Effective use of twitter in business

pwcom.co.uk

March 2013

Effective use of Twitter for Business

Paul Wilkinson - @EEPaul(pwcom.co.uk Ltd)

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Hello?

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• Who am I?

• Twitter adoption

• setting up and using Twitter

• who to follow and how to get followers

• Twitter tools

• “Twittiquette”

• simple monitoring and measurement

• Twitter ethics

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Who am I?• author and technology consultant• B2B PR professional since 1987

– in-house: Halcrow, Tarmac, BIW– consultancy

(1998 - 2000, 2009 - date)

• Wikipedian (2003), blogger (2005)

and tweeter (2008)

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c. 500m+ registeredaccounts

• c. 28% 'active'*

• est. 250m 'active'by end 2012

* Active = members who log in at least once a month

Source: www.mediabistro.com

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• 400m Tweets/day(up from 2m/day in 2009)

• now (2013) averagec. 4,600 Tweets/sec

• Peak 33,388/sec(New Year's Day 2013)

Image courtesy of: Huffington Post

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• UK = 4th largest Twitter population

• c. 32m Twitter accounts(53% population)

• c. 11m active UK users

• 7% of Tweeters =79% of UK Twitter traffic

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• Twitter use/growth strongly linked to UK smartphone adoption (45+% own one)

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“Why?”

• engage in real-time online conversations

• expand range of communication tools

• join or open up new conversations(new customers, projects, etc)

• improve networking

• extend reach of existing tools, networks and content

11Source: Optify.net

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setting up and using Twitter

• Twitter - maximum limits ...

• 15 – characters in @username

• 20 – characters in real name

• 140 – characters in status update

• 160 – characters in profile

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• who to follow and how to get followers

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Following people.... (step one)

Search by......real name ...category ...contact

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Following people.... (step two)

Follow friends' recommendations

• FollowFriday (#ff) …

Follow people who follow you

• Auto-follow? (suggest not)

• spam

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Getting followers.... (step one)

“Why would people follow me/us?”

• Be interesting

• Be useful

• Don't just broadcast

• Interact

• Shape expectations– recent tweets– landing page

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Getting followers.... (step 1.5)

Shape expectations: recent tweets

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Getting followers.... (step 1.5)

Shape expectations: landing page

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Getting followers.... (step two)

Highlight Twitteraccount

• link fromwebsite ...

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Getting followers.... (step two)

Highlight Twitter account

• link from website, blog, etc (and vice versa)

• on other social networks

• email footer, business card

• e-newsletters

• news releases

• printed collateral

• signage, event badges, etc

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Getting followers.... (step three)

Cultivate your online profile...

• tweet regularly

• Retweet (RT) regularly

• reply (it's about interaction)

• recommend others #ff

• use relevant #hashtags

• participate in relevant #tweetchats

• don't spam

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Twitter tools

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Twitter tools – why?

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Twitter tools - web

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Twitter tools

• at-a-glance “dashboard” view

• configure searches

• monitor lists

• manage multipleTwitter accounts

• publish updatesto Facebook

• short URLs

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Twitter tools - mobile

• Full functionalityon smartphone

• add GPS location

• tweet photos

• Tweet frommultiple accounts

• Sometimes all at once!

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Simple monitoring and measurement

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Good tweeting

• Beware:

– company and/or clientconfidentiality

– copyright issues

–defamation

–privacy of individual

–bringing company into disrepute

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Good tweeting

• Avoid conflicts of interest

–Disclose clientrelationships

–Clarify account'managers'

• Consider disclaimers

• Above all: honesty and integrity

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Good tweeting

• Stay (mainly)on-topic

• Keep it personal,not corporate

• Tweet regularly

• Be responsive

• Think long-term

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Six minutes31 January 20132.21pm - First tweet from @hmvtweets2.21pm - First media RT2.27pm - First RT by national journalist2.36pm - ITVnews article published2.51pm - c. 900 RTs

Data from PR Week, 22 Feb 2013

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Q&AThank you

Contact: Paul WilkinsonWebsite: www.pwcom.co.uk

Tech blog: www.extranetevolution.comPR blog: www.blog.pwcom.co.uk

Email: [email protected]: +44 (0)20 8858 1104

mob: 07788 445920Twitter: @EEPaul

http://www.google.com/profiles/paul.wilkinson19

Effective use of Twitter for Business