There’s no one best way to use Twitter for your company’s social media, but there is a sort of standard way. You set up a company Twitter account, post about 80% useful information and interesting stuff within your field, slip in 20% promotion for your company, and have some conversations with followers and thought leaders as well as with customers. The occasional tweet about lunch or the weekend proves you’re a human.
We were talking with a new client recently who had quite a different idea. He owns a logistics company, so he’d be talking mostly to truck drivers and people fixing to ship things. For such companies, we usually tweet about mechanical stuff, new regulations, environmental issues — useful information, in other words.
Our client had a different idea. He figured his followers would be bored guys sitting in their cabs alone. They’d prefer links to games, live webcams, and fun videos. His Twitter account would become a perfect place for bored truckers (and probably also students, receptionists, and whoever else sits around looking for fun on a phone) to hang out. They could be sure of finding an amusing way to waste time any time they dropped by.
He then moved on to hula girls. I think he wants some on his website. I lost the thread at that point, but his idea for a different kind of Twitter account was solid.
We have staff members who’d enjoy finding the best online time wasters.
The main point, though, is that you can use Twitter in different ways from the standard way. A hairdresser could tweet pictures of hairdos all day — but he could also pick up the traditional association of salons with gossip and make his Twitter account celebrity gossip central. A realtor might tweet about local history and current events in her region, rather than just about properties.
The key to making this work is in choosing a topic that will be useful and entertaining to your customers. Tweeting about your dog probably won’t bring you followers who are interested in your law practice or your event planning services. One of our clients, however, sells cars that happen to appeal, according to market research, to dog owners. It makes sense to tweet about dogs in that case.
Do your research, think outside the box, and you may be surprised with what you can do with Twitter.
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