A comprehensive guide to using twitter in a business environment. Topics include: *Getting started *Building a follower base *How to gain visibility *Business uses of Twitter *The future of Twitter in the enterprise This presentation features plenty of examples and best practices from successful members of the Twitter community.

1. Twitter for Business Paul Gillin Author, The New Influencers Secrets of Social Media Marketing gillin.com

2. Twitter is a Microblog Service It is the simplest form of blog. But in simplicity there is often great power. “ A microblog differs from a traditional blog in that its content is typically much smaller, in both actual size and aggregate file size…microbloggers post about topics ranging from the simple, such as ‘what I'm doing right now,’ to the thematic, such as ‘sports cars.’” --Wikipedia

3. A Few Microblogging Services And, of course…

5. 10% of Twitter users account for 90% of all activity? (Harvard Business School)

6. The more followers you have, the more you tweet? (Sysomos)

7. Brazilians are the second largest population of Twitter users? (Sysomos)

8. 15% of all US adults will use a microblog service this year? (eMarketer)

10. Many Uses for Twitter

11. Publish Everywhere 44 million members 32 million members 300 million members 1 billion daily views 1 million daily visitors 6 million daily visitors 1.5 million daily visitors 10 million members 50 million members

12. International Flavor Source: Twitter, Compete.com

13. What’s the big deal about 140? Here’s what 140 characters looks like: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposi” Or Tweetshrunk to: “4 score & 7 years ago R fthrs brought forth on ths continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, & dedicated 2 the prop that all men R crea”

14. The Appeal of “Ambient Intimacy” “Facebook users didn't think they wanted constant, up-to-the-minute updates on what other people are doing. Yet when they experienced this sort of omnipresent knowledge, they found it intriguing and addictive. “Each individual bit of social information — is insignificant on its own, even supremely mundane. But taken together, over time, the little snippets coalesce into a surprisingly sophisticated portrait of your friends' and family members' lives, like thousands of dots making a pointillist painting.” --Clive Thompson, The New York Times, 9/8/09

16. Hiring

17. Traffic building

18. Professional networking

19. Publicity

20. News

21. Prospecting

22. Feedback

23. Peer relations

24. Competitive tracking

25. Search engine optimization

26. Mobile visibility$ Source: Sirona Consulting

29. Use keywords

30. Link to an “About” page on your site

34. Seesmic (top) and Tweetdeck are popular choices

35. Choose a mobile client

37. Follow your friends, then find people through search.twitter.com, Listorious the people others followListen For a While Tweetdeck Seesmic Tweetie Twitterific (iPhone) Pandora (Android)

38. Monitor Conversations

40. Comment on others’ tweets

42. Be courteous, even if you disagree

43. Take time to look up user IDs of others you quote@ShellyKramer: It's An Exciting Time to Be A Creative Type | http://bit.ly/c1Fzxo Do not have your username "admin" when using a wordpress blog #wcmia New Mashable app is massive improvement from previous incantation and soo glad they dumped that 'graphic' or whatever it was Facebook Problems Today: Photo Uploads Broken and Other Issues http://bit.ly/cuRs2n 4 Reasons Why Nobody Reads Your Blog http://ow.ly/19kDd #BloggingTips by @binterest Romania seeks to tax fatty fast food http://is.gd/8JS5a 16 unusual facts about the human body http://u.nu/3fpw5

44. Consider Your Persona Helpful? Funny? Offbeat? Sympathetic? Snarky? Unpredictable? Try following some popular people , then choose a style that makes sense for you

45. Check out this interesting article! http://bit.ly/bvnPDV New entry on my blog: http://bit.ly/bvnPDV @JasonFalls do you like @Backupify? I've heard of it but never from someone I trust who uses it. It’s snowing in Austin and raining in New York. Something’s wrong! We just launched a new product! http://bit.ly/bvnPDV Info tweet Retweet Help tweet Six Types of Tweets RT @copyblogger Revised AP style guide http://bit.ly/bvnPDV Postman tweet Smiley tweet Source: Sirona Consulting Youtweet

46. Don’t… Flame or use abusive language Repeat personal or confidential information Talk about your gambling, drinking or other after-hours exploits Complain about clients or colleagues Repeatedly send the same tweet Twitter is public and searchable. People are listening!

