Wednesday, 17 December 2008
Use Twitter To Give Your Company A Voice
If you’re an online marketing consultant or in-house professional trying to convince a company to delve into social media and twitter specifically there are some powerful and rational business arguments for a company to take the necessary leap of faith.
However, one of the more interesting uses of Twitter is to give your company and authentic, living, breathing voice.
Let me hear your voice
Most larger companies or publications tend to just post links to their newest articles, posts, and news updates. Few actually cross the line and interact with their followers, in my view they are wasting a valuable opportunity to connect with their fans and create a lot of favourable word of mouth for their services brand.
The internet provides a great opportunity for companies to get past the pr-speak and actually treat potential customers and brand promoters like real human beings.
How to use your voice
There are a couple of ways you can use Twitter to project your voice. First and foremost, actually say something. Don’t just post a link to your newest article/post/product. Give me your point of view, give me some colour, what are you working on now? What are your questions? Got any tips? Let me know, speak to me, ask me if I’m having any trouble. Be a human, Twitter offers you this unique opportunity. Take it!
When they heard I was using my real voice they laughed, but….
Sure, it’s not easy getting your client, boss, co-workers to buy into things like twitter, probably even harder to elevate the argument for using it above justifications like ‘oh, it’ll be great for SEO’ or ‘we can drive a bunch of traffic to the site’. These things are important, but cannot be an end in and of themselves. You don’t really want traffic, you want engaged, interested people to view your website. If you take the time to interact with people via services like twitter, they can get a better feel for you, you’ll stick out in their minds a lot more clearly than if they just saw your fancy banner ad. This approach shouldn’t just be limited to twitter.
You should approach all social media like this. It’s more than just a sneaky way to boost your search engine rankings, it’s a chance to connect, in a fundamental human way to the people the net is tingling and teeming with, and potentially that connection will pay off when they need your services or your products. So why not try it today, if you can’t figure out what to say, start with a joke.
· · · · · · · · · ·
