Basic info and tips and tricks for those who are new to Twitter. Best practices for Twitter for business.

1. Making Sense
of Twitter
a.k.a. #WTF is Twitter?
June 12, 2013

2. Why me?
• I initiated UDM’s social media presence almost 5
years ago*
• I am the founder and cohost of #TCMParty, one of
the most popular chats on Twitter.
• Twitter is my true social media love.
• Follow me: @Paula_Guthat

3. So...what is Twitter?
A microblogging service which allows users
to post updates of 140 or fewer characters.

4. Why Twitter?
✴ Are people using this platform to talk about your brand,
your industry, or your competition?
✴ Does this platform align with your demographic?
✴ Is there an opportunity to tell your brand’s story in a
new or unique way on this platform?
✴ Do you have the resources to maintain a robust presence
on this platform?
✴ Does this platform logically fit in with your existing digital
ecosystem?
any social network
*Things to think about BEFORE you join
PR Daily, 5/21/13

5. Why Twitter?
✴ What are you trying to accomplish by engaging on [any
platform]? In other words, what are your goals? Examples:
✴ Awareness – visibility
✴ Driving traffic to your....
✴ blog
✴ online store or bricks & mortar location
✴ Facebook page
any social network
Things to think about BEFORE you join
✴How will you measure it?

6. What’s so great about Twitter?
✴It is very well-suited to mobile devices.
✴Of the“major”social networks, it’s the
easiest one to find and consistently
connect with your target market.
✴News breaks on Twitter first.
✴It’s the great leveller.

8. Twitter terms, part 1
• “Follow” – you’ve opted to see all of a person’s or a
company’s tweets in your timeline except those replies
where you don’t follow both parties
• “Tweet”– Also called an update. Public message to
EV-eryone that is following you.
• “Mention”or“@mention”– Public message to specific
person/people
• Add 1 character before an @name and that tweet
will show in all your followers’timelines, not just
that person
• “Direct Message”– Private message to a specific person;
you can DM anyone who follows you

9. • “Interactions”– Your mentions, plus follows and
favorites
• “Retweet”or“RT”– Posting someone else’s tweet to your
followers
• “Modified tweet” or“MT”– Some Twitter apps
allow you to edit a tweet before retweeting. When
you do this, change the“RT”to“MT”to indicate
there have been edits made to the original tweet.
• “Timeline”– the running list of tweets and RTs from
everyone you follow except those replies where you don’t
follow both parties.
Twitter terms, part 2

10. What is a #hashtag?
• A word or phrase added to a tweet so that
it will show up in searches
• If the word is in the tweet, you don’t need
to repeat it for it to appear in search
results
• Use a hashtag whenever possible, but 2
hashtags per tweet is usually enough
• Can also be used as a comment on the
tweet’s content. Use judiciously for
business, if at all.

11. How to
tweet like this
not this

12. Getting started
Which hashtags to track?
Who to follow?
✴LISTEN before diving in
✴Keywords and searches
✴Make Twitter lists – they can be private
✴Begin by offering interesting content &
starting conversations
✴Also follow a few new accounts every week

13. Twitter for business
• Optimize your profile
• Continue to listen (FREE market research)
• Mindfully promote your product/service ()
• Develop relationships with customers,
business partners and media by offering
helpful, interesting content and
conversation
• Customer service
• Having fun

14. Twitter for everyone
• Experiment & observe to determine how
many tweets is“too many”
• The most interaction occurs early in the
week between 10 a.m. & 4 p.m. Eastern. Take
your followers’time zones into account.
• Schedule sparingly
• Ideal tweet length is no more than120
characters to allow for RTs. Less is better!
• Find your RTs and thank people for them
• Look at what people are not saying

15. not likely

16. Free/low-cost Twitter tools
HootSuite, SproutSocial, Sendible, Buffer
www.whentotweet.com
www.twittercounter.com
www.followercheck.com
mobile: Tweetbot, HootSuite, SproutSocial

17. Twitter Analytics

18. Recommended reading