Succeed with Twitter

Counselor Chat
Tuesday, October 2,2012
ASI Vinnie Stay tuned for today's chat: How to Succeed with Twitter 01:00 PM
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Hi and welcome to today’s Counselor chat. The topic: Succeed with Twitter. 01:59 PM
I’m joined, as always, in the chat by Counselor Editor Andy Cohen. Please
send in your questions or comments now. Let’s get started!
Douglas McKenzie I always hear that good social marketing has a "call to action." What does
that really mean in practical terms for a small distributor?
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Hi Douglas - A call to action simply means you're asking your audience to
do something. In the case of Twitter, that might be to take advantage of a
special discount and make a purchase OR read your company's blog OR
donate to a charity your company supports. A call to action takes your
audience from watchers and asks them to be active doers.
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Andy Cohen - Hi Douglas, I'd also add that the main goal of Twitter is actually not calls-to- 02:05 PM
Counselor action, but rather building a community of contacts. Yes, you want people to
read things you post, but this is really a soft-sell medium where you're trying
to gain people's trust. It's hard to do that on Twitter if you're constantly
asking them to go to your website or calling an 800 number.
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Douglas - Think of Twitter as a mechanism of engagement. 02:06 PM
Robert I've dabbled with twitter, but haven't been able to make real contacts that
result in business. Any ideas?
Joel Should I follow my competitors on Twitter?
Marcia I like the idea that this is a "soft-sell" medium, i'd rather have this a more
relaxed outlet, but are there any minimums I should be aiming for?
Numbers of followers? Should I not worry about how much sales twitter is
generating and just use it as a different outlet for my business?
02:11 PM

Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Hi Joel, great question. Absolutely. Twitter is a great place to find out
information on your competitors. Of course, on Twitter, they'll know you're
following them. So, information is likely to be watered-down, but it's
definitely a good place to see what they're up to.
Hi Marcia,
Marcia, Don't worry about your number of followers. The more people you
follow, the more that will follow you back. Make sure to follow all of your
customers, industry contacts, etc--a lot of those will make sure to follow you
as well.
Hi Robert - As with all social media, unfortunately you can't dabble. There
has to be a strong level of commitment by you. Tweeting 15 minutes twice
per day, for example, won't cut it. You need to engage repeatedly. Now
maybe you are being consistent in usage, but your message is not clear.
Focus on a couple of goals over the course of a month. If you want to build
business, stress market trends (why now is good time to buy certain promo
items), customer service (what sets you apart from competitors) and
promotions. If you don't think you're getting through to people, photos and
videos get you noticed.
Joel What if they say something bad about me and my company? How should I
reply? I
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Andy Cohen - I'd also suggest not worrying so much about the sales you generate through 02:14 PM
Counselor Twitter. You'll know you're building a good community when followers start
to retweet your content and your mentions increase. That means your
audience is engaged in the things you're posting.
Joel, honestly I'd be very surprised if anybody on Twitter is saying bad things
about a competitor. That's very transparent and social media contacts tend
to see through that pretty quickly. If the situation does come up, I wouldn't
say anything back on Twitter. I'd send the person a private email addressing 02:16 PM
their issues and concerns. The last thing you want is to get into a Twitter war
of words. Nobody wins that, and customers who see it will view both sides
negatively.
Leslie Hi Dave-- if 15 minutes twice a day won't cut it, what level of frequency will?
Without dedicated social media staff, how much time will I need to spend to
be effective in the Twitter space?

Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Joel - Back and forth confrontations on Twitter can escalate and damage
your reputation. Try to take complaints off line. Offer your work email as a
way to communicate. That can also help you determine if a complaint is
fake or not. You do have the right to refute - to stand up for yourself. Just
don't get caught up in virtual fisticuffs.
Joel Good advice Andy. Ok so since social media isn't supposed to be about the
hard sell, how in the world do I use it so that it benefits my customers?
Joel, provide information to them that they can use in their business. If
many of your customers are marketing professionals, then tweet articles
about branding, advertising, marketing strategies--anything that you think
they'd be interested in seeing. Take a half hour every day to find articles
online and send those links out to your followers.
Paul Is there any etiquette to re-tweeting information?
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Dave Vagnoni- Hi Leslie - Social media is about engagement. If a customer or prospect 02:21 PM
Counselor responds to a Tweet you send and you don't reply for five hours, you might
have lost a chance to really connect. Using smartphone apps can really
help with this. I'm not saying social media time should replace selling time -
that is not a good idea. I am saying you should be able to respond, send a
picture or retweet an article that was forwarded to you on the spot. If you
get in the habit of doing this, it's not overwhelming. Once you're practiced at
using apps, like Twitter's app, it's like sending email.
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Barry I'm very skeptical of twitter as a sales tool. Where's the evidence that it
actually leads to results?
Joel Andy hits it over the wall again. What about case histories? Should I share
success stories of customer promotions?
Hi Paul, re-tweets can very valuable in helping you build an engaged
audience. I'd suggest retweeting as much information as you want, but
make sure you think it's valuable to your audience. Only thing I'd avoid:
taking somebody else's tweet and making it your own. Hit the retweet
button and move on. Don't take the link they tweeted and make it your own
new tweet.
02:23 PM

Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Paul - Sure, etiquette is good. When you retweet, make sure you give credit
and include the handle of the original tweeter -for example @ASICentral.
Joel, Definitely post case studies--as long as your client is ok with it. The
more you can show your capabilities through twitter and any social media
outlet, the better off it will be for your business. Think of Twitter as a
marketing tool--if you use case studies and testimonials in other marketing
outlets, then Twitter is a great place for them, as well.
Barry,
Barry - Twitter is meant to deliver more contacts and sales leads. There's
no study I've seen that directly links using social media to increased
sales...but there is clear evidence social media tools like Twitter lead to
increased website traffic for small businesses. That's a huge positive and
more potential customers checking you out. The bottom line is - there's little
downside to social media marketing. There is huge upside, some of which
isn't yet able to be measured.
Barry, Twitter and other social media outlets should be viewed as an
extension of your marketing efforts. If it's viewed as a sales tool, I don't
think it will work. It's a place to build a community of people who may think
of you first when purchasing promo products. You'll know it's working when
you start to get questions and requests about marketing/promotional
products through Twitter. That may take dedicated time by somebody in
your office, but it happens. I've talked to plenty of distributors who have
garnered big business through contacts they've made on Twitter alone.
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Joel Does Twitter allow me to post pictures too? 02:29 PM
PB Promotions I see many people using hashtags in their tweets. What's the value of
these? And, when should I use them?
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
02:31 PM
Joel - You can"share" pictures through Twitter. There are tons of ways to do 02:33 PM
this. I'd suggest using twitpic.

Andy Cohen - Hi PB Promotions, sometimes hashtags are used in humorous ways-- 02:34 PM
Counselor people use them for emphasis (or sarcasm) when making a point on
Twitter. However, they can have a great business purpose. For events (like
charity drives) especially, assign a hashtag and let everybody there know
what it is and to use it in their tweets during the event. A page on Twitter will
then be created with that hashtag. It can be followed and tracked. Also,
creating a hashtag for a specific service or promotion your business is
running can help to build momentum for it. Test it out for various aspects of
your business.
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Also, hashtags help you to follow specific content you may be interested in
on Twitter. Go to the pages for things like #marketing, #advertising, and
#promoproducts and you'll find many interesting posts--not just from your
followers, but from everyone on Twitter. This will give you new avenues to
content and people to follow.
Hi PB Promotions - Andy's answer is right on. Put simply, a hashtag helps
to categorize or organize your tweets. The bottom line is that can lead to
more people seeing what you write.
PB Promotions Is there a way to track hashtag use?
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Andy Cohen -
Counselor
Dave Vagnoni-
Counselor
Generated By Zoho Chat
PB Promotions - Of course there is! The most popular way is to use the site
hashtags.org. It's a good site that I'd recommend because it shows trends
in easy to read graphs.
PB Promotions--yes. You can do it manually by going to the hashtag page
and following the conversations and posts. Or, you can install services like
HootSuite or TweetDeck which will do it for you. You can organize various
hashtag pages into columns on these services and track exactly what's
happening on each in a real-time way. They're like Twitter on steroids.
OK, everyone. Thanks for your questions today. We'll be back in November
with another great chat. Check out PromoGram, along with ASICentral's
Facebook page and Twitter feed for details. Have a great day!
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