Frederic Martin's List: Microblogging

• Mind Your Twitter Etiquette
• You should learn the rules of Twitter etiquette for individuals who use the service. Many of the same principles apply for company profiles, with a few notable exceptions.
• One main difference is over the issue of following people. On your individual Twitter account, you should only follow people who bring you value personally.
• On a company profile, the rules change. Once people decide to follow a company's Twitter updates, companies should generally follow them back.
• In addition, people will not be able to direct message the company Twitter page if it doesn't follow their updates. (A direct message is a private message between two Twitter users.)
• It shows you're listening.
• "It makes sense to follow people back in most cases," Fitton says. "If someone walks into your store, you wouldn't ignore them. You'd go and greet them and ask how they are."
• Ideally, it's better to tweet publicly and avoid direct messages unless it's absolutely necessary (such as when you need to send private information, like an account number).
• Most problems or questions that people tweet about will be common, and the group can benefit from knowing the answer.
• Finally, be prepared to make mistakes. The Twitter community is temperamental, but passionate.
• They may evangelize your product if you respond to their criticisms thoughtfully and in a way geared toward helping them.
• Since every message must be 140 characters or less, it's easy to create misunderstandings. You must clarify your thoughts when necessary.
• "If you make a mistake, the important thing is to acknowledge it and say what you really meant," Eliason says. "That's what you'd do if you were talking to someone in person."

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• But while Twitter's user base might seem small, the return on engagement from Twitter fans is substantial
• "Most Twitter users are hyper-connected," says Owyang. "They are influencers and really want to share opinions with others. Many of them keep blogs. They are very different than the mainstream Facebook users."
• In most cases, companies that started Twittering with clear objectives — or at least listened closely to the Twitter user base after they got started and adapted their strategy accordingly — have reaped the greatest benefits and (more importantly) helped their customers in the process.
• Listen and Learn About Twitter
• you first must understand the Twitter community and what they think of your company, says Laura Fitton (@pistachio), who runs Pistachio Consulting, a firm that helps companies utilize Twitter and other microblogging (also known as microsharing or microstreaming) technologies.
• "Listen to what they're saying about your company and your industry."
• Fitton also recommends reading "Twitter 101" stories on the Web. Her firm has compiled a "Twitter for Business" reading list, with articles written by sources that span the Web.
• Some social media measuring tools can delve deeper into tweets (messages on Twitter) about your company. In a recent research note about businesses using Twitter, Owyang listed a few of these tools, including Andiamo, Infegy and Radian6.
• Establish Your Twitter Objectives and Metrics for Success
• The first goal: internally justify your efforts to your company.

• For Comcast's Eliason, the objective was easy to communicate.     

      "We wanted to use Twitter as a place to have conversations from our customers, get feedback, and when possible, help them," he says.     
• By measuring the amount of times they can help customers and also by chronicling common problems that people experience, for example, Comcast shows how having a Twitter presence provides value to the company, Owyang says.
• Some use it as merely a marketing megaphone, while others answer customer questions and provide support.
• The Twitter objectives of companies vary.
• Some use it for a little bit of both.
• How you use it could (or mostly likely will) evolve based on user feedback.
• Companies such as Dell have set up pages for deals and promotions
• others dedicate Twitter pages to customer service.
• The purpose of each Twitter page, as we'll detail in the next section, should be made clear in your company's Twitter profile. This can save you a lot of trouble.
• Set Up Your Company's Twitter Profile
• Experts say Twitter has a good track record of giving back your trademarked name if someone has taken it, so contact Twitter if someone has taken your company name already.
• In general, the more personal a company's Twitter account appears, the better.
• Traditional mediums such as corporate websites, advertisements and promotions typically lack the sort of human feeling that Twitter users crave, says Stowe Boyd (@stoweboyd), a social media analyst who writes the /message blog.
• "It's not a forum to throw up press releases," he says. "They should be real people who are real representatives of companies.
• To remain personal, you need to be able identify the individual or individuals doing it."
• While Eliason's Comcastcares Twitter page has a company logo, it also features his picture and a very humanizing trove of information, including ways to contact him directly, his personal and family blog, and other Comcast employees who operate on Twitter.
• All Twitter profiles have a field for a URL. While it might be tempting to insert your company's homepage, this might not be a good use of the space, Fitton says. Instead, you should link to a custom page on your website that explains why you're on Twitter and what you hope to accomplish by being there.
• Dell provides one of the clearest examples of this method. Most of its Twitter pages link back to dell.com/twitter, where the nature and purpose of its various Twitter pages are displayed.
• Dell lists some of its pages as clearly promotional in nature, while others dedicate themselves to community building and discussion around Dell products.
• On your company's traditional home page, you might consider creating a widget that lists your latest tweets, to send traffic from your company site to your Twitter page.
• "People say businesses need to be conversational on Twitter," Fitton says. "But my overall rule is you have to provide value."

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• A service called Status.net will launch in May that could overcome some of Twitter's limitations and make a significant impact on the world we work in.