ogilvy pr 360 di twitter webinar
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Presentation on Twitter Basics, Best Practices and Strategies for Public Relations by Ogilvy PR's 360 Digital Influence team.TRANSCRIPT
360 Digital Influence Twitter For Business November 2008
Twitter-genda 01 What is Twitter and Why to Use It? 02 Twitter
Strategy: Customer Relations 03 Twitter Strategy: Crisis Management
04 Twitter Strategy: Corporate Reputation Management 05 Twitter
Strategy: Event Activation 06 Twitter Strategy: Product Promotion
and Sales 07 Twitter Strategy: Issue Advocacy 08 Twitter Strategy:
Internal Communication 09 How to Twitpitch 10 Twitter Do's and
Don'ts 11 The Twitter Basics: Setting Up Twitter 12 Additional
Resources and Take Aways What is Twitter? What is Twitter? Twitter
is a microblogging platform composed entirely of 140 character
answers to 1 simple question: What are you doing? or rather , What
are you interested in right now? Twitter receives over 3 million
UMVs, with an average daily growth of approximately 5% from
September to November 2008. An average of over 50% of Twitter
traffic are repeat visitors. Twitter remains the most popular among
the micro-blogging services. In July, traffic was 12x higher than
the total traffic for Plurk and 24x higher than FriendFeed.
(Hitwise) According to Time Magazine, males make up over 60% of the
Twitter demographic. Twitter's largest age demographic is
35-to-44-year-olds who make up 25.9% of its users. (This is up from
an April 2008 Compete report) While a number of Twitter tools and
APIs are emerging on a daily basis, the majority, 56%, of users are
still Tweeting directly through Twitter.com. Business Opportunities
Twitter allows businesses a new mode of customer communication that
can be tailored to match their customers preferences. Identify what
Twitter strategy works best for your company or client. Customer
Relations Crisis Management Corporate Reputation Management Event
Activation Issue Advocacy Product Promotion and Sales Internal
Communication Top Twitter Strategies Follow>Create>Engage
@comcastcares Frank Eliason at Comcast started @comcastcares in
April 2008 in response to the customer conversations he and his
team found on Twitter through monitoring. Offers customers specific
troubleshooting tips, online resources, new product info and a key
customer relations personality (i.e. Franks). Customer Service
Anyone who has customers B2C, B2B, G2B, G2C, etc... can use Twitter
to quickly listen and respond to customer feedback before problems
escalate or to activate brand ambassadors. Customer Service: Follow
Find out what people are saying about your brand through Twitter
search functions like, Search.Twitter and TweetScan. To make it
easy, set up an RSS feed for your Twitter searches, so that you can
easily check in to see new conversations around the brand. Get
familiar with these conversations and start to follow key
contributors, customers and brand lusters (those who are interested
in your brand but not yet customers). This is also where an
organization tool like TweetDeck can come in handy to help you
categorize those you are following. Customer Service: Create All
Twitter handles should have a clear personality - even for customer
service. Keep in mind the overall personality of your brand as you
tweet and make sure you are providing valuable information to your
followers. As you identify conversations and start to follow your
customers, you will be able to get an idea of what they are looking
for. What do they want to know? Are they asking for product
information? Looking for tips on using a service or fixing a
product? This should be the guideline for your content. With the
140-character limit, use tinyurl or snurl to direct followers to
relevant information and useful resources outside of Twitter.
Customer Service: Engage While you can be providing general
information to your followers on a regular basis, you also want to
make sure your customers know they are being heard. Focus on
replying (@handle) to individuals who have questions about your
brand, who are sharing their brand experiences and to those to whom
you can provide helpful information and resources. Direct Messages
(DM) are also useful for corresponding privately with others. Go
ahead and send new followers a direct message thanking them for
their interest and providing any additional information or
resources that could be useful. @jetblue The guys at JetBlue
established a handle in a effort to humanize their brand and
prevent any future reputation and sales crises resulting from
customer complaints or corporate mishaps. Responds to customers
with information and suggestions in their own quirky personality.
