Streaming Media Business

Twitter is all the rage now; I wish I had a nickel for every time a client mentioned it. Succeeding in it is another matter, though, and at first it can be hellishly confusing.

When I first started, and was following dozens of people, I felt like I was in a busy sports bar during the Super Bowl. I remember thinking: I don’t know these people. I don’t know what they’re talking about. I must be in the wrong place.

It helps to know the rules and a little about the culture before you jump in. It’s not rocket science but it does take a little study and work.

1) Plan: First, think about why you’re even on Twitter.

Know what you want out of Twitter. Are you there for networking, building a brand, driving traffic to your blog? Determining this early will help guide your strategy and improve your odds.

2) Package yourself: First you need to pick out a Twitter ID. Consider your name first (I use @markivey); alternatively, you could use another name with your company, role or skills (example: @mediaphyte). You want something that will build your brand and/or illustrate your expertise.

And don’t skimp on your profile; make it sound engaging, and choose some nice wallpaper—this part is all about personal packaging (you can also customize your own wallpaper, using your company’s logo if you want). Study other Twitter examples because you need to get it right.

3) Follow the right people: Twitter is about following and being followed (more on connecting/conversing later) You can use the basic Twitter search or, better, one of the tools I recently reviewed like Twellow in my blog (www.ioncorporation.com/blog, date: Feb 6). These search engines can make life much easier for you by identifying the right people to follow.

Start with the influencers and industry experts in your industry. Find people with common interests and/or just people you want to track because they’re interesting. Check out some of the really big names here. Look for interesting directories and specialized lists; for instance, here’s 10 journalists worth following. And don’t forget your colleagues–you may have people all over your company tweeting. As one example, here’s a partial list of employees tweeting at Cisco.

4) Learn the lingo: Before you jump in and start tweeting, get up to speed on the lingo and abbreviations. Some common terms*:

• “tweet”: is a message.

• @ ID : A message with the @ sign preceeding the Twitter ID is a reply message; so if you want to send me a message, start with @markivey. (Note that your entire network can view this message).

• DM ID: Putting a DM in front of someone’s ID is a private message (you can only send private messages to people who follow you).

• RT: a retweet. If you find a post particularly interesting, you can copy and paste it and retweet it, as long as you give credit (tools like Tweetdeck have a RT button). (this is one of Twitter’s most interesting features, and how some Tweets go viral).

5) Manage efficiently: The last task is to download a “client” to manage your tweets and traffic. Twitter.com is ok for starters but you’ll soon want to move on to a better platform. These include clients like Twhirl and TwitterFox, which have built in search features, URL shorteners (which you’ll need) and nice interfaces to view and respond to your Tweets. Twitterfox is a Firefox extension, while Twirl is a downloaded application.

My favorite, though, is Tweetdeck.

What I love about Tweetdeck is you can arrange the people you follow into separate, manageable categories. I currently have four categories: “social media” (people who follow social media); “individuals” (business contacts, other influencers in other areas); Favorites; and “all.”

But you can set up categories for almost anything–influencers in your industry; friends/family/close contacts, sports/hobbies; special lists, like journalists or even by twitterers in your geographical area. Just add a new “pane” for each group.

You can also set up search features in separate categories to hunt for certain keywords, like your company name, personal ID or an issue or event (ex: China or World Series) . I have searches set up for “Twitter tools” and “Twitter tips.” The default search is search.twitter.com and Twitscoop, which reports on hot trends and keywords in Twitter.

One warning: Tweetdeck is a memory hog. It can also be addictive. Plan to set aside designated times, say 20 min. 3 times a day, to check it or you may wind up sitting there watching it for hours.

One way to become more efficient is to integrate Twitter into Outlook with a tool like Outwit. You can update your Twitter status and follow your friends without having to open any other applications.

Outwit allows you to schedule your Tweets to be delivered every minute to an hour, and dump them into a separate folder. This way you can check them at your leisure. You can also easily categorize them by name and save them, something you can’t do with Tweetdeck. One downside: your email box can quickly get overloaded (as if you need more email).

* Resources: there are hundreds of terms thrown around in the Twitter universe, some of the downright goofy. For instance, Twittish means “took skittish to twitter”. Check out this glossary for more.

note: you can follow me at http://twitter.com/markivey



Next: building a community with Twitter.

Almost one in five small businesses are now tweeting regularly, according to research released recently by O2, the mobile phone provider. (“Small Businesses are Catching Twitter Bug,” Richard Tyler, The Telegraph, 16 March 2009) Although the larger, multinational firms were the first to jump on the Twitter bandwagon, increasing numbers of small to medium sized businesses are catching up. In many ways Twitter is an even more useful tool for the mom-and-pop operators than for the big businesses with deep financial pockets and large advertising budgets. Twitter is free, simple and easy to use and is the newest, most useful tool for small businesses looking to increase sales and profits.

