You Want to Tweet What?! – A4UExpo London 2009

Panel description:

Join this panel of social media addicts as they uncover some of the strategies they use to build profile, brand, and traffic with Twitter. They’ll expose proven strategies to engage with customers and convert conversation into sales either as a Merchant or an Affiliate.

The panel will be offering three diverse quick fire presentations followed by a moderated discussion between the panel and the audience.

Speakers:

* Mel Kirk
* Dom Hodgson
* Naomi Brown
* Bas van den Beld
* Jon Myers (Moderator)

First is Dom Hodgson, from Think Visibility

Dom opens with a series of pictures explaining how long he’s been blogging and tweeting and a pictorial history and introduction of who he is.

Twitter = WIN

Dom tweeted a negative tweet about Affiliate Window. His TWeet was seen by the company’s PR company, who passed the info on to the company, and in turn the company reached out to Dom to solve the problem.

Twitter = FAIL

One evening, Dom’s housemate, Caius was out drinking. He returned home, to find that his key was gone. He couldn’t get in the house so he broke the door down. He kicked the door in, the door opened, and an old lady appeared. He’d kicked the door in of the wrong house, and got arrested. At the time Caius was doing job interviews. One of his potential employers saw the tweets of his ordeal and declined to interview him!

Things to remember

People can respond on Twitter – if you spam Twitter, people will not like you (Zohoinvoices)

Mel Kirk – White Label Dating (http://www.whitelabeldating.com/)

Many brands just aren’t sure what they’re doing with social media. Often they ignore SM, but worse, they start to shout about their brand without following the conversation. Brands should be researching the market and learning to understand their audience before they get involve.

Are you targeting your tweets / content properly? Brands think: “social media, ok must get a facebook page and a twitter account”. That’s not enough if you want to engage your audience.

How should you use it?

- Connect directly with consumers
- Fight misconceptions
- Humanise your brand
- Monitor feedback
- Gain an insight into your target market eg: using Twitter for keyword research

If you’re using Twitter, you should make sure you’re monitoring every link you post, every tweet you get and every retweet you recieve.

The benefits

- Highly engaged consumers
- Reach and credibility
- Increased conversion rates
- Low cost
- High lifetime value
- Valuable consumer data

The worst thing you can do is use automation. Do not use bots to reply, auto follow or DM. It de-humanises the conversation instantly. Mel gave a best practice example of Zappos – check the Twitter profile here.

Naomi Brown – Firebox.com

Twitter for Merchants

Types of tweets that Firebox engage in:

- New product Tweets
- Direct selling / interaction
- Customer service
- RT of good feedback

Product Tweet Tips:

If you’re tweeting about a product here are some tips to consider:

- Make them interesting / funny
- ALWAYS leave space for a retweet
- Use a service such as Bit.ly/ Track your clicks!
- Reply to questions about the products fast and openly
- Pre sell upcoming products by cashing in on buzz on the internet
- Encourage followers to tweet about your products

Customer service tweets / tips;

- Don’t just try to take the conversation offline – if a customer tweets at you, tweet back
- Always answer direct questions fast
- If you solve the problem and get a “thanks”, tweet / retweet it
- Save good feedback to pass round later

Bas van den Beld – Search Cowboys

Steps tips and tools for “Social branding”.

How Search Cowboys was built and how they built their brand using social media

Step 1: Content is King

There was a niche opportunity – the US have a equivalent sites but none in Europe.

Step 2: Get help

- Use your friends – contributors via guest posting
- Get them to contribute
- Talk to those who matter

Step 3: Share

- Let the world know what you like – share posts on other interesting sources (not just your own blog)

Step 4: Be everywhere

- Be everywhere! facebook, The bar, Online, Twitter – people will start recognising you which will really help
- Use social media tools
- Connect

Step 5: Go outside

- Contribute on other platforms
- Don’t let them find you, find them and go to where they are

Step 6: Monitor

- Know who is talking about you
- Look at mentions (Blog posts, Tweets, Stumbles etc)

Step 7: Keep going

- Don’t stop once you “get there”

Four takeaway tips to go:

- Be recognisable (use consistent avatars in your posts / profiles)
- Be real (don’t be fake)
- Make sure your SEO is good!
- Never make assumptions!

A4UExpo is a great conference and the day has been full of excellent speakers. Head to Search Engine Cowboys for more coverage or check out our posts summary here.