5 Tips For Brands On Twitter

Today we have a special guest post from Ben Nesvig:

Mashable brought up a great topic last week about brands and Twitter. It is my belief that brands do belong on Twitter, as long as they are using Twitter responsibly. If I have praise or beef with a brand, I want a representative from the company to hear me out. How can brands tweet responsibly?

A five step process for brands who want to engage on Twitter:

5. Show transparency. Put your first name in the bio section. Let Twitter know who is running the brands account. An ideal Twitter photo for a brand would include the Twitterer and the brand logo.

4. Do not rush out to follow 1,000 people right away. Utilize Twitter Search and start off by following people who praise your brand and give a personal response to those who have complaints or comments. Twitter isn't an ad campaign with a deadline. It is a marathon. Learn to walk before you run.

3. Do not turn your Twitter account into an RSS feed for corporate news. Consumers don't care about everything that happens at your company. Give corporate news only when it is relevant or asked for.

2. Show personality. Each tweet shouldn't look like it was approved by a committee. Twitter gives you an opportunity to show the human side of your company. If you represent a large brand, this is especially important.

1. Make your Twitter account about the consumer, not your brand. Respond to their criticisms and comments. Care about their feedback, which means responding to complaints and suggestions personally. Also, give them coupons or discounts on your products. Gary Vaynerchuk often gives out free shipping to Twitter users. Think about what your brand could offer.

Twitter can be a great place for companies, but it can also be a medium for them to abuse. Twitter is an incredible tool to show that your company cares about its customers. Comcast got it right, why can't your company?

LinkedIn on Group Conversations

Professionals arrive in droves on LinkedIn, a popular social network made for the professional— so why is their an outpouring of drab conversation in group settings? Usual group participation goes as follows: read a comment in a group, respond to the comment with a link, or completely go off topic and talk about how much you need a job.

This is a conversation format we see too often part of social networks, and we just ignore it. In a not so long ago Minnesota PRSA conference, Peter Shankman informed this entire crowd of professionals that he didn’t like LinkedIn, and now I understand why. LinkedIn is becoming a spam-lover’s domain, one who acts in the guise of a professional.

There is absolutely nothing worse than seeing a comment that does not add value to the topic of conversation. It makes me want to leave a group that has worked so hard to establish its 300-member base.

When jumping on LinkedIn and joining groups, please avoid the following:

• Arriving in a forum or discussion and trying to answer a question to a topic you clearly don’t know anything about. Ask yourself: Can I REALLY answer this?

• Starting your comment with “Great post” and then moving on to tout your business and provide links that force the person out of the topic of conversation

• LinkedIn "easy-handing", meaning don't ask people to link in with you via leveraging a comment thread... yuck.
  

• Not being transparent about your reason for being in the group and saying something like “Here’s some videos that I just found…” when you’re trying to pitch the person you work for, and again—it’s not helpful.

I won’t mention names but here’s a video a person recommended to a women who was looking to develop a social media 2.0 discussion forum on her Web site.

Automotive Commercials

Every year, we all see thousands of auto ads while watching television. The auto makers spend millions and millions of dollars (perhaps billions) on TV commercials that are made to show off their latest models and features of the new cars. Only about 10 million new cars are sold every year in the US, and while the auto makers know this, they are hoping that when the time comes for us to buy a new vehicle we would remember their ads and decide on their vehicles.

I do not believe TV ads work for the auto companies for a few reasons:

1.) Not everyone is looking for a new car. These ads become untargeted, uninteresting, and once again, ignored by the large portion of the TV viewers. I don't believe that TV commercials are the way people gather info on new vehicles.

2.) They all blur together. Auto makers are stuck in a cycle of releasing new commercials because that is "what you do." The more that they try to make them new, the more they all blend into one giant blur or leather interiors, financing offers, and great gas mileage (at least they tell us it is). The blur then becomes spam and ignored.

3.) There have been so many TV ads over the past 20 years, that we ignore them now (or rage about how much we hate them). We already know that Ford is tough (once again, this what they tell us) and that Caravans have a lot of storage for soccer gear. If auto makers only spent money on an ad when they had something truly exciting to tell us about their product, we would probably listen. Unless a car commercial presents something significantly different (and I'm not talking new graphics, I'm talking alternate fuels, etc), they will be ignored.

Think of the last car ad you saw. I can picture maybe 3 car ads in the past 10 years that I actually remember or liked. If I was to look at getting a new car, I would search places like Consumer Reports and talk to friends and family about their recommendations. Of all the conversations I have had with others about buying a vehicle, not once has a car commercial entered into the discussion.

I just can't see how all the money spent on TV ads can be worth it for auto makers. What do you think? Are automotive ads worth it for the car companies?

Are Facebook Connect Brands Worth a Mini-Feed?

Petitions to take down Facebook’s mini-feed were substantial. Demands for the old Facebook to come back were actually fairly minimal. Now, Facebook has another thing Facebook fans can either love or hate.

It’s not an aggregator tool; it’s better. Facebook users can now broadcast via mini-feed what they do on other Web sites with Facebook Connect (it’s not limited to social networks/aggregators only, like FriendFeed). Of course Facebook was able to partner with Web sites (it’s crack next to Google), but the brands are far from what most PR-speak claims is “leading.”

I suppose San Francisco Chronicle’s Web site SFGate.com is now going to get a boost of ad revenue, but who really follows the pub’s news outside of Silicon Valley residents and those looking for the latest reporter geek’s blog post? Then again, this may spark someone’s fancy: the JC Penney DogHouse. I’ll admit it’s funny, but what Facebook user is going to want an update of his friend succumbing to buying a diamond ring instead of being subject to doing laundry much like military men peeled potatoes? You don’t believe me? Check out what could potentially be on your feed.

What do you think of the brands Facebook is touting via Facebook Connect? Is Facebook getting too big for its britches?

Axiom Marketing Featured on yourBusinessChannel

We were recently featured on yourBusinessChannel's new series on how to use Twitter in business. It is an ongoing series covering lots of great Twitter topics, and we were fortunate enough to contribute. Check out the latest episode below about how to gain more followers (the right way) on Twitter:



For more in the series go to yourBusinessChannel.com.