Making Sense of Twitter

Making Sense of Twitter

a.k.a. #WTF is Twitter?

June 12, 2013

Why me?• I initiated UDM’s social media presence almost 5

years ago*

• I am the founder and cohost of #TCMParty, one of the most popular chats on Twitter.

• Twitter is my true social media love.

• Follow me: @Paula_Guthat

So...what is Twitter?

A microblogging service which allows users

to post updates of 140 or fewer characters.

Why Twitter?

✴ Are people using this platform to talk about your brand, your industry, or your competition?

✴ Does this platform align with your demographic?

✴ Is there an opportunity to tell your brand’s story in a new or unique way on this platform?

✴ Do you have the resources to maintain a robust presence on this platform?

✴ Does this platform logically !t in with your existing digital ecosystem?

any social network

*Things to think about BEFORE you join

PR Daily, 5/21/13

Why Twitter?

✴ What are you trying to accomplish by engaging on [any platform]? In other words, what are your goals? Examples:

✴ Awareness – visibility

✴ Driving traffic to your....

✴ blog

✴ online store or bricks & mortar location

✴ Facebook page

any social network

Things to think about BEFORE you join

✴How will you measure it?

What’s so great about Twitter?

✴ It is very well-suited to mobile devices.

✴Of the “major” social networks, it’s the easiest one to !nd and consistently connect with your target market.

✴News breaks on Twitter !rst.

✴ It’s the great leveller.

Twitter terms, part 1• “Follow” – you’ve opted to see all of a person’s or a

company’s tweets in your timeline except those replies where you don’t follow both parties

• “Tweet” – Also called an update. Public message to EV-eryone that is following you.

• “Mention” or “@mention” – Public message to speci!c person/people

• Add 1 character before an @name and that tweet will show in all your followers’ timelines, not just that person

• “Direct Message” – Private message to a speci!c person; you can DM anyone who follows you

• “Interactions” – Your mentions, plus follows and favorites

• “Retweet” or “RT” – Posting someone else’s tweet to your followers

• “Modi!ed tweet” or “MT” – Some Twitter apps allow you to edit a tweet before retweeting. When you do this, change the “RT” to “MT” to indicate there have been edits made to the original tweet.

• “Timeline” – the running list of tweets and RTs from everyone you follow except those replies where you don’t follow both parties.

Twitter terms, part 2

What is a #hashtag?• A word or phrase added to a tweet so that

it will show up in searches

• If the word is in the tweet, you don’t need to repeat it for it to appear in search results

• Use a hashtag whenever possible, but 2 hashtags per tweet is usually enough

• Can also be used as a comment on the tweet’s content. Use judiciously for business, if at all.

How to tweet like this

not this

Getting started Which hashtags to track?

Who to follow?✴LISTEN before diving in

✴Keywords and searches

✴Make Twitter lists – they can be private

✴Begin by offering interesting content & starting conversations

✴Also follow a few new accounts every week

Twitter for business• Optimize your pro!le

• Continue to listen (FREE market research)

• Mindfully promote your product/service ()

• Develop relationships with customers, business partners and media by offering helpful, interesting content and conversation

• Customer service

• Having fun

Twitter for everyone• Experiment & observe to determine how

many tweets is “too many”

• The most interaction occurs early in the week between 10 a.m. & 4 p.m. Eastern. Take your followers’ time zones into account.

• Schedule sparingly

• Ideal tweet length is no more than120 characters to allow for RTs. Less is better!

• Find your RTs and thank people for them

• Look at what people are not saying

not likely

Free/low-cost Twitter tools

HootSuite, SproutSocial, Sendible, Buffer

www.whentotweet.comwww.twittercounter.comwww.followercheck.com

mobile: Tweetbot, HootSuite, SproutSocial

Twitter Analytics

Recommended reading