Twitter as a marketing & CRM tool

Twitter: your CRM & marketing channel. It’s about more than just followers…

Over the past 12 months in my twitter contributions I have often included tips to help those involved in using twitter for their business (marketing). I often get requests to publish a full set – so here is a list of my current thinking about using twitter as a tool for building relationships for future business. In no particular order (other than alphabetical)…

1. Add value – share interesting or useful info, blogs etc
2. Add good description & link for something that would be too short in a post
3. ALWAYS keep it clean & professional
4. ALWAYS professional NEVER personal unless it is praise or thanks
5. As far as getting followers goes; I find just being friendly and helpful does wonders. And of course shared interests help to.
6. Be honest. Have fun. Don’t try to sell anything.
7. Big followers – does not mean many listeners – the RTs tell that story
8. Change your BIO regularly
9. Change your twitter habits – make sure you don’t include links in most of your tweets, some tools treat this as spam & unfollow
10. contribute positively to conversations going on inside twitter
11. Don’t follow more people than you can handle. If you’ve got too much going on, you miss a lot of the good stuff.
12. Don’t expect Twitter to deliver revenue alone, it is only ONE element of the strategy
13. Efficient is the key to Twitter. short & sweet. Basically, get right to the point.
14. Even an attentive follower won’t read all your messages
15. Follow people who are in your field or area of interest
16. Follow the advice of people that have demonstrated competence – not think they know how to…
17. Frequent Twitter updates demand desktop or server side clients
18. funny, informative and catchy: choose two.
19. Getting followers is not a right its a privilege
20. Give – don’t take
21. Have an avatar (picture) of your face or company logo
22. Help promote the dreams of other people, and they may return the favour
23. If someone RT re-Tweets a message – send them a thank you
24. If you are going to auto DM only send a welcome message
25. If you post info of any kind, leave plenty of room for retweeting
26. In marketing messages use appropriate keywords
27. Interact and communicate with others, it’s a social media tool, so be social
28. Its not the number of followers but the number of Re-Tweets you get
29. Join the conversation, there are too many blog promoters on twitter who just broadcast. Learn @ and start networking :)
30. Keep it short ;-)
31. Keep your Twitter updated and the followers will come. Stay up-to-date and you will reap the benefits.
32. Learn what people care about
33. Limit what you automate
34. Look beyond the obvious (traffic, sales etc.) Add value. Build relationships. Think LONG term.
35. Make sure your BIO is up to date and human
36. Make use of other Twitter tools to make the most of Twitter (and so it doesn’t suck up all your time)
37. NEVER DM a request to follow you on another social networking site ie FaceBook
38. NEVER DM or tweet a MLM program
39. NEVER DM or tweet a traffic follower program
40. NEVER sign up to any of the Twitter ad services-it undermines your position
41. NEVER tweet when drunk, angry or think you have just won the lottery!
42. NEVER tweet cat or baby anecdotes!
43. Occasionally ask people to RT a post, if you ask every time they wont
44. Only @ people you know – & only with a link if invited, otherwise its SPAM!
45. Only promote your services less than once every 10-20 tweets
46. ONLY use a DM for personal messages or if you must to welcome a follower
47. Open up a bit.ly account for short URLs
48. Please report (@spam) unfollow & Block Twitter Spammers
49. Remember what you tweet is around for ever!
50. Rerunning tweets occasionally is a good idea
51. Respect the people you follow. Be interesting. Listen first, tweet second. Never waste words
52. Set your wallpaper to promote your message
53. Share interesting resources, not just what you ate for lunch. Twitter often, and use it to test potential blog topics.
54. Share links, share ideas, ask questions, answer questions anything but what are you doing? unless it’s really interesting
55. Share links. share insights and trends, things that are new or timely/current. Be personal. Don’t link only to yourself
56. Share thoughts and links from others (RT)
57. Share thoughts more than actions: Identi.ca will kill Twitter vs. I’m going to the toilet
58. Stop thinking that twitter is pointless and just try it. It’s all about community reach out and be a part of it
59. Thank people who re-tweet you. Either DM, @ reply, or re-tweet something of theirs
60. Think before you hit send. 140 characters have the power to help, heal or be miss-understood
61. This often goes unsaid, but I would suggest not having twitter open while writing. It can become very distracting
62. This was my problem at first, I just lurked. Get active and follow others. Great tool for tossing around ideas.
63. Treat followers with respect & courtesy & every now & then thank them
64. Tweet real stuff – highs and lows
65. Tweet regularly – at least 4 times a day
66. Tweet to show you are human
67. Tweet to show you are more than a marketing machine
68. Tweet what you read on others blogs
69. Twitter about stuff that has to do with your blog, but also Twitter stuff that has nothing to do with your blog
70. Twitter is not an IM service-keep private discussions short
71. Use a # in front of #keywords
72. Use an username as short as possible so you can twit more
73. Use favourites to save and show brand/product testimonials
74. Use travel time to tweet & read tweets on smartphones
75. Use twitpic or other photo services occasionally
76. Use Twitter to meet up with your new contacts
77. Use twitterfeed. Instant feedback from readers is the best part of Twitter. Listen to others; engage them; have a conversation
78. Want more followers? Re-tweet the good stuff you find
79. When you have over 100 friends use tweetdeck or Hootsuite to help you to manage
80. Work on building a relationship-not pushing message to people
81. Write each word like it matters, because it does
82. You don’t have to follow everyone, only those of interest

Remember Twitter is not a silver bullet – or the universal hammer, it is but one tool in our communication toolbox. Done well and Twitter can be a key part of your communication strategy – do it wrong and it can undermine all of your marketing and brand development activity.

Twitter is not just for marketing – it is for learning, so make sure that you learn from others and they can learn from you. For twitter to work as a training, learning or CRM tool, people need to trust you and what you put out. As a big brand it can me all about me-me-me, however as a small business, we must be part of a community, we must respect others share the ideas of others and re-tweet their messages and blogs. Its about collaboration and win/ win. Those that only tweet their own messages will soon lose readership.

Readership is not just about followers – its the people that read and act on your messages.

From my experience I have people I am not connected to RT my messages and blog entries, so they must read the streams or use the search rather than just follow. Indeed once someone has over 200 followers, especially if they are active contributers to the twitter stream, it will be impossible to look at what they put out – so we must make it interesting and engaging that they keep looking at our material.

What are you favourite tips – share them below