As we learned in Part 1, Why Use Twitter, Twitter is a real-time information system network. You can connect with all sorts of people: experts, authors, massage peeps just like you, etc. You name it, you can find it on Twitter.
In a fantastic twist of great user friendly service, the good people of Twitter have created a great beginner resource for twitter here. I suggest you stroll through the menu and start with Twitter 101: How should I get started using Twitter? And once you’ve got the hang of it, there’s a great Twitter for Business guide, too.
If you’re not familiar with Twitter, you’ve got some homework to do before the rest of this makes sense. If you are familiar with Twitter, this post is for you!
Please Do
Know why you’re there. Are you looking to connect with clients, friends, leaders in your industry? Do you just want to follow comedians and retweet jokes? These are all perfectly legit uses, but those choices should govern your behavior, who you follow (because many will follow you back) and what you share.
Use a Twitter handle that’s easy to recognize, and is consistent with your presence on other platforms. (Unless you’re using twitter just to retweet off-color jokes and talk about your ceramic clown collection. Then hide under a wacky pseudonym and don’t follow any clients or colleagues. Please.)
Have a good avatar, a clear headshot or your business logo.
Share information that is useful and interesting to your followers.
When you share information, be sure to give credit to the originator of the information. It’s just nice, and you’ll likely make a new friend!
Have a sense of humor, enjoy the conversation, and be outgoing.
Keep it to 140 characters or less. If you have to put out multiple tweets to get a point across, you’re in the wrong platform, you want Facebook or Google +. Twitter is about microblogging: communicating your message in 140 characters. This can be tricky at first, but it gets easier with time and practice, trust me. I am certain that I’m a better writer because of Twitter. It’s forced me to create crisp, concise thoughts that can be easily understood. (Think we can’t communicate ideas, feelings, in 140 characters or less? Go here sometime.)
Be yourself. An appropriate, professional, fun version of yourself.
Interact. Converse. Engage. Play.
Thank people for retweeting you and following you.
If you’re managing multiple Twitter accounts and/or Facebook accounts use a tool like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck. It allows you to share content to specific platforms with the best formatting for that platform.
Please Don’t
Auto DM new followers with a sales pitch. It’s insulting, sales-y and gross. Example, I started following a major massage company, and they Auto DM’d me about their new product that I should want to buy. Ick.
Likewise, don’t Auto DM new followers with a request to follow you on Facebook. I’m here on Twitter because I want to be on Twitter. Meet me where I’m at, I’m not traveling to you.
Tweet while drinking or otherwise not in your clear, deliberate mind. Trust me.
Be an automaton. This is still human interaction, just through the web. People want to interact with people. Not robots.
(okay, go get a beverage, because I saved the most intense points for last.)
Please Don’t link your accounts so that your Facebook posts appear as tweets.
More often than not, the post is well over 140 characters and translates into a tweet that is truncated. I created an example (instead of publicly calling someone out on this. See, I’m not a total jerk).
On it’s surface this isn’t an awful tweet, and really, it’s one of the more attractive examples of linking. This may not seem like a big deal, but it is in Twitter Land. The links to Facebook don’t work well on mobile. Clicking on that link will open a browser, not the mobile app, and I’ll be forced to log in to Facebook. It’s a pain in the rear. Experienced Twitter users quickly learn to ignore links with ‘fb’ in the address. We simply don’t click on them, and we start ignoring the person constantly tweeting them.
But if this were a good tweet, it would be short and concise, it would tag the NCBTMB’s Twitter account and use a hashtag in front of massage so it would appear in searches, etc. Check this out:
It’s the same message, but with clickable links to the person (or brand) we’re talking about and a link to the topic, too.
Sometimes, Facebook posts just don’t translate well. If there’s a picture posted, we don’t see it on Twitter the same way you do on Facebook, so often the headline that we do see doesn’t make sense. You’ve lost me. I’ll never hear what you’re saying.
Also, you are losing the opportunity to incorporate Twitter’s most useful (and fun!) features into your tweets. Twitter uses @tags and hashtags (#) to identify people and topics. You don’t get those clickable in-tweet links when you’re just funneling updates from Facebook
Please Don’t link your accounts so that your tweets appear as Facebook posts.
This method is not as awful, but I still don’t love it.
The nice part is that, because the post originates in Twitter, it will be 140 characters or less. What’s yucky is, the tweet may be full of @ and #, and that’s garbage* to people on Facebook. It doesn’t make sense in that forum, and people ignore it. But if you leave out the @ and #, you’re not using Twitter fully. Bummer.
Also, you are losing the opportunity to incorporate Facebook’s most useful (and fun!) features into your posts. (If this sounds familiar, thanks for paying attention) Facebook has expanded the update fields to allow for over 63,000 characters. You can be more descriptive, you can tag pages and profiles, you can attach pictures that are seen on the wall at the same time as it’s headline.
