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Picked up via Pistachio Consulting, is Jeremy Pepper’s post on ‘Twitteriocy’, or some simple rules on how to use a corporate Twitter account, and basic etiquette – inspired by a personal encounter with someone following him.

While I don’t think microblogging benefits from too strict a set of rules, the guidelines he lays out are simple and provide a pretty good grounding.

Be yourself, don’t follow everyone back, use a decent client like Tweetdeck, be engaged, be personable, be responsive, be a person, and remember that social media, including microblogging, doesn’t work for every company or individual.

So something very similar to the best practice for all social media!

I’d add:

• Be realistic, and don’t expect 1000 followers overnight, or 1000 referrals from every link you post.
• Stick with it – if you’re going to use these tools, be prepared for the mid-to-long term commitment needed. It took me two attempts at using Twitter to understand why it was so invaluable and addictive. And far longer to try and find the right level between addiction and a reasonable amount of time investment.
• It might still be worth registering your brand name to stop ‘brandjacking‘, but use it to lead people to your real representatives.

Any more?

What the experts say

Today, Joel Postman posted on corporate twittering at SocialMediaToday He makes some good points – the first being that we should know the site is official and another is that the corporate twitters must be empowered to help the consumers.

My experience of customer service via Twitter

I planned today to follow my previous post about the apparent pointlessness of corporate micro-blogging. One of the things I was going to say was that my experience of corporate twittering is negative. A rep comes back to you and says “what is the problem?” . I waste time replying and that is the last I hear of them. So certainly, if corporate twitters can do something for me, I am persuaded. Otherwise, I don’t think Joel’s suggestions go far enough.

Twitter as crowd sourcing

In the post I had prepared before I read Joel’s article, I was going to liken twittering to crowd sourcing. Crowd sourcing has three important features:

• Anything we do is small, easy and completely repeatable.
• Anything we do is redundant – the show will go on without us.
• Any useful outcome of crowd sourcing could have been generated from any one of the crowd.

Twiitter fits the crowd source model well. When people recount the benefits, they almost always say they get solutions to problems – not from specific people but from anyone who happens to the be listening. Sometimes you get a solution and sometimes you don’t.

Having a customer rep scanning for messages and trying to answer them quickly and effectively is a different model entirely.

Barack Obama’s nifty use of Twitter

Barack Obama’s use of Twitter exploits its broadcast facility. No one answers if you reply with DM! A normal reply takes you in one click to the speech that he is making at the minute. Next to the videocast are four buttons, encouraging you to take action for his campaign in one of four easy clicks. That is a good use of the “minute action” model of crowd sourcing.

Corporate use

I haven’t seen any other corporate use that is any good at all. We may love Twitter, but we won’t be thanked for trying to use it to do what it can’t.

What I would try if I had to!

If I was using Twitter for customer service, I would reply automatically to any Tweet about my company, with a link taking to the customer service line. Then would link up the customer service line to txting, email, DM, Skype, so my customer can communicate quickly with whatever medium they have to hand.

Twitter would come the opposite of ‘broadcast’. It would be a listening post where I can find customers having hassles and move them to a channel where I can help them.

Positive feedback

I might have one rep scanning for Tweet’s that are positive and reply publicly thanking them for the compliment! That should be contagious! It would be a great experiment if any corporate would like to try it?

PS Joel, when will SocialMediaToday fix its comments so we can participate. Notice 0 comments, so it is not just me, I think.

Dan’s Note:

Further to corporate Twitter accounts, there are some which have started working in the way Jo describes, using the likes of Twitter search to monitor for mentions of a company or product and then responding. They include Comcast, Dell, Zappos, Qik. There’s a list of all brands on the Fluent Simplicity blog, and we’re compiling our own list – hopefully building on this by separating the good and bad, and listing case studies which show how Twitter and microblogging should, and shouldn’t be used. You can see the Business Case Studies for microblogging and Twitter here.

Disclaimer

I’m a spectacular dunce when it comes to marketing.  I look at glossy pictures in a doctor’s waiting room or on a plane or at other moments of ‘dead-time’ and I can be impressed by something good-looking – but do I go out and buy it?  Never.

I don’t trust marketing either, or rather for me, it generates distrust.  A two-for-one deal just reminds me of your utter disloyalty to me.  You can supply me at a price and you don’t normally.  If you are willing to cheat me over money, what else will you stoop to?

So with that disclaimer and no apologies at all to people who make their living from marketing (I know you are enjoying a jolly good party and I think that is rather smart of you), answer me this question.

When and why should a corporate use Twitter?

I mean, what is the point?

Here is a list of brands on Twitter.  When would you follow them?

I do follow BBC.  They are an old habit – much like continuing to drink tea when I don’t like English tea (yep, I don’t, I miss the tea we used to grow in another life).

I do follow Barack Obama.  He alerts me when he speaks and I can patch through to a video.

• There is a clear response that I need to make.
• I am instantly rewarded with something I want (to satisfy my curiosity about what he actually says)

What are the rules of thumb for Twittering when you are a corporate?