Written in 2009 for Advantage Business Media.

1. ABM Corporate Strategy & SOP
Why Use Twitter –
1. They’re already talking about us, so why not
talk to them directly?
2. Attract new readers.
3. Increase traffic to our website content.
4. Track relevant, breaking industry news.
5. Discover new ideas from smart people in our
industry.
6. Get instant feedback from current users and
potential users.
7. Build our brand loyalty.
8. Real control of brands has moved into the
customer's hands because technology has
enabled it.
9. Per Nielsen, Twitter’s biggest demographic is
ages 35-49, so it is not some social site just for
the kids.
We want to use Twitter not only to push our existing content, but as a place to have
conversations with our current and potential users, get feedback, and if possible, help
them with a problem or point them in the right direction for the information they want.

2. Profile Setup – Personality and identity on Twitter are important, so we need to
make it clear that our brand profiles are staffed by a team. Some ABM Twitter users
should consider having a personal Twitter account in addition to their presence on our
company accounts. In this day and age, a personal brand is an asset that can provide
credibility and rapport that would help boost our brand networks. We must always
remember that these personal accounts are a reflection of the company accounts so please
reflect your own personal interests but always use your best judgment and err on the side
of caution.
• Account
o Name – Use full ABM brand name for company account &
full name for personal account.
o Username – Use full brand name (no spaces, i.e.
WirelessWeek) for company account and full first and last
name (no spaces) for personal account.

3. o Email – For personal accounts you may use the email client
address of your choice. For company accounts the account
creator should use their ABM email address.
o URL Field – For personal accounts, put a link to your blog
(make sure posted content is appropriate) or leave blank.
For company account, for now, put the homepage URL. In
the future, we will place a link here to a Twitter-dedicated
page on our website. This page will serve the purpose of
welcoming people who have checked out our Twitter
profile, and explaining to them why we’re twittering as
@ABMBrand and what we hope to accomplish. An example
of a page like this can be seen on Dell’s website:
dell.com/twitter
o Bio Section – For personal accounts use a brief description
of your work (i.e. Editor-in-Chief for Wireless Week
magazine) and some personal interests (REMEMBER this
account is a reflection of the ABM company account). For
company accounts, use a brief statement here to say
something to the effect: Providing the latest on wireless
news, trends and business analysis from our Editorial Staff:
@Publisher, @EditorInChief and @AssociateEditor.
o Location – Use your discretion.
o Protect my Updates – Leave this check box blank.
• Password
o For company accounts, this password will be decided by the
account creator and shared with the whole brand team.
• Devices
o You can select Direct Messages, Updates, etc. via text
messages on your phone. It’s recommended to leave this
turned off.

4. • Notices
o Auto Nudge – Leave this box unchecked.
o @ Replies – Set this to “@ replies to the people I’m
following.”
o New Follower Emails – Leave this box checked so we can
thank people for following us in a timely manner.
o Direct Text Emails – Leave this box checked so we can
reply to people in a timely manner.
o Email Newsletter – Leave this box unchecked.

5. • Design
o Change Background Image – For personal
accounts, choose from any of the designs
provided or go to Twitter Patterns for more
options. For company accounts, each brand will
be provided with an image similar to the one
shown on to the left.
o Change Design Colors – A good starting point
which has been proven effective is provided
below. Please change at your own discretion.
Background – #d3e8e9
Text – #333333
Links – #cc0000
Sidebar – #eaf5f8
Sidebar Border - #d3e8e9

