Marketing Insights - The Art and Science of Creating Demand

At three recent user group events I’ve attended for my company, the topic of social media has been a hot one, with Twitter being the hottest topic of all. The Big Question is: Would it be valuable for my company to be on Twitter? My colleague Chad Horenfeldt recently wrote a great post on social media success stories that helps answer this question and based on my own knowledge of what I’ve seen work for our company so far, I would definitely encourage you to go for it.

Kai Turner recently posted an excellent article on Mashable that I would highly recommend as you’re ready to get started. His eighth and final point is actually something I would have listed as #1: get started on Twitter by listening. This is easy to do with TweetDeck because you can set up searches on keywords that interest you (for example, your company or product name). See what people are saying and how they’re saying it, then when you’re ready to jump into the stream, you’ll understand the flow that you’re becoming a part of.

TweetDeck - b2b search

Here is an image of my “b2b” search term that I set up this week just to see what kind of chatter appears there. It’s a broad term (“b2b marketing” might be better…I’ll try that next) but I like the eclectic mix of items that pop up on it and I’ve found a few interesting folks on there that I’m now following. (By the way, I’m sure there are a ton of great tools out there that accomplish the same goal of searching the Twitterverse – I just happen to like TweetDeck.)

Another interesting point that Mr. Turner makes is the idea of having a casting call for your brand voice: “Most likely it will be someone from the marketing or the PR team. Maybe even a junior intern who has been given a list of things to post on Twitter. A more successful tactic would be to find someone, internal or external to the company, who is already on Twitter and speaking naturally in a tone of voice that matches your Brand Voice.” I just love this idea! With Twitter you’re learning to think outside the usual marketing and branding box, so you might as well go all the way and continue thinking outside the box when you find your “speaker”.

I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this topic. Have you recently stepped into the Twitter waters and have some tips to share with the rest of us? Are you considering it but still have concerns?

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