Using Twitter for Business Name: ________________________________________________________________ Using Twitter for Business Workshop Contents: Power point slides Task: Tweet Your Intro Help Guides:  A guide to e-business terms and acronyms  Understanding for business  Twitter hints and tips Learning Objectives The learning objectives for this workshop are: Learning objective 1 To understand the functions of Twitter Learning objective 2 To understand how businesses can use Twitter for promotion & how it fits with wider marketing strategy Learning objective 3 To evaluate whether Twitter is the most appropriate tool for your business Twitter for Business Twitter is the concise communication version of facebook. It doesn’t have all the apps and functions of facebook, but it does allow you to convey quick messages. To start out on Twitter you will need to go to www.twitter.com and register for a FREE profile. Twitter won’t mind if you use your business name, but do note that there is a character limit on usernames, so if you have a long business name you might have to be smart to think of a condensed version to use. So once you have an account these are the main things you need to know:  You only have 140 characters to type an update on Twitter, so the idea is to keep it brief and maybe link to a webpage where people can find more information. These updates are known as ‘Tweets’  You build ‘followers’ on Twitter who will be people who are interested in seeing what you have to say. This works much like ‘friends’ on facebook  You will see this symbol # - This is called a hashtag and is used to index Tweets so people can find them by common theme.  Using the @ symbol and then someones username e.g. @TheWomensOrg, is your way to send a tweet directly to someone to grab their attention. However, always remember that Twitter is an open forum so even using this function, your message whether direct or open will show on your twitter page  You can DM or Direct Message other users, but only if they are following you  If someone you are following says something interesting you can send it on to your followers by ‘Retweeting’ or RT – There is a simple button by every tweet you can click to do this  You can add a ‘profile picture’ which should be your logo or something of the like. This needs to be no more than 700k and in jpeg, gif or png format  Twitter now also gives you space for a ‘cover picture’ that sits around your logo and under your business description. The writing that sits on top will be white, so worth bearing this in mind when choosing your image which should be Recommended dimensions of 1252×626 - Maximum file size of 5MB Top Twitter Tips  Building Followers – One way to build followers is to follow people by clicking on this button on their profile To find relevant people to follow type keywords into the search bar at the top. Find and follow people who are saying things that may be of interest to your potential customers, find your competitors and follow their followers, find your existing clients and follow them to let them know you have arrived  Keep it interesting – Anther way to build followers is to keep your tweets interesting. Think what your potential customers find interesting and give them information on it. Those who only sell sell sell on Twitter will soon be unfollowed. One tip for building interesting content is to set up ‘Google Alerts’ to you email. This is a free email alert to your email account flagging up any interesting news articles or webpages relating to whatever keyword you choose.  Help people find you & join the conversation -Use the hashtag to highlight keywords. Using the # symbol in front of words makes them stand out on Twitter and indexes them into tweet lists of common topics. This will help those searching for tweets around that topic to find you e.g. #Health #Liverpool etc. The most used #Expressions become ‘trending topics’ of the day. Twitter shows you a list of what is already trending on Twitter so you can #JoinTheConversation – Add that #Hashtag to your tweets to help people find them. You can also create your own trendy hashtag e.g. #EBELLearning and encourage others to use it to get your phrase trending on Twitter and get people interested– Look up topics like #journorequests to find possible PR opportunities and keep your eyes out for # competitions  Watch you time budget – If you don’t have much time to keep tweeting check out hootsuite or tweetdeck, free tools where you can schedule messages to go out at different times. Try not to leave all your content to go out this way. Use it as a way to keep it fresh, but still log in live when you can to make sure you don’t lose the interaction element Twitter is… Twitter works best for: • Experts – Professionals/businesses with a clear expertise in their field that they can share in order to build interest in further support • Brands – A business with a clear brand their followers offline might follow online, helping them spread the word Twitter is About Building relationships: • Listen – This is the first and most important key – watch what those you would like to build a relationship are saying on Twitter and respond. Twitter is now the number 1 way to gather customer feedback! You can set up Twilert alerts (google this free tool) which sends you a message every time someone mentions your business name on Twitter. This way you can hear what people are saying