6. Using Twitter –
Ultimately, Twitter is far more valuable for distributing our brand personality than it
is for merely delivering our content. Our brand success on Twitter success will not come
from just supplying information over a channel. Rather, our voice and the style of the
delivery we use to engage the community will be the difference maker. Monolithic,
faceless organizations are most often ignored in these communities. If we take a little
time to hone a voice and personality, people are much more likely to engage with us. So
we need to make sure to be honest, interesting, and authentic.
As with other social media, the most important first step is to listen to the
conversations. See what people are saying about us on Twitter (ways to accomplish this
are listed & explained in the Tools & Applications section below). The daily thoughts of
these people can be an incredibly rich source of information on the perceptions of our
brand, products and services. Twitter is about talking with people, not merely at them.
You are probably wondering what exactly we should publish or post on Twitter. For
starters, we should include regular news and updates that we already distribute via other
channels:
• Press release headlines
• Events information
• Press coverage about us
• Product announcements
• Blog posts
If we are currently using RSS feeds to distribute any of the above (many brands
currently offer a feed for their news items), then we need to set up an account on
Twitterfeed.com so these items can be posted automatically. Please contact Tim
Besecker (tim.besecker@advantagemedia.com) for help in starting these accounts and
structuring the delivery settings.
Blasting people with our news and announcements simply won't cut it for the great
majority of Twitter users. Most people don't want to follow us on Twitter for the factual
information and announcements we might publish because they can get this existing
content elsewhere. They're interested in us because they want to engage with our brand in
some way. They want to hear the voice and personality of our brand. We need to think
about new and different bits of content that our users will find valuable. For example,
JetBlue often uses Twitter to post weather alerts or travel tips that make traveling easier.
• Tweeting – The more we post or “Tweet” good content to our users or
“followers,” the better. Simply type the message in the post box on our Twitter
page and hit enter. Use the analysis tools provided below to find mentions of
our brand, read them, and take the lead in starting a conversation. For company

7. accounts, all users should sign the end of their tweets with ^initials signature, so
people know who wrote each one. For example, a tweet might look like this:
@ABMBrand is looking for website user feedback on our new media section.
^TB
If we are including a website link in our posts, we need to use a URL shortening
tool because of the 140 character minimum allotment in the Twitter post. The
preferred URL shortening tool is bit.ly because of its ability to track links for
future analysis. Company account creators should also sign up for a bit.ly
account and provide the information to the rest of the brand team. bit.ly
provides two tools to easily create these shortened URLs and add them to our
posts. Please contact Tim Besecker (tim.besecker@advantagemedia.com or
@TimBesecker on Twitter) for help in setting this up.
• Following – We are creating a community around our brand, not a soapbox
for us to stand alone, so we need to add friends or “follow” people. We can do
this on the Twitter website simply by clicking on the “follow” button on the
user’s Twitter page. If people follow us, generally we should follow them unless
their account is obviously a spam account that does not look legitimate and has
nothing to do with our industry, or their username or content has inappropriate
language or topics.
• Direct Messaging – In instances where we would like to send an off-the-
board private message to someone, we can Direct Message or DM that person.
We can do this by typing D + username of person + message. An example
message would be, “D wirelessweek Do you know where I can find info on the
new Iphone software?” These messages will show up under our Direct Message
tab on the Twitter page. A good best practice is to send a DM to new people who
follow us. An example message would be, “Hi, thanks for the follow. We are
honored to be part of your network. Please let us know if we can help in any
way.”
o DO NOT DM people unnecessarily. DM’s go to many people’s
mobiles via SMS, and SMS messages can cost people money.
• Replying – Reply to others is a critical component of our Twitter activity
because it shows that we are listening to our users and that we want to engage
with them. When people make a comment or ask a question, we need to respond
quickly and authentically like a real person, and not like a marketing robot.
o DO NOT send useless @reply messages to people, especially people
you don't know. If you send someone a @reply, it should at least be
relevant to you and them, and hopefully something they will want to
read.

8. • ReTweeting - When we see something that a user on Twitter posts that we
find interesting, we should show them some love by ReTweeting it. This is a very
simple way to show our users that we’re paying attention to what they are saying
and that we agree with or respect it. We can ReTweet by simply typing RT in
front of the user’s Twitter name. An example of this would be RT @Twittername
“user’s previous message”.
• Hashtags – It is important for us to use hashtags as much as we can. Hashtags
are created by putting # in front of a word and look like this: “#something in
tweets.” The reason we need to use these is to get our brand message out to a
wider user base. Also, this is a great way for us to build our network and get
followers in specific niches or segment areas. Let’s say that we have some good,
fresh insider information about a company merger or acquisition (Verizon, for
example.) In this case, we post the Verizon merger information, but we only have
100 followers, so we’re not seeing the total benefit of tweeting it. However, if we
write the message with #Verizon instead of just Verizon, then people that are
actively searching for this hash will see our message and in return follow us if
what we post is worthwhile. You can search popular hashtags to see what people
are saying at http://hashtags.org/. This is a good way to follow our market
conversations and build our networks.
• Best Practices Don’ts List:
o DO NOT bribe people in order to get them to follow us. Don't offer
people prizes or rewards of any kind if they follow us, or if we reach a
certain number of followers. The number of followers we have is not
the most important thing and does not accurately reflect our actual value
to the network. The number of ReTweets we get is a much better
measure of our value to the network.
o DO NOT use auto-follow. Auto-following rewards spam accounts and
bots in Twitter. They simply follow you and you automatically follow
them back. Who we follow reflects on who we are to the rest of the
Twitter community.
o DO NOT participate in chain letters. For example, “RT this and you
will have good luck” – these are annoying, and will result in bad karma.
Do NOT participate in hashtag campaigns like #TryThis1.
o DO NOT advertise directly on Twitter. If we want to get attention for
our brand, product or service, then we need to contribute content with
enough value that people will read it. Promotions and sales-related
information is best served up in a separate, clearly defined brand

