Can Businesses Use Twitter?
Below are the first 20 ideas from "50 Ideas On Using Twitter for Business" by Chris Brogan.
(View all 50 ideas.)
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Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor’s names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.)
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Add a picture. We want to see you.
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Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn’t sell more widgets, but it shows us you’re human.
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Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you.
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Share links to neat things in your community. (@wholefoods does this well).
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Don’t get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. (@jetblue gives travel tips.)
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Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out.
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Promote your employees’ outside-of-work stories. (@TheHomeDepot does it well.)
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Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc.
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Talk about non-business, too, like @astrout and @jstorerj from Mzinga.
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Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?"
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Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety.
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When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
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Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
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Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
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Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.”
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When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
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Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
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Don’t toot your own horn too much.
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Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.
Famous Business Twitterers
Additional Resources
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