Twitter for Business

For corporations who are actively diving into the deep end of the Twitter pool, please take a moment to come up for air. There are a few rules of etiquette that businesses should consider before diving in head-first.

• If you plan to do nothing -- ever -- with Twitter, claim your corporate and brand names on Twitter. If you don't, someone will. Just ask Exxon. It's like the great URL Land Grab of the late '90s.
• When you first begin on Twitter ... LISTEN. Listen for a while to the conversations about you, your products, your competitors, and your industry. It's one of the best sources of free market research out there. Only when you get a sense of the conversation can you start engaging in it. When you see people talking at a party, you don't shove your way into the conversation. You ease your way in. The same social etiquette applies to social media. Use a search tool like search.twitter.com to see what they're saying about you.
• Make sure you don't start following people or Tweeting until you've updated your "o_O" default logo. Nothing screams, "I'm a newbie," like the default Twitter logo.
• In a similar vein, the background of your Twitter page affords you the ability to customize it, so please do. Make it represent (in a fun way) your company. But don't make it one of those annoying repeating tile backgrounds we loathed during 1996.
• After listening for a while, only then start RESPONDING. I don't mean talking ... I mean responding. People have a lot of questions, concerns, misperceptions, praise, ire, etc. for your company. Start to engage with these people by responding to them. However, know when not to respond. Some people are just haters, so don't be dragged down into the mud by them. Others will recognize that they are ignorant.
• If your business goal for using Twitter is branding or exposure, talk about yourself only 10% of the time. The other 90%, dispense a healthy dose of good information for your consumers (links, retweets, industry news, etc.). You'll build your Twitter cred that way.
• This one came up with the advent of blogging ... don't expect your CEO to be Tweeting. That's not to say that he or she can't; just don't expect it. @zappos is one of those rare CEOs who Tweets, does it well, and does it often. That's a rarity. Robert Scoble was a mid-level guy at Microsoft. It wasn't Bill Gates who was blogging.
• If you're going to be on Twitter, be on Twitter. Don't think it's something you can check in on once a month or even once a week. Either assign an employee to be your "Twitter person," or hire someone (an individual or agency) to stay on top of it regularly.
• On that note, don't be afraid of having your PR agency Twittering on your behalf. Many times, the PR account team knows more about your company than you do. And they are your paid communicators. So let them communicate for you, as they would a press release, a convention, or a phone interview.
• You can react and respond to things very quickly on Twitter, so take advantage of that. Scott Monty of Ford squashed a possible s** storm for Ford within 24 hours using Twitter.

If you take all of the above into consideration, and it sounds overwhelming to you, you have two options. One, don't do anything. Don't bother with Twitter (but still claim the name). Or two, contact me.