9. presence on Twitter. An example of this can be seen here:
http://twitter.com/DellSmBizOffers. Brand presence of this kind will be
discussed in the future and should not be created now before community
testing and analysis.
Tools & Applications
Below is a list of Twitter tools & applications, broken down by category, that will
help us manage, analyze, share info, and build our network. Please contact Tim Besecker
(tim.besecker@advantagemedia.com or @TimBesecker on Twitter) for help in setting up
and using these various Tools & Applications.
• Twitter Management -
o JustSignal - Set up a filter using Just Signal to get only the tweets that
discuss the keywords we would like to read about.
o TweetDeck – Desktop software that provides us with more
organizational function than the Twitter website. It has a groups function
that will help us more efficiently follow the people we really want to listen
to.
o Twilert - Track specific keywords to send and receive alerts.
o Twalala - Put the mute button on certain people and topics for a while if
we are receiving lots of updates we’re not really interested in.
o TwitterSnooze - Put the pause button on a particular user for a specified
period of time.
o CoTweet - Powers company brands on Twitter by offering a business
platform that supports both proactive marketing communication and
response-driven customer support to engage existing users and attract new
ones. A possible partner in the future.
• Twitter Analysis –
o Twitter Search - Easy way to start listening to brand relevant
conversations by simply entering our brand name and related keywords.
o Twist - View the volume of conversation about our brands and trends on
keywords relevant to our industries.

10. o Techrigy SM2 – Monitor and measure all social media, including
Twitter, with this comprehensive tool. They offer a free account with up
to 5 search words/phrases, and will store up to 1000 results. More robust
services cost money.
o Twinfluence – Measure your Twitter influence based on reach, velocity,
and social capital.
• Twitter Network Building –
o Qwitter - Qwitter will help us manage our network better by sending an
alert when a person unfollows us.
o WiseStamp – Allows those of us that use Firefox browsers the ability to
create professional looking email signatures with links to our Twitter &
LinkedIn accounts. Please contact Tim Besecker
(tim.besecker@advantagemedia.com or @TimBesecker on Twitter) for
help in setting this up.
o Nearby Tweets - Learn about all of the Twitter users in a specific
geographic area.
o TweetWheel - Discover which of our Twitter friends know each other.
o Just Tweet It – Add our brand to this directory under the relevant
categories to help users find us. This is also a place to easily find users
interested in our specific industry.
o Twellow - Add our brand to this Twitter “yellow pages” under the
relevant categories to help users find us. This is also a place to easily find
users interested in our specific industry.
o Twibs - Add our brand to this business specific directory under the
relevant categories, add keyword ("tags"), promotions, and additional
links to help users find us.
o Mr. Tweet - Personal networking assistant for Twitter that will help us
find relevant followers.

11. • Twitter Sharing Tools –
o TwitterHawk – Provides targeted marketing on Twitter. This service
costs money.
o Twitturly – Track our brand website links and see how they rank and
track what other users are doing with these links on Twitter.
o TwitPic - Makes it easy to take mobile phone photos and share them
using your Twitter account. This is a great for sharing while at a
conference or show.
o Twuffer – Allows us to compose a list of future tweets and schedule their
release to help with our time management.
• Twitter Information Gathering –
o Retweetist - Ranks the most popular links being Retweeted on Twitter.
o StrawPoll - Make sharing our opinion as easy as sending an @reply.
This is a great way for us to quickly poll our users with a survey question
and quick, informative feedback.
o monitter – Lets us monitor the Twitter world through filtered, relevant
keyword phrases in real time. See what people are saying and find
potential new users that may be interested in what we have to offer.
o TweetStalk – Allows us to follow our competition to see what they are
doing without them knowing that we are following them.