In my last post I asked, “If a tweet happens in the woods and there is no follower to hear it, does it make a sound?” Once a company acknowledges the potential of Twitter to increase top-of-mind awareness, there still is the detail of attracting an audience. Here are 5 mistakes companies make on Twitter that sabotage their efforts to attract an audience:
1. The Glengarry Glen Ross approach
Most Twitter followers accept that when they start following a for-profit business, they’ll get the occasional sales pitch. Nothing gets you un-followed faster than to “always be closing” with tweets like, “Click here to see why companies are switching to us” and “Widgets Inc saved 10% a year using our service.” Generally, your followers will tolerate an obvious sales pitch once every 10 or 20 tweets.
2. The Robo-tweet
Some snake-oil salesman told companies on Twitter that it was important to thank every new follower with a cold, impersonal direct message. Dozens of companies direct message me to say, “Thanks for the follow!” Useless. Worse, one company sent their robo-thanks at 1:30am. Shortly thereafter, they had one less follower.
3. The credit hog
If you see an interesting tweet from someone you’re following, it is acceptable (in fact, encouraged) to “re-tweet” the value. However, doing so without crediting the original tweeter (e.g. “RT @guykawasaki”) is bad form on par with plagiarizing data in a research paper. Give credit where credit is due and it will be reciprocated.
4. The once-in-a-blue-moon tweet
Almost as bad as constantly selling is failing to tweet frequently enough. The average Twitter user checks their feed several times a day. If you tweet value once every week or two, you’re just not showing up enough in the feed to be of any benefit. Infrequent tweeting probably won’t get you un-followed – worse, you’ll just be anonymous.
5. The Irrelevant Over-sharer
If someone is following your company on Twitter, keep it relevant to the professional world. Don’t tweet about the movie you’re taking your wife to or your kid falling off the swing and needing stitches (unless you can make it relevant and valuable to the business world). Do: “More restaurants would be doing well if they had service like they do at Food Restaurant.” Don’t: “Dude, I love Kung Pao Chicken.”
A couple more tips that help build your following:
1. Follow people and companies who would benefit from following you (they will often reciprocate). Like followers of your competitors, for example.
2. Put a “Follow on Twitter” link in a position of prominence on your home page. The mere suggestion works wonders.
3. List yourself in online directories like WeFollow. Put yourself in any category related to your business activity.
At the end of the day, amassing a Twitter following is about giving value consistently and predictably. Quite frankly, most of your competitors aren’t taking Twitter seriously yet – but they will. If your company does, you stand to reap all the benefits of getting in on the ground level.
18 November 2009
The Truth About Twitter
If you’re like most serious business people, you believe the latest social networking tool Twitter is nothing more than a passing fad. Conventional wisdom holds that Twitter targets ego-centric individuals thinking the multitudes are following their every update and that serious businesses have nothing to gain by engaging in such trivialities. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Evaluating a new technology mid-stream is a sticky process. Twitter’s early reputation as the latest fad for the self-focused Facebook generation was more or less earned. But, increasingly, Twitter is evolving from banal social network to egalitarian broadcast tool. Business owners who choose not to evolve with Twitter are leaving priceless top-of-mind awareness untapped.
Twitter levels the playing field. Traditionally, the big players were capitalized for big ad buys and expensive marketing campaigns. Twitter allows businesses of all sizes to engage existing and potential clients in three profitable activities:
1. Adding value
Most business owners understand the merit of giving value to prospects and clients unconditionally. If you position your company as an expert in your field, when your services are needed, you’ll be the first one they call. Being the resource of first-response gives you a significant competitive edge if you have something of value to say when called upon.
Twitter allows you to broadcast value messages to all your followers, for free, communicating, “We are a reliable, valuable resource in our area of expertise.” Practically, this means linking to relevant articles, sharing brief anecdotes, and commenting on current events relevant to your industry. If a prospect knows you give value for free, they’ll gladly pay when they need what you sell.
2. Communicating important information
More than traditional mail, or even e-mail, people are using Twitter to aggregate information important to them. Your organization can leverage this trend by using Twitter to broadcast important information. In addition to traditional methods (website, e-newsletters, press releases), Twitter is a low-cost way to announce new products, new versions or releases, available job opportunities, even management changes.
3. Connecting mutual friends in profitable relationships
Think of Twitter as a cocktail party where every one of your potential clients is in the same room as all of your existing clients, business partners, vendors, and advisors. If you facilitated that event, would the attendees be grateful? One of your vendors needs a CPA and happens to meet your accountant who saved you thousands last year. A prospect gets a chance to chat with an existing client and hear about your exceptional customer service team. One of your vendors meets several potential clients and lands some more business – all because you connected them.
Twitter works just that way as people click around to see who you are following and who follows you. They see whose messages you have re-tweeted (re-broadcast) and start following those folks as well – all because you effectively introduced them. In business, what goes around comes around – there is very little downside, and tremendous upside potential, to facilitating these connections.
Of course, the most important thing is having an audience. To paraphrase a classic question, “If a tweet happens in the woods and there is no follower to hear it, does it make a sound?” Next week we’ll look at getting and keeping followers.
Evaluating a new technology mid-stream is a sticky process. Twitter’s early reputation as the latest fad for the self-focused Facebook generation was more or less earned. But, increasingly, Twitter is evolving from banal social network to egalitarian broadcast tool. Business owners who choose not to evolve with Twitter are leaving priceless top-of-mind awareness untapped.
Twitter levels the playing field. Traditionally, the big players were capitalized for big ad buys and expensive marketing campaigns. Twitter allows businesses of all sizes to engage existing and potential clients in three profitable activities:
1. Adding value
Most business owners understand the merit of giving value to prospects and clients unconditionally. If you position your company as an expert in your field, when your services are needed, you’ll be the first one they call. Being the resource of first-response gives you a significant competitive edge if you have something of value to say when called upon.
Twitter allows you to broadcast value messages to all your followers, for free, communicating, “We are a reliable, valuable resource in our area of expertise.” Practically, this means linking to relevant articles, sharing brief anecdotes, and commenting on current events relevant to your industry. If a prospect knows you give value for free, they’ll gladly pay when they need what you sell.
2. Communicating important information
More than traditional mail, or even e-mail, people are using Twitter to aggregate information important to them. Your organization can leverage this trend by using Twitter to broadcast important information. In addition to traditional methods (website, e-newsletters, press releases), Twitter is a low-cost way to announce new products, new versions or releases, available job opportunities, even management changes.
3. Connecting mutual friends in profitable relationships
Think of Twitter as a cocktail party where every one of your potential clients is in the same room as all of your existing clients, business partners, vendors, and advisors. If you facilitated that event, would the attendees be grateful? One of your vendors needs a CPA and happens to meet your accountant who saved you thousands last year. A prospect gets a chance to chat with an existing client and hear about your exceptional customer service team. One of your vendors meets several potential clients and lands some more business – all because you connected them.
Twitter works just that way as people click around to see who you are following and who follows you. They see whose messages you have re-tweeted (re-broadcast) and start following those folks as well – all because you effectively introduced them. In business, what goes around comes around – there is very little downside, and tremendous upside potential, to facilitating these connections.
Of course, the most important thing is having an audience. To paraphrase a classic question, “If a tweet happens in the woods and there is no follower to hear it, does it make a sound?” Next week we’ll look at getting and keeping followers.