An aside:
I understand it may be ‘easier’ to just link accounts and leave it be. But networking and community, and building relationships, is not always about what’s easier for you. It would also be easy to skip the proofreading of your brochure. It would be easier to not give a client a knee bolster, or a warm pillow under the neck. You’re better than that. Also there are tools to make it easy to properly manage multiple accounts and platforms. Check out Hootsuite and Tweetdeck.
So there it is.
Are some people pulling off techniques I have in the “Don’t” list? Sure.
Are we all using Twitter in our own way? Yes.
Regarding Comments to this post, here is my Wish List:
I would love to know how you use Twitter to connect with colleagues, clients, Richard Branson, Samantha Bee, marketers, whoever YOUR community is.
Or I would love to know why you aren’t using Twitter, what’s stopping you?
*phrasing courtesy of Teresa Deak,
**For more reading on the evils of linking posts across platforms see here and here
Possibly Related Posts:
- How to shut off the faucet
- Communication for Millenials. And everyone else, too.
- Office Space, a renter’s checklist
- Reaching my full clientele, in a nutshell.
- Why use Twitter?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Ok. So Haines and I have sparred via Twitter over the past week about Twitter use on a specific topic: fan page to Twitter linkage. In her eyes, I was using Twitter and doing it “wrong” and using “icky marketing”. I was left in a fantod of sorts. My response to this post is not intended to be laconic banter. Rather, I still am of the mindset that Haines is becoming a maven of sorts on social media. That being said, here’s my 2 cents.
1) I get it that my company or myself as a person may be losing out due to lack of hashtags. I’m going to make more of an effort to post on Twitter for the 4 clients we satisfy on that platform while using hashtags.
2) I still think that linking Facebook fan pages to Twitter is effective. One of the pages I follow is UFC. I’m a die-hard fan. Sometimes I’ll miss a post or two on their fan page and as I’m scrolling around on Twitter I’ll come across a link. A link posted in the same manner as I was scorned for doing. The first part, for example, read “Brock Lesnar retires in midst of blah blah blah blah” and then there was a link to their Facebook fan page. It works on my phone (Android). I believe it’s effective. Major corporations do the incomplete sentence posting with a tail link all the time. I disagree that this is “wrong” or “icky marketing” by any standard. However, Haines has acknowledged that “Are some people pulling off techniques I have in the “Don’t” list? Sure.”… so I have to give her props for that. I loved it when you posted that link above to the Writing a Blue Streak page. I had completely missed that conversation and if it hadn’t have been for your Twitter post, would be less educated and entertained.
I think bottom line… I agree with a lot of what you’ve written. What didn’t sit well was getting smacked over the head with “wrong” and “icky” without an immediate explanation why. When using the term “wrong” – that usually inferences a policy violation with a terms of service or something like that. I haven’t violated any Twitter rules of sorts. “Icky” to me means using sleazy marketing techniques or less than par.
NOW, TO TEASE Allissa and GIVE HER A HARD TIME (BECAUSE DEEP DOWN I LOVE HER). If I were to go and talk to my client and say, your infraspinatus is really tight and feels like it’s up too high (aka, “wrong” position)… and they ask what that is and why it shouldn’t be in the place it is… I should be able to come up with an answer right then and there. I shouldn’t make them wait 5 days so I can develop a response. LOL “Oh, lemme think on that and write a post.” LOL
Props to you on using good examples. I get what you mean, will try to be a better Twitter-er and adopt some more things you’ve mentioned. My business runs on the fly sometimes because that’s how I am – constantly busy. HootSuite isn’t always an option and the GUI still leaves much to be desired. But at least, you’ve got to hand it to me that I don’t put hashtags in my Facebook posts or sales pitch people. I do *some* things right.
Love and glitter!
You have 184 followers. Other MT’s, marketing geeks, etc. This is not just about the 4 clients.
There are plenty of major corporations doing all sorts of things on social media. Some of them do it well, some don’t. Just because they’re major doesn’t mean they’re right. And it doesn’t mean their techniques translate well to the very small businesses like my readership tends to own.
I had no idea my silly post about Twitter would spark such passion. As soon as I saw that, I started a blog post explaining the issue in detail. It simply wouldn’t work with a single blog post, so I had to write a prelude to the ‘do & don’t’ list. 24 clients, 2 conference calls and 3 projects due last week and I still got 2 fresh, detailed, researched blogposts out in 6 days from the original Facebook post. Frankly, that’s pretty kick-ass. So I’ll take some props there.
And you do many, many things right. Tons.
I appreciated these recommended guidelines. My solace is knowing that probably everyone makes these mistakes. I recently handed over my company’s Twitter account to a savvy social media team member, because I felt kinda lost and fumbled around too much. Sometimes I just feel like a fish out of water in social media. What gives me hope that I can learn to be an adept social media user, though, is that when I read these points, they all made sense to me. Only recently, this would not have been the case. I fumble, but I learn, get back up until I fumble again. And you know what? Fumbling can add to the fun of it all.
You just nailed it. “Guidelines”. Allissa’s ideas of Twitter best practices. Not the law.
No one gave a great massage the first time. It takes time, and much fumbling, to season our hands. Just as it takes time to get comfortable and good with online marketing and social media.
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