Marketing Matters Blog

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My Top 10 Rules of Twitter Etiquette

By @ColeenL from @MMattersPR

I believe we all have an obligation to give back. That’s why I’m involved with both the CEDIA Professional Services Action Team and CEA’s Home Audio Division Board. When helping these organizations, naturally I migrate to the marketing and promotional tasks. It’s no surprise that both groups are using social media as part of their awareness campaigns.

Just about everyone uses Facebook. They understand how to post, comment, “like” and connect with friends. Twitter, though, becomes an enigma to many. Why bother? Who reads it? Turns out, the influencers do – and their posts can have a long tail. The Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University recently summed up the power of Twitter and its two-step communication model. It’s an outlet you can’t ignore.

So, you want to create influence for your product or service? Don’t be intimidated by Twitter. Follow the basic rules of etiquette and your influence will be flowing via 140-character posts in no time.

  1. The purpose of Twitter is to educate, engage and entertain. Make sure your tweets are relevant and interesting to read.
  2. Remember engage? Auto-responders are not engaging. Take the time to respond directly and personally to followers. Look at their bios and tweets. Decide if you want to follow them. The more you learn about them, the better your conversations.
  3. Like with anything, start with a plan. What is the purpose of your existence on Twitter – to raise awareness of your company’s products or learn more about new wines with fellow oenophiles? Stick to your plan and keep the conversation relevant. 
  4. Have a social media policy for your company. Let your folks know what is and isn’t appropriate to tweet about. @BrianSolis provided this link to some of the best policies out there.
  5. Give credit where credit is due. Use RT@OriginalSender when retweeting items of interest. I recently tweeted a local client story that was picked up nationally in various e-newsletters. Some of the reposts did not give credit to the local Ft. Lauderdale reporter who researched and wrote the piece. Bad form. It will be noticed.
  6. Be sure to completely fill out your profile. Let people know who you are and what you want to contribute. Include your website address so you don’t have to send it out on an annoying auto-responder.
  7. New to Twitter? Count on making a mistake. Make sure you apologize. Forgive yourself and move on. If you need major damage control, consider this app recommended by Techlicious – ‘Last Night Never Happened’ from iTunes. Simply enter your Twitter and/or Facebook credentials and pick the time frame you wish to remove evidence of. You can choose anywhere from one hour to 48 hours (for those particularly long benders).
  8. Complaints come up via Twitter. Direct mail the sender and work out the issue. In most cases, this small customer service action will lead to a raving fan. Ignoring them is like not answering your telephone. This is how your customer wants to communicate with you.
  9. If a customer compliments your product or service, retweet it. This action goes a long way in building a loyal follower.
  10. Mother always said, “Mind your manners.” Don’t get involved in a conversation that’s going nowhere. Be polite. Remember the long tail of the Internet. Content, good or bad, can be found.

My last piece of advice – find a Twitter mentor. Ask questions. The Twittersphere is pretty friendly. Scott Moody (@cscottmoody), our director of public relations created a “cheat sheet” to help our clients navigate their way through Twitter. We are happy to help mentor. If you want a copy of Scott’s cheat sheet, tweet or email us (scott@marketingmatters.net or coleen@marketingmatters.net, or Kyle Glass at kyle@marketingmatters.net or @keglass).

 

Coleen Sterns Leith is president and chief techno-geek at Marketing Matters, a communications and design firm specializing in technology, consumer and custom electronics, audio-video, and related industries. As a 20-plus year consumer electronics industry veteran, she is a recognized expert in public relations, business development, and marketing. Coleen and her firm are headquartered in Hollywood, Florida.



Project Spotlight: Leisure Creations Furniture Product Catalog

Last year Leisure Creations Furniture approached Marketing Matters to improve the design of its 48-page product catalog. Leisure Creations felt its previous catalogs didn’t communicate the quality and design capabilities of its high-grade commercial pool and patio furniture.

We worked with Leisure Creations to create great images of its furniture line, develop compelling and concise product descriptions to help its customers generate orders, and provide an award-winning  design.

In the end, we came out with a winner – the catalog won two design awards: the 2010 Apex and 2010 Hermes Platinum Awards.

And, after such fanfare, we got the call again this year. Great news for us, and now we believe we have hit back-to-back homers. What do you think?

We’ll leave you with a quote:
“Everything that happens once can never happen again. But everything that happens twice will surely happen a third time.”
- Paulo Coelho, Brazilian Novelist.

Kevin Costner, Underwear and a Smooth Road

In 1997 Kevin Costner starred in The Postman. If you’re not familiar, it was set in a post-apocalyptic America where Costner stumbles onto a USPS uniform wherin he begins an elaborate con game that ends up rebuilding  America. During the flick, Costner has to lie and bsay that he’s been in touch with the (non-existent) President of the Restored United States. And what was the Prez’s motto in this post-apocalyptic thriller? “Stuff’s getting better everyday.”

 

Times have been tough, and although it’s not quite post-apocalyptic tough, at times you may begin to wonder. But, stuff’s getting better everyday. For the last month or so I’m happy to see that indicators show that the markets are beginning to improve. All kinds of news stories, stocks are up, the Federal Reserve says retail sales and manufacturing is up, and men’s underwear sales are rising – time to upgrade fellas. 

 

Although we’re far from comfortable, budgets are beginning to loosen which means many companies are going back to aggressively gaining market share through marketing – whether they should have ever stopped is another post.

 

We’re working with companies that have decided it’s time to pick up the marketing pace. Here are some of the things that we think you should be doing in preparation for the improving economy.

 

1)      Take a hard look at your branding – Most companies have been hit hard, and throughout the turmoil they have probably been more concerned with avoiding layoffs than deciding if their brand is as effective as it should be. Many marketing tools and techniques have changed over the past few years.  Are you digital ready?  It might be time to get rid of the flash on your site and make it mobile friendly. Update your literature to include quick response (QR) codes to tie your print information into product video and other assets on your website. Get this stuff out of the way so you can focus on exploiting them in the future.

2)      Think long term – If you’ve been reading our blog, by now you’ve learned some inexpensive ways to get publicity for your company and its products. This is great, and now you need to build on that. It’s time to look at your long-term communications plan. If you’ve neglected it, you need to build one soon or be left in the dust.

3)      Upgrade your toolbox – There were a lot of technical advances in 2010. Smartphones sales and use are increasing dramatically, a flurry of new tablets have come to market, and wireless connectivity is increasing. This brings a lot of questions to mind that wasn’t necessarily there a year ago. Is your catalog tablet-friendly? Are you using social media to more easily communicate with your customers?  Have you considered creating an app for your customers?

 

The economy is getting better, and now is the time to get your marketing back on track. Start looking at your company’s needs now to make this new road a little less bumpy.