about you and respond. SocialMention is a similar tool. • Follow - Linking with ‘followers’ and ‘following’ others for online networking and to keep up with industry trends • ‘Tweet’ @ people – Using their twitter ID e.g. @TheWomensOrg when sending tweets (updates) helps to build rapport and flags up key messages to that person. This is called a ‘mention’ and anyone can see what you have said • Send Direct messages or ‘DM’s – You can only send this kind of private message to someone who is following you back, so build relationship first using the above then try private contact • Being helpful – This is the most important way to communicate on Twitter. The more helpful you are through your own tweet and responding to others, the more you are valued • Rewarding followers - Dell earned $1million in the last year selling via Twitter. Dell sends messages to its Twitter followers about special private sales One more useful free tool for checking how useful those you follow are to you on twitter, and to have a look at how you come across is Twitcleaner. Task: Tweet your intro Tweet your intro… In line with Twitter updates, try to introduce yourself and your business, getting across any key points. Don’t forget this can only be 140 characters! Further reading: http://johnjantsch.com/TwitterforBusiness.pdf http://www.business2community.com/twitter/guide-to-twitter-tips-for-smallbusinesses-0110870 http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/ A guide to e-business terms and acronyms Blog: A web journal used for posting thoughts and articles. Browser: A software application used to search information posted on the internet. Two of the most common are Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. Content Management System/ CMS: An administrative software system that enables a user to add or change content on a website. DSL: (Digital Subscriber Line): A technology designed to bring high-bandwidth information to homes and small businesses over ordinary copper telephone lines. Telus high-speed Internet service is an example of DSL. E-business: The use of internet technology to conduct or facilitate business. E-Commerce: The trading of goods and services over the internet. E-Marketing: Business promotion activity via the internet Firewall: A system designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from a private network. Firewalls are commonly used to prevent unauthorized Internet users from accessing private networks connected to the internet, especially intranets. Follow: Someone who clicks ‘follow’ on your Twitter page is choosing to opt in to your regular updates or ‘Tweets’ Hashtag: This refers to this symbol # most commonly associated with Twitter. Adding a hash tag in front of keywords indexes them as key topics on the site Home Page: The main page of a website that a user first sees when they connect to a website. HTML: (Hypertext Markup Language) A “code” used to build web pages. A common language used to share data over the web. Hyperlinks: Embedded “connections” in web pages that allow users to ‘jump’ from page to page anywhere on the internet. Internet: The Internet is a global network of computers with millions of users all over the world. Anyone can join this network and from your computer you can send and receive information anywhere in the world - all at the cost of a local phone call, 24 hours of the day. The Internet offers many business benefits. Intranet: An intranet is a private internet which is not necessarily linked to the Internet itself. ISP (Internet service provider): Also called an Internet Access Provider. An organisation that provides access to the internet either digitally or via analog for a monthly fee. Multimedia: Applications combining the use of more than one media, i.e. data, voice and video. Retweet: This is when someone reads someone elses update on Twitter and chooses to pass it on to their own followers. Search Engines: Search Engine software packages (such as Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista, WebCrawler, Dogpile or Lycos) helps you find what you are looking for on the Web. You can type in a word or phrase to describe what you are looking for and the search engine matches this against its index, recording all likely matches. Most search engines are free. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO): the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines. This can be done via targeted key words. Server: A network device that provides services to client PCs, for example file access, print spooling or remote execution. Social Media: includes web-based and mobile technologies used to turn communication into interactive dialogue Status Update: a form of micro-blogging, mostly associated with facebook. Refers to sending out a short message to ‘friends’ or followers Tweet: This refers to the 140 character message sent out through Twitter updates, a form of micro-blogging. – Re-tweet or RT refers to someone seeing your message and sending it on to their own followers, quoting you as the source. URL: (Uniform Resource Locator): The alpha-numeric address used to locate a website. Web hosting: An organisation that provides users who do not have their own web servers with serve space to ‘park’ their website and allow others to view it over the internet. ISPs also host websites and those such as AOL, will allow subscribers a small amount of server space to host.