Crisis Management Using Twitter for Crisis Communications is as
much about preventing an isolated issue from becoming a full-blown
crisis as it is about communicating to the public once a crisis has
hit. Twitter is the fast way to respond and maintain an open
channel. It needs to be part of a broader strategy, with all of the
(social) media channels you use to listen and share with your
customers, clients, and industry. Crisis Management: Follow Keep
track of your brand on Twitter, and in blogs, message boards, and
communities as well. Pay attention to key topic areas, new products
and company announcements. Listening becomes especially important
during a new product launch a movie screening, a product debut, a
major branded event. Customer first impressions can start small,
but grow fast and furious. Follow users who talk about you the
people who use your products and care about your brand. Follow
those who talk both positively and negatively about your brand.
Crisis prevention is about building trust about developing a
network that you can learn from, and can help carry your messages
when you need to get them out. Crisis Management: Create In the
case of a crisis, youll need more than 140 characters to tell your
story. Start with an explanation on a separate Web site or blog,
like that of JetBlue, and link to your page in your Tweets. Twitter
can help direct your brand advocates and detractors to your
explanation and can alert them as new content becomes available and
new news is released. Clearly outline the steps you are taking to
rectify the problem. Use Twitter to share current information as it
comes in. DM media contacts and brand ambassadors, with whom youve
built relationships, and give them the information they need when
they need it. Post real-time updates that address the status of
your issue, what youre doing to fix it, and eventually, what steps
youre taking so that it wont happen again. Crisis Management:
Engage In a crisis, Twitter provides another venue for you to
answer questions, raise issues and engage in a dialogue. Respond to
questions and comments from customers, influencers and media, and
especially those people who have been directly impacted. Your
Twittering employees should be briefed on the issues, and if they
cant address a specific question, they should be equipped to send
complaints to someone who can. Act early. Listening and responding
in the first 24 hours following the crisis is key as that is when
the volume conversations will start to ramp up. @Zappos Started
originally to help build company culture for employees outside of
the office. Now, with over 17,000 followers, provides customers
with an inside look at the company and core values, thought
leadership, useful resources and product promotion. Corporate
Reputation Management Twitter offers a new channel and outlet for
your brands personality and humanity. A Twitter handle is created
to share the brand personality from real-live people behind the
messages being Tweeted. Its easy to see what others are saying
about your brand and topics of interest and create a strong
presence within those conversations. Corporate Reputation
Management: Follow Follow people talking about your brand, your
product/service, and even you. Listen and Learn. Follow other
thought leaders in your industry, see what they are talking about.
Think of how you can join the conversation and be a thought leader,
yourself. Follow those who are talking about similar interests. If
your brand has a vested interest in a specific topic, make sure to
follow others talking about the topic to get insights and new
ideas/information, and to establish your brand within that
conversation. Follow news and media handles. This will help to keep
you up to date and in the know of current events, new research,
etc. Use this to your advantage as conversation starters. Corporate
Reputation Management: Create The 140-character limit forces you to
cut to the chase and just tell your followers what they need to
know (none of that corporate speak here). Become a thought leader
in your industry, share interesting and new information, insights
and ideas around relevant topics. (You can throw in company updates
and news in there too, every once in a while) Just like a popular
website or blog, if you continue to guide people to helpful, funny,
or insightful content they will come back for more. As with
everything social media, the most important thing is to be
authentic. Do not try to push an agenda without being transparent.
Be yourself and update often. The more you update the more Google
crawls your page. (Good for Search Engine Optimization) Corporate
Reputation Management: Engage Dont be afraid to join the
conversation. Nothing like the CEO of a major company mixing it up
with the rest of the community to help build a positive reputation
for you and your brand. Through these conversations, you should be
able to identify brand ambassadors (or those who love your brand
and Tweet often about it). Start and maintain a strong relationship
with them, they can help to build a positive conversation and
become an essential part of your corporate reputation management
strategy. #votereport Voters were encouraged to report their voting
experience on Election Day 2008. Over 11,000 Tweets nationwide.
