2nd November 2009

Tweet, tweet, to who?

Panacea is on Twitter, what is Twitter and how can it help you create awareness for your business.

Simplicity has played an important role in Twitter's success. People are eager to connect with other people and Twitter, like Panacea makes that simple. Twitter asks one question, "What are you doing?" Answers must be under 140 characters in length and can be sent via mobile texting, instant message, or the web.

Twitter's core technology is a device agnostic message routing system with rudimentary social networking features. By accepting messages from SMS, web, mobile web, instant message, or from third party API projects, Twitter makes it easy for folks to stay connected.

Chris Brogan has produced a great piece on 50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business

First Steps

1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor's names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.)
2. Add a picture. We want to see you.
3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn't sell more widgets, but it shows us you're human.
4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you.
5. Share links to neat things in your community.
6. Don't get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out.
7. Promote outside-of-work stories.
8. Throw in a few humans.
9. Talk about non-business too.

Ideas About WHAT to Tweet

1. Instead of answering the question, "What are you doing?" answer the question, "What has your attention?"
2. Have more than one "twitterer" at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It's nice to have a variety.
3. When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what's coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
4. Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
5. Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
6. Tweet about other people's stuff.
7. When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
8. Share the human side of your company. If you're bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
9. Don't toot your own horn too much
10. Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.

Every day, millions of people use Twitter to create, discover and share ideas with others. Now, people are turning to Twitter as an effective way to reach out to businesses, too. From local stores to big brands, and from brick-and-mortar to internet-based or service sector, people are finding great value in the connections they make with businesses on Twitter.

For more, click here for a special Twitter business guide

And follow us of course at http://twitter.com/Panacea

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