Rockin' Robin? Oh, I wish. But no. I am in charge of getting the Twitter account up and running for the firm. After all, "this is the business networking wave of the future," and blahdie blah blah blah. Oh how I miss the days when the term "network" was a noun that referred to computer stuff beyond my ken rather than a verb that refers to marketing stuff beyond my ken.
Anyway...here we are.
"We" wanted to have this up and running and able to spout off one liners by January 4, 2010. I have it all set up, but NOW WHAT?
I have read 15 articles in the last few months saying "you MUST use Twitter for your business. You MUST!" I have listened to two presentations, and met with one consultant with the very same party line.
Yet NO ONE can seem to tell me exactly HOW to do this. They only tell me that I MUST do it. What they don't seem to understand is that I am secretly a boneheaded moron (or not so secretly, as it turns out, but whatever) and I don't know what to do next! I don't know HOW to "make Twitter work for me." I don't get it.
So I appeal to you, my favorite people in the blogosphere. HOW DOES TWITTER WORK? How do you get people to "follow" you? How often should I "tweet?"
I can't even say "I tweeted" with a straight face. It sounds like something I wouldn't want anyone to overhear or know about. I feel like I am grade school when I say it, and I want to giggle like a school girl too.
So HOW am I supposed to DO it, if I can't even SAY it?
I am clearly and chronically stupid. Please help me.
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I felt a little dumb when my mentor librarian "forced" me to join. Now I talk about what I'm working on, share a field-related tip. . . or complain about my neighbors. Seriously. Many people have their accounts set up to follow anyone with certain keywords in their tweets, automatically. (I don't.) One librarian I met through a workshop frequently shares her trials with grad school, and I respond with supportive words. It's the only time I'm in contact with her.
ReplyDeleteYou don't have to tweet if you don't want to; you can just follow others' tweets. You can also click through someone's profile to see the people they are following--might give you some good leads.
I'm on there--look me up by my e-mail if you'd like. :)
Do you guys have a communication’s director or department of any kind? Or are they tacking that on to you?
ReplyDeleteIf you’re going to tweet for your business, you first have to decide what information is important for customers/potential customers to know. Considering your vocation, I would assume you could develop some generic tax information as well as specific information about the products you provide. Do you have a website? Is this info on your website? I mean, if you guys don’t have a website, having a Twitter account is kind of pointless. You would use your tweets to point someone to go somewhere to get more information.
For example: “Did you know that under new tax laws you can BLAH BLAH BLAH? For more about this, visit www.umptyscratch.whatevs”
Frequency would depend on a couple of things. First, how much information do you have to put out? Second, you would increase the frequency of tweets as you approach important dates. The closer you come to tax time, you would up the frequency of tweets. When do you get most of your business? Start pumping out tweets two weeks prior or so.
This only has to be as hard as you want to make it. If your bosses are serious about it, use it as an excuse to attend a social media conference. Seriously, it’s a great source of information about this. I attended one in Vegas last year and it was fantastic. The best company doing these things is called Ragan Communications. I can’t say enough good things about their conferences. You would learn so much.
Finally (finally!), our mutual friend in Vegas probably has some very pertinent information on this topic.
Not so finally.
ReplyDeleteSend out e-mails to your existing customers saying things like "Follow us on Twitter." Add that comment to all outgoing communications.
Search Facebook for similar pages/topics and hashtag your tweets to post to those topics.
Ohhh, Cullen, of course she would be an awesome resource. Thanks so much...and to both you and Kate for all of your other info too. That is really helpful!
ReplyDeleteI have been meaning to attend a confernece or webinar on utilizing social media, but I seem to be timing it wrong.
Oh, and in answer to your quesiton, we are looking to hire a marketing director, but in the mean time...I'm it! Disaterous, I know!