{ Dusty Orange Web Solutions }

I attended a really good Brainy Breakfast session this morning. Apart from the delicious breakfast (bye bye diet, sigh), the two speakers were interesting and practised what they preached.

As someone who signed up for Twitter a year ago, looked blankly at the screen a couple of times, then promptly forgot about it till a month or so ago, it was all good to hear what it is exactly and what you do with it! Disclaimer:  I scribbled my notes from the meeting on a piece of paper and my writing is shocking,  so hopefully I can decipher all the important bits

Anthony Gardiner, the young, enthusiastic (and single!) Media Specialist and web content editor at NZ Army, suggests that Twitter is not a social network at all, but an information network. So Twitter isn’t just like blogging where you can share a whole bunch of your opinions with whoever cares to read your blog (thanks for reading mine!), and it’s not Facebook where you can tell your friends and family you are in a bad mood and post pictures of your dog. It is more like the online version of the office water cooler, a place where numerous formal and informal conversations are held.

 You don’t have to go onto the internet to send a tweet (twitterspeak for a twitter post), you can send one from any mobile, no need for iPhone or Blackberry. Which is handy, because in my firm, like many other corporates, the Twitter website is blocked. Andrew states that Twitter itself is not the website – it is a service that can be accessed through tools such as Tweetdeck and mobiles. Only 20% of tweets are sent by users actually logging on to Twitter itself!

Personally, I have used Twitter to follow grabaseat and get the latest cheap flights sent to my phone while planning a trip to Napier. It saved me having to logon to the website every morning, especially if no cheap Napier seats were listed.

Facebook has 3 millions users. Twitter has 50 million. Who knows what they are talking about! Tweetdeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com/) is Andrew’s favourite tool and is used to filter these conversations and see what is being said about NZ Army. It is a great way to monitor feedback about your brand, good or bad, through these online opinions. As membership to Twitter is also anonymous, negative feedback can be brutally honest.

Some of Andrew’s dos and donts:

• add a bit of humour to your tweets, as this helps give your company a bit of personality and makes them seem more human
• don’t let your ad agency tweet for you, do it yourself, internally (agency can provide strategy)
• don’t use an automated system to tweet
• don’t drop 10 tweets at once (Twitter spamming)
• don’t send anyone direct mail through Twitter
• do respond to negative feedback
• do tweet random things, just for fun
• do be honest, its ok to make mistakes and it makes the company human
• do follow the people who follow you
• do respond to conversations – just like you would at the water cooler

Next up was Duncan Bair, Head of Brand and Comms at Orcon – also young and enthusiastic (not sure if he is single, sorry girls!). Duncan says Orcon has three rules:

1. engage early
2. engage often
3. engage honestly and transparently

In practise they have found their tweets fall into one of five categories:

1. customer support
2. sharing information found on the web
3. informal feedback – asking their followers questions
4. the fun,random, not so serious stuff
5. promotional – sales stuff generally kept to a minimum

I did have some issues with Orcon a few months ago when I first got set up, wish I had known about their Twitter account and the fact they monitor it for negative feedback. I am sure i would have got a faster resolution then I did via email and their phone system. Duncan discussed a number of case studies that showed how Twitter helped alleviate some ugly situations and also brought on a new customer.
 
To get going with Twitter is low cost in technology, but high cost in terms of people time. Duncan spends about 30% of his time on social media activities such as Twitter, forums, Facebook etc. And getting executive buy in to get started on Twitter? Duncan just did it and told them later. My day job is at a large corporate law firm, so not too sure how it will come across if I just start tweeting on their behalf. I will probably have to have one of THOSE meetings in a little quiet room with my manager afterwards. And bring a large cardboard box. So it would definitely depend on the culture of the company.
 
Duncan can be found online at http://twitter.com/Orcon, http://twitter.com/phixx and www.version3.co.nz
Thank you very much guys for your time, it was a good practical session. About to download Tweetdeck now.

Happy tweeting everyone!

Tags: eMarketing, jericho brainy breakfast, nzarmy, orcon, Twitter