47. Terms to know Tweet: A single Twitter message of 140 characters or less Profile: Your Twitter persona, including contact info and 160-character profile Follower: Unilateral relationship in which a person chooses to receive all your tweets Tweetstream: The flow of tweets from people you follow Public Timeline: The globally visible Twitter stream @Reply: Public response to a single user that is directed to a special inbox for that user. Also appears on tweetstreams of that person’s followers Retweet: Twitter message forwarded to another member’s followers

48. Terms to know Direct Message (DM): Private Tweet; the equivalent of an e-mail or text message Block: Prevents someone from following you Tweeple: People who tweet Tweetup: Meeting organized via Twitter; the event itself is usually heavily tweeted List: 2009 enhancement that enables members to group and share lists other tweeple by category Favorite: Saved tweet Connections: Applications permitted to access your account Geotag: Optional geographic annotation that tells people where you are

50. Analytics

51. Geotargeting

52. Custom URLs

53. Compatibility with your readerFrom This: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=one+speen+street,+framingham,+ma&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=1+Speen+St,+Framingham,+Middlesex,+Massachusetts+01701&gl=us&ei=-hOES45dh-GUB4G1_I4C&ved=0CAcQ8gEwAA&z=16 Claims world’s shortest URLs To This: http://3.ly/lyx

55. Demonstrate you know your market

56. Promote your work thoughtfully

57. Share links and knowledge

58. Use LinkedIn contacts or business cards to look up and follow people in your field

59. Alternate between something relevant to your business and something irrelevant. Comments on the tax season can alternate with notes about my passion fruits coming into season.

60. Add “Follow Me on Twitter” to your emails, web site, and other communications

61. Focus on one or two of your followers a day. Spotlight something about them in a tweet. They’ll notice.Excerpted from “137 Twitter Tips: How Small Businesses Get The Most From Twitter” by Small Business Trends (@smallbiztrends)

63. Don’t follow too many more people than follow you, or you risk looking like a spammer.

64. Find other companies that are similar to yours and follow them. Their customers will start following you.

65. The smart way to market on Twitter: Don’t. Instead, provide value to others.

66. Always be positive. The quickest way to get me to stop listening to you is to constantly complain.

67. When the people you are following put out a tweet for help, answer back. Don’t let the it die in cyberspace.

68. If you ask for a RT (retweet) leave at least 15 characters so people RT’ingyour message don’t have to shorten it.Excerpted from “137 Twitter Tips: How Small Businesses Get The Most From Twitter” by Small Business Trends (@smallbiztrends)

69. Advanced Tools Direct Message – Essentially a short, private e-mail (Both parties must be following each other). Hash tag – Text string that categorizes a tweet’s relevance to a theme. Examples: #fail, #tigerwoods, #obama, #macworld. Useful in organizing and trending Auto reply – Controversial practice of sending automated responses to new followers

70. Use Hash Tags To… Find people with similar interests Create conversations around a brand or event Create structured online events Monitor topics of interest Discover new sources and information Quick assess sentiment

71. Twitter Culture Trends: Popular topics of the moment, often displayed as tag clouds Selling: Just don’t Memes: Thematic conversations, often tied to days of the week. Ex: #FollowFriday, #Music Monday, #SinnerSunday Responses: It’s considered a snub to fail to respond to a request sent as an @ message Texting Slang: Avoid all but the essential. “IMO” is OK; “LMFAO” isn’t

72. Building Followers: The Quality/Quantity Tradeoff

73. A Tiny Sampling of Follower Services TwtrFrnd - Find out who two members follow in common, plus who member 1 is following who also follows member 2 TweetSum - Follow or ignore your recent followers with a simple drag and drop interface TwtUpon - Find people based up on interests and feedback Topify- One-click follow-back; Answer direct messages from your inbox TwitSeeker - Find & follow tweeps based on keywords Joule- Charts, graphs, and RSS feeds of your follower changes. TheTwitterBot - AutoFollow massive number of new people Tweepi - Value of metrics to help find people to follow and unfollow Twitroduce - Track activity around your tweets. One-click of other usersstalking (and who is stalking them). iHazFollow - Check to see who is following who, and if the relationship is reciprocated. Source: Twitter Fan Wiki

