Many of you likely are aware that yours truly has been a long time user of social media, in particular, Twitter. Indeed Twitter is interesting and perhaps new space for many companies. This may be a somewhat sensitive topic I’m addressing but it really does merit some attention. Twitter is much more than simply amplifying your news… you need to engage or try to engage with your followers and those who reach out to you (FYI, a mere mention of your @name on Twitter means someone is reaching out to you) – using a team of Tweeters is a great way to do this. Case in point… I’ve hyped, tweeted, and even promoted company X via Twitter many times yet not once I have I ever received a retweet, a FF, a “thanks for the mention” or even a follow back from company X. Advice, if you make the effort to use Twitter you’ll need to also make some effort to reach out to those that are showing you some Twitter love and you should also monitor who’s talking about you! I’m not saying you need to follow back, retweet or thank every simple person every time they mention you, however, not making the effort to engage with others that are showing you some attention can backfire on you – akin to blowing off someone’s email to you.
How To Give Thanks?
A couple of easy ways to give back some love is by using a Re-Tweet (RT) and simply share something of interest, create a paper.li, add someone to a list, send a weekly Follow Friday wish, or just simply Tweet period replies to those that share something you find interesting – these can go a long way and are fast and simple to do! Don’t simply push an RSS feed and go on auto pilot, Twitter is about conversation and engaging with others. Company X had some cool info to share, however, I elected not to share via Twitter mainly because of their lack of attention – too bad really.
How to monitor Twitter Activity?
A number of useful tools exist to help you monitor who’s speaking to you or about you. Simple mobile apps like Echofon and Hootsuite provide quick access to see who has direct messaged you or even mentioned you. Some clients enable you to setup mobile alerts for Direct messages and mentions. A number of third party apps exist to help monitor activity based on keywords and names, you can even get daily email summaries of activity that involves your company name. TweetDeck is very handy for those that want real time notification… simply load TweetDeck on your PC and run a column that updates as soon as you are mentioned, you can them immediately respond and really impress people.