Twitter Vote Report created a site specific to the event to share
and track both positive and negative voting experiences. Event
Activation The real-time ability to connect with others and share
experiences makes Twitter a great platform for individuals, or
companies, to use during a major event. Live-Tweeting an event can
be used to create a completely new channel of conversation and a
way to enhance the physical experience of the event. Combining
Twitter with blogs, video and other social media efforts provides
more ways to interact with the content and experience youre
creating. Event Activation: Follow Find others who are Tweeting
about topics or issues that will be covered at your event. Follow
users who are discussing your brand or product - theyre likely to
be interested in your companys official point of view on the event
and might be able to help you spread the word. Customize an
existing Twitter handle with an event-specific hashtag for a set
period of time or create a Twitter handle solely dedicated to that
event. #votereport was used by people live-Tweeting from the polls
@lenovo2008 handle was used by Ogilvy PR for the Beijing Olympics
for our Lenovo client As it approaches, use Search.Twitter or
Hashtags.org see what other hashtags (#) are being used around the
event youll be attending. Use it in every tweet so that your
content is easy to find by searchers. Event Activation: Create Your
handle will have its hey day during the actual period that the
event is occurring. This is when others will be looking for
coverage from the event, and you can provide a real service by
providing on the ground reports in real time. Make sure your Tweets
are meaningful - great verbatims, new statistics, or important
announcements shared by speakers make for great Tweets. Eyewitness
experiences that non-attendees would never know about are also high
value. Give people information they can use themselves, or would
care to share with others. Spoiler alerts! Remember that if youre
live-Tweeting sporting competitions or other live events on tape
delay not everyone is dying to know the final outcome. Consider
including a spoiler alert warning if appropriate. Event Activation:
Engage Interacting with other Twitterers who are at or interested
in the event is just as important as the live-Tweets that you put
out. Tweet and search for other event related tweets to respond to.
Ask your followers questions and answer theirs - there is real
value in creating a community around your event coverage,
especially since your brand is the reference point. Follow,
interact and DM with influential Twitterers who are also interested
in the event to help increase WOM. Other less visible Twitterers
are still important. They may be more apt to engage multiple times
during your event to help build participation and contnet. Be
pro-active in organizing on the ground Tweet-Ups, where attendees
come together to meet in real life to network with others with
similar interest. @delloutlet Posting deals on refurbished
computers from the Dell Outlet provides Twitter followers a chance
to be the first to know about online deals. With over 2,000
followers, Dell hit sales at $500K within its first year. Product
Promotion and Sales A successful sales and promotion plan is based
on identifying your audience, providing useful content, and being
prepared to engage in the conversation. When done right, your
followers will not only become loyal customers, but also
evangelists for your brand and your promotions. Product Promotion
and Sales: Follow Search mentions of your brand, product, or niche
and follow these Twitterers. When creating your account make sure
your description and handle are clear so users know what they get
if they follow you. It would also be helpful to populate your
stream with tweets before beginning full-scale out-reach to show
those checking out your profile that you are a valuable follow.
Product Promotion and Sales: Create Tweet often (at least twice
daily), but not too often. Besides promoting existing coupons and
sales efforts, consider offering Twitter-only exclusives to reward
loyal followers and give them a reason to stay connected. Nothing
new to promote? Help people learn more about your company by
featuring one of your suppliers, your employee of the month (bonus
points if they are on Twitter and you can include a handle), or an
interesting piece of industry news. Keep content relevant to your
products and should you fall in love with Twitter and feel the urge
to update every hour on the hour, please create a personal handle.
Product Promotion and Sales: Engage The idea behind a sales and
promotion strategy may seem like a one-way conversation but check
your replies and direct messages frequently. Failure to reply to a
customers question, concern, or praise will make you appear to be a
spam machine. Be aware that by putting your brand out there you are
opening yourself up and people will inevitably contact you with a
non-sales-related issue. Dont allow this to scare you off; embrace
it as a new way to talk to your customers and give them what they
want- this aligns nicely with your sales goals. You are connecting
customers immediately with info and links, thereby increasing the
chance that followers will click through for more information or to
make a purchase. @RedCross The Red Cross uses Twitter to to get
important info out to affected people in the immediate aftermath of
a disaster. Others are tweeting preparedness tips and disaster
information, health alerts and helpful resources. Updates are made
frequently, but should remain relevant to the issue at hand. Issue
Advocacy Twitters ability to connect people with similar interests
can be harnessed for the greater social good with non-profits and
issue advocacy organizations creating a community and providing
useful information to those they serve, volunteers, donors and
other supporters. Issue Advocacy: Follow As with all strategies,
use Twitter Search to find people interested in your subject area.
