>Twitter Engagement No-Brainer Techniques

>We are at the point where any business worth a salt has a facebook fan page, maybe one or a few different blogs, various twitter feeds, some manner in which to share and host video content, and is participating or at least listening to the flow of consumer reviews. That’s where a lot of the similarity ends and the differences begin.

Twitter, like many of the others, can either do a lot for a business, or very little, depending on the tactics employed, the level of commitment and expertise of the persons involved. It may lead the “what you get depends on what you put in” category because it is one of the most engagement driven mediums. The more you monitor and contribute based on what you hear, the more relationships you build and cultivate, the higher your influence on the overall mindspace of the public (marketing primary goal). If you simply use it as a bullhorn through which you spew the marketing message du jour (which is an option), the less it will do for you. Worse, now that it’s been around for a few years, some businesses have inherited an earned audience built via a previously engaging voice. In that case, you might actually persuade your large audience to tune you out, which will extend to other mediums and negatively impact your brand overall.

So how about a few of those ”no-brainers”.

• Use a twitter client like co-tweet, hootsuite, seesmic or many others to allow you to feed certain search terms in real time to your tweetmaking device. When people mention stuff in relation to your business, region or industry, you can help them out or participate.
• Don’t auto-feed from facebook. It’s a time saver, but its twitter bottom feeding. You can’t automate engagement. You can automate bullhorning. The worst part is that the links will just take people to another page that says the same thing. I understand that lean resources mean that streamlining is important, but twitter is too effective to just relegate it to status updates instead of building relationships with your audience and the media (who use it heavily). It is one step up from not having a handle, so that’s what it beats I guess.
• Give props to people who alert you to good content. People like shout outs. Don’t you?
• Keep in mind that tweets made when most are not at computers are less likely to be seen and move along. Similar to effectiveness with email campaigns and open rates. Friday night is a different animal than Tuesday at lunch. Tailor your plan accordingly.

Twitter is also a medium to consider hiring an expert to feed on your behalf. They can monitor the internet, your website, facebook, local trends and also follow and engage with influencers to get the most out of the medium for your business. I have recently added my first local twitter client and have two more slots to fill. Curious?