Cost savings

Small businesses that use Twitter save on marketing and recruitment costs. A substantial amount has been saved by firms who use Twitter instead of traditional marketing methods, an impressive cost reduction from the small business perspective. (“UK Small Businesses Flock to Twitter,” News Desk, smallbizpod.co.uk, 17 March 2009) Small businesses often have little, if any, advertising budget. Having a Twitter account is much cheaper than maintaining a web page or an email distribution list.  For smaller enterprises, the immediate intimacy of tweets suit their business philosophy and approach better than impersonal, sweeping advertising campaigns.

Spread the word

A Crème Brulee cart operating in San Francisco grew by word of mouth via Twitter and within a few months the proprietor had quit his day job to keep up with demand. (“Mom-and-Pop Operators Turn to Social Media,” Claire Cain Miller, New York Times, 23 July 2009) Such a success story illustrates that direct marketing, especially the word of mouth kind of Twitter, is a powerful tool for small businesses looking to expand their customer base. Business owners can also tweet about discounts or new, just-in products, reeling in new customers and enticing regular ones.

Relationship management

Twitter is useful for small businesses wanting to keep in touch with suppliers. The micro blogging tool allows small businesses to connect to other small companies, promoting a sense of community that goes beyond traditional geographical borders. An antique store in Texas connects with customers in New Jersey and orders supplies from out of town – all transactions were made through Twitter-based relationships. (“Mom-and-Pop Operators Turn to Social Media”) Twitter enables businesses to increase the range of contacts, whether with suppliers, potential customers or support services like accounting and consulting firms.



Feedback loop

Small businesses rarely conduct market surveys as these are too expensive and time consuming for the average small to medium enterprise. But what about grass root surveys? Twitter allows the small business to monitor what people are saying about their business and their products. You can ask for active feedback and criticism, respond to questions and deal with any disgruntled tweets through Twitter. Listening to what’s happening on the ground can also help small businesses decide on a strategic direction.

Keep your enemies closer

Competition is fierce for the small to medium enterprise. Twitter lets small businesses monitor their competition. What new initiatives are on the horizon and what can you do to keep ahead? If your competitors are not on Twitter, you can search for tweets that mention them so you can see what others are saying about them. Competitive intelligence is a good reason for small businesses to use Twitter and stay a step ahead of the crowd.

Differentiation

Being able to build a presence can make or break a small business. How do you differentiate your shop or enterprise from everyone else’s? Twitter allows a dash of creativity, humor and humanity in marketing your business. Tweets are personable and twitter accounts can be as funny or outstanding as you want them to be – the better for your customers to remember you by. A car dealer in Albany, New York, has the attention grabbing twitter profile “iamhuge”, a silly and memorable profile name that fits in with the business’s general marketing pitch and attracts curious customers to his website, Twitter account and dealership. (“Being HUGE on Twitter: A Small Business Case Study,” Rebecca Kelley, website: 10er20.com/blog, 4 August 2009)

In summary Twitter is not just for the big guys. Small businesses are signing up for Twitter accounts in droves. There are a lot of benefits of using Twitter to the small business, including cutting marketing costs and keeping tabs on competitors.

Recently I held a call about the biggest myths of marketing on Facebook. One myth I mentioned I see discouraging small business owners is that “Facebook alone will get you clients and customers.” This would be great if it was true of course.

Do people get clients and customers as a result of being on Facebook? Absolutely. But slapping up a profile and expecting the money to roll in is not going to happen. You might be surprised how many people end up discouraged because they’ve been on Facebook for a while and aren’t getting results. This is usually because they don’t understand how Facebook fits into their overall marketing picture.

It’s about consumers consuming what it is you are putting out there-which essentially, is content. You are gradually and steadily building momentum through relationships, word of mouth and the “know, like and trust” factor-which leads to traffic, to subscribers and eventually to sales.

Facebook is excellent for establishing expertise and credibility, for exposing your brand, boosting your visibility in front of your target market and even for market research-finding out what people need and want so that you can then go create and package those solutions for them.

Honestly, there is no faster way to create brand recognition and credibility and quickly connect to hundreds of thousands of people who are looking for what it is you offer.

So what should be one of your biggest goals? Traffic. Before you even get on Facebook, you must have a website or blog to drive people to first. You need to be able to continue to build those relationships outside of Facebook. And the best way to do that is to have a way to get people on your email list.

People don’t buy from you right off of Facebook. They also don’t buy from you the first time they visit your website, right? You have to build up that trust. But Facebook is amazing for strengthening that familiarity and credibility and for driving people to your site so they can get to know even more about what it is that you do.

The next time you get frustrated with Facebook or social media results in general, remember that there is no such thing as overnight success. But stick with it and the seeds you plant now will result in business rewards before you know it.