Follow other non-profits (even your competitors), industry
consultants and thought leaders (@kanter, @nedre, @ntenhross), and
of course people interested in your cause. It is really important
to follow all the people that are following you. If your cause
matters to them, what they have to say is important to you and your
success on twitter. Be sure to do regular Twitter Searches to see
who is mentioning your organization and what they are saying. Issue
Advocacy: Create Provide information that is useful to your
followers. The cardinal rule of fundraising is to talk about your
donors and the issues that matter to them. Dont focus on your
organization or you will lose peoples interest. This applies to
Twitter as well. People follow other people and organizations that
provide them with something useful. As recommended by Claire
Johnson, the chief twitterer at the American Red Cross, If you
think of twitter as a public service that your organization
provides, rather than a marketing tool, you should be in good
shape. Think about what kind of value your organization can provide
to your followers and then tweet about those things. Issue
Advocacy: Engage Once you have followers and content you can start
engaging with the people who follow you. Use @ replies to respond
to people who mention your organization after you find them in
Twitter Search. Respond to people who follow you with a quick thank
you and perhaps a question to find out about why they chose to
follow your organization. After you have a strong base of
followers, start doing more to involve your followers, like
Twitter-thons or awareness days for your issue. Yammer Launched in
Fall 2008, Yammer was developed to enhance communications amongst
co-workers and team members. Answering the question, What are you
working on?, Yammer stays true to the Twitter format of
140-character limit, providing a quick an easy way to update
colleagues, ask questions and provide resources and insights in
response. Internal Communications Internal communications should
NOT take place on a public platform. Although there are ways to
make you Tweets private, there is a new microblogging platform
designed specifically for corporate communications: Yammer. The
Basics of Yammer Launched in Fall 2008, Yammer was developed to
enhance communications amongst co-workers and team members.
Answering the question, What are you working on?, Yammer stays true
to the Twitter format of 140-character limit, providing a quick an
easy way to update colleagues, ask questions and provide resources
and insights in response. To begin, a corporate account is set up,
and only those with the same email domain can access the platform.
Use Yammer for specific projects, team building or global updates
to enhance your companys internal communication. The Art of
TwitPitching Created by Stowe Boyd, Twitpitching is the new way to
pitch media, but in 140-characters or less. Still gaining in
popularity, the TwitPitch is used to gain media coverage around an
event, product or company update. Small businesses and startups are
TwitPitching @stoweboyd and @scobleizer and other high profile
Twitterers in hopes of capturing their interest and getting
coverage. Boyd developed the following rules to help manage
TwitPitches: A twitter message of the form quot;@stoweboyd [pitch
goes here without the brackets] #twitpitchquot;. (Note the #hashtag
means that these will be accessible at
www.hashtags.org/tag/twitpitch.) A second, optional twitter of the
form quot;@stoweboyd [single URL goes here without the brackets]
#twitpitchquot;. Just one URL, please. A third, optional twitter of
the form quot;@stoweboyd [proposed time(s) to meet or call go here
without the brackets] #twitpitchquot;. Twitter Best Practices
Twitter Dos DO see what other businesses are doing on Twitter DO
use Twitter search engines for keyword searches around brands,
products and topic of interest. DO follow Twitterers with similar
interests to establish a brand presence within conversation DO use
Twitter to start a conversation DO be dedicated to Twitter. Having
more than one employee on Twitter will ensure an ongoing company
presence. DO ask questions and get feedback from your followers DO
engage consumers in co-creation and get constructive insights for
future company developments or publications Twitter Dos DO follow
the Blogger Code of Ethics within all things social media: Be
transparent in your reason dTweet (Let your followers know your
about - Customer Service, Product Discounts, etc) Respect other
Twitterers (Know when to participate and when to listen) Think
before you direct message (Will your direct message be seen as
helpful or intrusive?) Make sure your message directly relates to
those you are reaching out to Provide value to your followers
(Whether its free product or valuable advice, something that gives
you credibility and reiterates the value you see in your followers)
DO spread the word about your participation on Twitter - include
your Twitter handle in your email signature, send out your Twitter
URL, http://twitter.com/USERNAME to co-workers, peers and even
customers. Twitter Donts DONT use Twitter to push ads or brand
messaging. Dont just Tweet but also follow others to join in or
start a conversation. DONT use Twitter to tell your everyday tasks,
make sure your Tweets are resourceful, entertaining and/or valuable
to your followers DONT be boring! DONT panic if you are
Twitter-Jacked, where other Twitterers use your identity within
their Twitter handles, instead contact the Twitterers and find out
their reasoning before taking action (they could turn out to be
your biggest fans) DONT I REPEAT - DO NOT Tweet anything about
clients, co-workers, friends, etc. that you would not want them to
see - this is a good way to burn bridges and lose customers (not to
mention make a bad name for yourself) The Twitter Basics Setting up
a Twitter Handle Establish a Twitter handle and profile that sets
the expectation for your followers. Be clear in the handle bio and
description as to what you will be focusing on and who you
represent. The name of the company should be included in at least
your bio, and ideally your handle (this will help people find your
brand) as well. Disclose whether the handle will be maintained by
one individual or a team of people within the company. Shel Isreal
recommends users show themselves with a real photo (or at least an
avatar). Your followers want to see that youre a real person.
