How to manage twitter?

Eliza_2

A colleague went on a social networking for business course and came back with lots of good ideas which she has been cascading. One of these was to use twitter more. The facilitator explained about following and followers and how to write a tweet to gain interest, but she didn't explain about reading them.

I just wondered how often you dip in and read twitter? I look every couple of days but I only look at the first page so am likely to miss anything further down. How do people keep up with it? We have a couple of hundred followers and the same that we follow - far too many to manage when some of them are things like the BBC etc. Some of the others are customers but really they just put notes on about what they've watched on tv or retweet what their favourite celeb has been doing. Our local radio station lets us know what record they're playing next etc. None of which is interesting or relevant. I don't like to unfollow them as it seems rude.

I've sent a few tweets but it's pretty unlikely anyone would've seen them I reckon, as they would be just as lost in the mass as theirs would for me.

So back to the question - whats the best way to manage your twitter account and other people's tweets? Is it worth it for your business? Or even personally?

Thanks

Wywth

Don't have one, don't need one, don't want one

(someone actually contacted me via email to point me in the direction of one of Martin's recent tweets)

None of my customers have an account either that they have made me aware of.

I've never had a facebook account, a myspace account, or even a faceparty account either.

And I suspect I won't have an account with whatever becomes flavour of the month/year in the next year or two.

Can't see any need. I've more valuable things to do with my time than post nonsense on twitter
(I can do that here on MSE )

Eliza_2

LOL thanks! Facebook is useful, we have a lot of contact with our customers through that. Many are young parents and teenagers and it's ideal. Used well, social media is great for reaching some customers, however I'm still not sure about Twitter.,

Thanks - anyone else have any thoughts?

Wywth

Indeed. if your target market is primarily aimed at teens/20 somethings, then social media is probably a very useful way to interact and market yourself.

We supply primarily to businesses, and usually quite large ones

ab7

If its important tweets you want seen the best way is to repost it about 4 times a day...that way it reaches more people. There are programmes I believe that you can set up to tweet for you at specific times but I dont know enough about it. I'm sure Martin Lewis uses one himself. Another way to search is to use hashtags within your tweets and then search the hashtags. Maybe you could ask your colleague to research different programmes while she has the bit between her teeth?

getmore4less

The person that went on the course should be telling you this.
(who paid for it?)

or perhaps they just got caught up in the hype and never really understood the business implimentation.

Dirk_Gently_2

I use a multi-column reader like Tweetdeck, so that you can have lots of columns setup and see quikcly and easily, with notifications, if anyone tweets on any subjects or keywords you're interested in. That way you can more or less ignore the main feed but see if anything happens on the senders, keywords and #hashtags you're really interested in, without having to follow specific people.

Just a note, though - the "New" Tweetdeck (web version) has taken out masses of useful functionality that the "old" (Adobe Air) version had. You can still get version 0.39.1 of the latter from https://www.oldversion.com, though.

Dirk_Gently_2

Just to add to the above, when you're trying to get a message out to people, it;s nit about who they are - it's all about the use of #hashtags. Get a tag that gets picked up on and potentially it'll get to million, not just the people who happen to follow you.

Eliza_2

Thank you. Yes the person who went on the course did come back with lots of ways of posting and why but I'm still not sure about reading, so for example, you might use a popular hashtag but who is reading them all anyway? The million who have picked up or searched for that hashtag won't have.

Do you set aside say a ten minute slot morning and afternoon to read it or what's the best way. What do most people do?

Thanks, beginning to get a bit clearer I think. I really would like to use it but only if there is a business benefit and not if my time could be better used elsewhere.

paulwf

So a "facilitator" ran a course called "social networking for business course" and that's been "cascaded"? With all due respect I've seen loads of twitter business accounts set up like that, they blast out half a dozen advertising messages a day, never reply to messages directed at them and generally give up after a month. They also don't get any followers as no one wants a constant advertising stream in their feed.

Businesses that use Twitter well (at small business scale anyway) generally succeed because they want to use it and don't have a fixed agenda or targets. Of course you can use the medium to advertise events and special offers but mix that with messages that show your passion for the product, your personality and generally anything that you find interesting especially if you do business at a local level.

Keep the volume of messages you send fairly low but aim to reply to any messages directed at you as soon as possible. I like using tweetdeck, it just ticks away in the background and you can have a column for direct messages, another for tweets directed at you and another for keyword searches as well as your general feed. I don't follow too many people so my general feed is kept relevant. As for frequency of checking I run tweetdeck on my home laptop and work PC and just dip in and out, generally I can reply to anything from 8am to 10pm fairly quickly but don't set any targets.

I find twitter very useful, generally for linking with other businesses and organisations whereas I find Facebook a better medium for communicating with customers. Just don't force anything and let your twitter presence build over time. Do keep at it though, it takes months to really get established and become really useful, long after the businesses that blast out endless adverts have got bored and given up

cazziebo

I've had some leads and two direct enquiries which led to business through Twitter. I use it for business, entertainment and learning. I'm in a very niche market so probably use it most to position myself as an expert in the sector and have been contacted by journalists for comments etc. I'm currently running a series of seminars and events and found a few delegates from tweeting. In a past job I used Twitter to drive traffic to a website and found it very effective for that.

I did use Tweetdeck, and now use hoot suite. Hootsuite I find better for analytics, although I probably found Tweetdeck more user friendly. I use Hootsuite to schedule tweets at the beginning of the week and then just send others when I have something immediate to say.

I read it at idle moments - waiting on trains, planes, appointments. If there is a big story going down I can get quite distracted:o e.g. during Leveson . I find I get most retweets/replies by either commenting on a news piece and include a link to the article, or by asking a question - for example - Do SME owners need even more legislation? then a link to some new employment legislation.

I find it very useful.