Tasha Harrison

The thing that makes Twitter so amazing isn’t Twitter itself, but the users. It is the users of Twitter that have made up many of the rules and multitude of applications.

Here are my top five applications:

1. Tweetdeck
   As a friend of mine put it, ‘So that’s what Twitter should look like’. It enables you to organise your followers into columns, so you no longer view everyone in one large stream. You can also manage multiple accounts, follow a particular hashtag and find and follow new Tweeps. It has the ability to integrate bit.ly, so you can monitor how many people are clicking on your links. (Also see Hootsuite, some people prefer it!)
2. Mr Tweet
   Discover new Tweeters and get new followers. This site sends you a regular update and helps build your network by recommending new people to follow. It also allows you to recommend your favourite Tweeps.
3. TweetEffect
   See your most effective Tweets, which helped you gain followers and which caused you to lose them.
4. WeFollow
   An excellently organised directory. Search by your industry or interest and find the most influencial Tweeps to follow.
5. Twitpic
   The easiest way to share pictures on Twitter. Upload your photo and it Tweets it to all your followers. It is also possible to integrate with Tweetdeck, so you only need to use one application.

With any social networking you’re doing it isn’t enough to just talk at your followers and fans. They’ll quickly turn off to your incessent stream of links. The reason people join social networks is to talk to their friends and make new ones, so the most effective social media strategy will look for ways to join in the conversation.

Tips for how to engage and become part of the conversation:

1. Talk to people - watch what your followers are saying by following them back. Then reply to comments, questions and articles.
2. Retweet people – if someone posts an interesting article that you think your followers will appreciate, retweet them. See Retweeting made easy for tips on how to retweet.
3. Monitor what people are saying about your brand using Twilert. Then follow them and talk to them. If their comments are positive you can thank them, if they’re negative it is an opportunity to respond.
4. Always follow people back – if someone follows you and you follow them back they will instantly feel more positive about your brand. Don’t become like the celebrities who follow a select 50 or so people, Twitter is not a one way stream. (The only occasion when I’d recommend you don’t follow someone back is if they are obviously a spammer or a bot.)
5. Use an application like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck. These are both great services that help you organise your followers, making it possible to follow hundreds of people. By organising your followers into groups it is far easier to sort through the thousands of tweets in your Twitter stream.
6. Write a good description of your business and what you’re going to be tweeting about in your Bio. Try and identify the person who will be tweeting or the team, so that people know who they are talking to.
7. Always use an image, either your logo or a picture of the person who is tweeting. If there are a team of people tweeting from different accounts then each person should have a personal picture.

1. Build a relationship with your customers

   If you walk into a shop and the shopkeeper sits you down, makes you a nice cup of tea and discusses exactly what product is best for you, you are more likely to return. By speaking with your fans and not just at them you can create the same warm fuzzy feeling.

2. Customer services

   There are instances where people may talk about your brand, make a complaint or be unable to sort out a problem through the normal channels. You can monitor social media sites and reply to these people. They may reveal problems you didn’t know where there.

3. Your fans can become your brand champions

   They share your content, they suggest your Facebook page to their friends, they promote your Twitter account through #followfriday. They do the hard work for you.

4. Show your brand’s personality

   What sort of person is your brand? What music do they listen to? What do they wear? This can all be communicated through talking and sharing stuff with your fans and followers.

5. Be consistent

   The way you speak to your fans across all your social media sites should be the same, your fans will expect you to act in a particular way.

6. Create guidelines for your staff

   If more than one person is writing your content, you need to make clear to them how they should conduct themselves and what they can and can’t talk about.

Ever wondered about retweeting? Are you new to Twitter and can’t decipher the strange codes people talk in.

Here is my three point guide to retweeting:

1. An example of a retweet is:
   
   RT @tashaharrison This is a great article http://bit.ly/45t783
2. You can comment on a retweet like this:
   
   RT @tashaharrison This is a great article http://bit.ly/45t783 <– the point he made is worth thinking about
3. You can also reference someone else’s tweet by writing at the end of the tweet:
   
   This article is really interesting and worth thinking about http://bit.ly/45t783 (via @tashaharrison)

Retweeting is a great way of sharing information with the people you follow. It is generally how articles and news are able to travel so quickly to so many people on Twitter.

Facebook is a lot more difficult than people anticipate for marketing. There seems to be a myth that you can simply create a fan page and people will come. The problem is that often there is no reason to become a fan. The page is never updated and once you’ve become a fan you never hear from them again. Often people don’t have time, but usually they aren’t really sure what to do with their page once it’s set up.

Now Facebook have created new rules regarding competitions. You can’t ask people to interact with you on Facebook in order to enter a competition, they can only interact with a third party application. Gone are the days of getting more fans by encouraging them to join you in return for maybe winning something. Now marketers have to be more imaginative in the ways they get fans to sign up. In fact this may not be a bad thing, because simply building up a large fan base and bribing them to interact with you isn’t going to build up a long term relationship.

A few brands that do this really well are Howies and Staples. Howies communicate with their fans, their entire wall is a constant conversation. The fan pictures are terrific, you can tell that the people have really bought into the Howies’ brand. Staples appear to have a really strong presence and you can really see the enthusiasm people have. They’ve built some excellent third party apps as well – I Shred U enables users to delete embarrassing pictures of themselves.

If you are going to embark on Facebook ensure that there is a strategy or some kind of purpose. Is there the possibility of building up a strong community based around your products or services? Or are you running a marketing campaign that will be strengthened by a presence on Facebook? Most importantly, do you have the time to really make it work for you?