74. Word to the Wise Twitter has a very open architecture This is both blessing and curse A lot of Twitter apps don’t work or deliver questionable results 404 – Caveat Emptor Just don’t expect too much

75. Engage Popular People 1.7 million followers 1.1 million followers 1.2 million followers 473,000 followers 980,000 followers

77. Comment upon and retweet their messages

78. Include their Twitter name

79. If they follow you, thank them

80. Ask for advice, input

81. It’s occasionally OK to ask for a RT

82. They know they’re important; don’t abuse the relationshipChecking out "Facebook and Health Ads" on @WEGOHealth : http://ning.it/93dQ6z Tweeps: I'm in front of a college journalism class. What shld these students know abt social media. RT @tshuttleworth: This is the golden age of engagement for book publishers. - Arianna Huffington #toccon

84. Tweet from events you attend

85. Create Twitter-only events

86. Add your Twitter ID to all communications

87. Participate in topical Twitter chats

88. Think outside the box: What can you try with Twitter?#brandchat(Weds. @ 10) #smallbizchat (Weds. @ 7) #solorpr(Weds. @ noon) #journchat (Mon. @ 7) #blogchat (Sun. @ 8)

90. Easily automated

92. Tweetstream quickly becomes unwieldy

94. Offbeat and Original Paul Armstrong has built a following of more than 22,000 people for his Twitter persona @themediaisdying. Last summer he was hired as head of social media for one of Europe’s largest public sector consultancies. A team of 16 publishing professionals collaborate on the satirical tweet stream @fakeapstylebook. They’ve amassed more than 100,000 followers in less than four months with just 850 tweets. A book is in the works. Justin Halpern began recording his father’s off-color and often hilarious homespun wisdom on @Sh*tMyDadSays. Six months and 103 tweets later, he’s got 1.2 million followers and a TV pilot.

95. The Twitter Fan Page Wiki lists more than 700 applications. Everyone’s tastes are different. Some of my favorites: Continuous keyword/ hashtag monitoring Big directory of businesses on Twitter Measures power, reach and authority of a Twitter account Schedule tweets for later delivery TweetStats analyzes your own Twitter activity Who’s tweeting in your area Customer Twitter dashboard

96. Business Uses of Twitter

98. Ask questions, conduct market research

99. Collect ideas, innovations and feedback from social network

100. Customer service and retention

101. Humanize brand, increase staff retention, build team spirit

102. Expert exchange

103. Publish recent news

104. Advertise events, activities, products and promotions

105. Automatically broadcast of events related to businessSource: Richard Caelius (@rcaelius)

107. Special offers and promotions (by segment and geography), special interest engagement groups and information channel

109. Free permission marketingSource: Richard Caelius (@rcaelius)

111. Focus is on building relationships and enthusiasm among prospective employees

113. Image of Sodexo as progressive company appeals to young workers

114. Recruitment costs substantially reducedQuote “The human touch is essential. People know there’s somebody behind the message and the photo.” -Kerry Noone, Manager, Marketing Communications

116. In this business, timing matters

117. Twitter is low-cost real-time promotional channel

119. Messages are informative, witty and original Source: Richard Caelius (@rcaelius)

121. Tools mainly manage multiple accounts and monitor conversations

122. Next generation will automate posting across multiple channels, summarize feedback and follow up on actions

124. Thank you! Paul Gillin 508-656-0734 paul@gillin.com www.gillin.com Twitter: pgillin Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter at gillin.com Available on Amazon or at NewInfluencers.com Available on Amazon or at SSMMbook.com Coming late 2010: Social Marketing to the Business Customer By Paul Gillin & Eric Schwartzman