E-dreamz Company Blog

I recently attended TWTRCON which is a conference focusing on Twitter for business and Twitter's place in Social Media. It  was refreshing to hear so many people talking about using Twitter in human ways to build relationships instead of focusing on getting as many followers as possible and marketing gimmicks. If you would like more information about the event here was the agenda and here are some slides from the presentations.

Basic Twitter
Laura Fitton, OneForty, kicked of the conference talking about basic Twitter 101 for businesses. She said it was important to "be patient and let the network grow organically" and also make sure that when you post content it should be "useful or remarkable for someone else." This theme was carried throughout all of the sessions. The speakers all talked about using Twitter to enhance relationships more than focusing on marketing and conversion.

David Armano, Dachis Group, had a great comment when he said that automating does not work that well and you may be shocked that good social media actually requires involving real people.

Interaction
Craig Newmark , Craigslist, spoke about how it is important to treat others how you would like to be treated and that everyone should have a chance to speak. There are examples of the government doing a good job of creating a public forum so others can comment and provide feddback to find solutions to problems.

Mike DiLorenzo, NHL, talked about trying to make Twitter a true second screen experience where people can communicate during the game and actually send tweets from the arena.

It is also important to be human and 100% transparent with all interaction. Nigel Dessau, AMD, spoke about even saying positive things about competitors if they really have certain benefits over your company. This will build trust.

Capt. Chris Sukach, Air Force, said Twitter can be a lot like hosting a call in radio show.

Resource
Twitter is not always about pushing out your message. If you need help, information or questions answered Twitter can be a great resource. Alan Murray, Wall Street Journal, talked about how Twitter acts as a news filter and a good reporting tool. People can send information right from an event when it is happening immediately. Unfortunately at this time there are so many other people that can pretend to be witnessing something first hand so determining which messages are authentic can be a challenge.

There was more talk around government agencies and how they can provide a resource and work as civil servants for the public. John Shea, FEMA, talked about how Twitter can provide great feedback that is helpful for making improvements.

Guidelines
Many businesses create guidelines and policies for posting content on Twitter. It is important to let individuals be themselves but sometimes there needs to be guidelines to make sure the message is true to the company. That is why Nigel Dessau said it is important to start with a content strategy for Twitter. He uses a Red, Amber, Green system to help with guidelines. Any topics that are defined as Red is company information that should not be talked about on Twitter. Amber topics can be talked about but people must be careful about the messages they post. Green topics are wide open for people to talk about.

Some companies set up internal blogging so that they can review employee messages and approve them before sending out tweets. David Puner, Dunkin Donuts, talked about creating social medai guidelines for franchises. Sometimes guidelines are not needed. You have heard that some professional sports have issues with players on Twitter. Mike DiLorenzo actually said he would love to have the problem of too many NHL players on Twitter.

Charity
TWTRCON did a great thing by giving out cards for each person so they can give money to DonorsChoose during the live case study session. Charles Best introduced the website DonorsChoose which is an online charity connecting people to classrooms in need. We were able to search the website by topic or location to determine which class room we wanted to donate money too. You actually get thank you notes from the classrooms for your donation. They do a great job of connecting real people together.

One of the best sessions for the day was when Scott Harrison spoke about Charity:Water which is a charity that is dedicated to bringing clean and safe water to people in developing nations. 1 billion people on the planet do not have access to clean drinking water. Scott spoke about the cause and his approach to how Twitter has helped Charity: Water. He says he never asks for money and warns against just tweeting facts and self promoting. His tips were to find something unique, be generous, ask for opinions, answer Direct Messages, cheerlead, surprise people and don't be cheesy.

Recruiting
Jessica Lee, APCO, and Kerry Noone, Sodexo, led a session on using Twitter for recruiting. They use Twitter for employment branding, candidate engagement and relationship building, and finding candidates. The ultimate goal of recruiting is for your company to be a great place to work. It is also to be human and make sure to respond to all resumes and questions. This eliminates the resume black hole when people submit a resume and never hear anything back. Twitter is a great tool to send out jobs as well as find good candidates based on location, bios or content.

Tools
TweetFunnel
TweetMixx
Attensity
TwAitter
TweetFeel Biz
PeopleBrowsr
CloudProfile
SocialWare
Feedlytics

Geolocation
One of the last sessions of the day talked in more detail about where Twitter is going and the growing trends towards using Twitter for mobile marketing and targeting geolocation. There are different opinions of this because some people feel knowing someone's location can start to border on being "creepy." It can also be a great tool to target people that may be walking by your store or finding people that are searching for things in your area.

People tend to think of themselves as the center of the universe and want to know what is going on around them. By attaching a location to a tweet you can send a coupon to someone that may be walking by your bakery.

Tying online marketing to offline is another great way to not only do geo targeting but actually setting up live events to enhance the human aspect. Rick Bakas sets up live wine tastings for St Supery wine and created Grappos.com so people can find where to buy wine in their area.

Amy Reed, Chick Downtown had an idea of sending out hints on Twitter with a certain location to find. This would include a lot of geotargeted Twitter communication that leads to a personal interaction.