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Using Twitter to Create a Social Media Brand

  

  

  

  

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Twitter has emerged as not just a great way to communicate between friends and followers but as a way for companies to establish their brands online.  But we've found that Twitter as an inbound marketing tool can be a difficult concept. 

First, why would you want to use Twitter?  That one's easy.  As we've mentioned before, Twitter has over 100 million registered users and the Twitter search engine is being used around 600 million times a day.  With an average of 300,000 new users a day, that's an enormous audience to tap into.

Better yet, this search audience isn't looking for products; they're looking for what other people are saying about the products.  They are, in effect, creating your brand for you.

Creating a Plan

The beauty of Twitter (and other social media, but we'll get to that in another post) is that you can get directly involved in the conversation.  Better yet, by this time Twitter is so well established that there is little downside to using it as a marketing tool as long as the campaign is handled correctly.  So how do you craft a good Twitter marketing campaign?  The most important factor is your plan:

• Keep your tweets focused on quality content and not just on your company
  • You need a high signal/noise ratio
• Make the tweet feed a good resource
• Highlight specific parts of your site
• Keep communicating
• Mix it up a bit

So how does this translate to the real world?  Let's say you make widgets.  You don't do eCommerce because you're a specialty manufacturer and your widgets are generally customized for your customers.  Frankly, you're in a bit of a niche.  In other words, Twitter is perfect for you.

Stay Focused

Looking at our first rule, you would want to post tweets about your products, but better yet you'd want to tweet about information.  I have no doubt that you answer questions on a daily basis, and the answers could be condensed into a quick tweet.  Better yet, if you usually refer to a page on your site then include that link in your tweet.

Be a Resource

Don't just tweet about yourself, however.  Your widgets are part of an overall industry which includes not just competitors but possibly government resources and certainly customers.  Tweet about those resources and success stories.  The goal is to make your tweet stream a resource for people interested in widgets overall and who may become customers.

Drive Traffic

While being a resource, remember that the overall goal is getting potential customers interested in your widgets.  And the best way to do that is to direct them to your site.  As I mentioned before, you can do that by answering questions with web pages or blog entries.  Or you can specifically mention a particular page that has good information.

Keep Communicating

To be affective you need to keep a constant stream of information flowing.  Tweeting once every two weeks is generally not going to get you a following.  This is a commitment, and you'll want to tweet at least once a day and better yet several times a day.  This can sound daunting, but keep in mind you can tweet as the result of off-line conversations.  I expect you have enough business communications in the course of a day that you can use to generate a tweet or two.  If you decide to make a very comprehensive plan there are even tools that will help you queue future tweets and send them for you.

Remember that Variety is the Spice of Life

One trap that can be very easy to fall into is to be a pure information flow.  While you don't want to stray far from the overall message, it is entirely appropriate to inject interesting tidbits from other sources.  For example, while your company may make widgets you are a new iPad user.  There may be no connection between the two, but an occasional tweet about your iPad experience may spark an additional interest in your tweets.

The Overall Goal

What you're trying to do is create an awareness of your brand on the Web, and specifically withing Twitter.  Make sure you follow other Twitter users in your industry and encourage others to follow you by having good content.

Let us know if you've used Twitter to market your brand, or if you've faced some problems getting going with Twitter!