Define the roles and responsibilities internally amongst your team
members (including how frequently your Tweets should be updated,
who should and should not be followed/responded to, and how you
should respond in various situations). Setting up a Twitter Handle
Brand jacking While youre here, try out a few variations of your
brand Many companies have created a Twitter presence on Twitter
only to find a brand name already taken Consider registering
variations of a brand (i.e. Nike, Nikeshoes, etc) in an effort to
protect against Brand Jacking Setting up a Twitter Handle Connect
with Clients Provide a company email address to search your
existing Outlook, Yahoo, Gmail, AOL, or MSN email address books and
find email contacts already using Twitter Setting up a Twitter
Handle Complete the Profile Filling in the profile allows for
followers to better understand the personality of the person behind
Twitter handle brand. Be sure to include a bio, a URL to a Website
or blog and the full name of a real person. Check the protect
updates feature only for internal communications with private
content. Additional Resources and Take Aways Top 10 Twitter Tools
Search.Twitter (f.k.a Summize): Complete an advanced search around
key phrases, within specific dates, and from specific handles.
(Often broken, Google search is the best back up!) TweetDeck: A
desktop app that lets you organize your followers into specific
categories (i.e. industry leaders, customers, potential customers,
etc.) TwitPic: Provides a bridge from your camera phone to Twitter.
Pictures can either post to the Twitter public timeline from phone
via email or through the site. Tweet Later: Allows you to
auto-follow those who follow your account and provides an
auto-welcome feature to send a custom message to new followers via
DM or in the public timeline. TwitterGrader: Measures the relative
power and authority of a Twitter user by calculating number of
followers, power of network of followers, pace of updates and
completeness of a user's profile. Top 10 Twitter Tools TweetBeep:
the Google Alerts for Twitter, allows you to monitor conversations
that mention you, your brand, related/competitor products, and
links to your website/blog. Alerted as keywords appear, reducing
the need for a manual search. Twitterholic: Find out who has the
most followers and who can be an influential asset to your
campaign. Twhirl: Centrally manages activity, messaging, and
updating for Twitter and other platforms (FriendFeed, Identi.ca,
and Seesmic). TwitScoop: Tells you Whats hot right now?, presenting
trend comparisons and volume of conversation. Twitterberry:
Downloadable Blackberry app for Twitter. (One more: TwitterFox, a
Firefox plugin that allows you to send and receive updates, right
from the browsers status bar. A Strategic Approach to Using Twitter
STRATEGY FOLLOW CREATE ENGAGE Content relevant to Answer questions,
Your customers and Customer Relations your customers: tips, respond
to comments potential customers company info, etc. about your brand
Your brand, products Direct to additional Answer questions, Crisis
Management and relevant issues resources, updated respond to
comments, information, explanation raise issues, provide info
Corporate Insights, expertise, Jump in the conversation. Industry
leaders, Reputation become a thought leader Be transparent and add
similar interest Management value groups, news/media Those
interested or Event information, Set up Tweet-ups, talk to Event
Coverage updates, behind the attendees, ask and attending event,
media scenes coverage answer questions Product Promotion Current
and potential Links to online promos, Check replies and DMs, &
Sales customers, those insider info on upcoming answer questions,
interested in similar sales, discount codes provide info when
needed products Issue Advocacy Those interested in Added value:
health tips, Know your followers, your cause, industry disaster
alerts, thank them for support, leaders, news fundraising info get
them involved Additional Resources
http://delicious.com/360DI/twitter