March 25, 2010

It's often a smart idea for your company to be on Twitter, the popular online messaging service.

How much you invest will depend on what type of business you're in, but generally, the more consumer-facing your company is, the more help you'll get from Twitter.

What you decide to do with your Twitter account will also vary widely by your company's industry, size, and location. But here are some general pointers for things you SHOULD and SHOULD NOT do with your company's Twitter account:

- DO have a personality, talk like a person, share stories. No one wants to follow a boring robot, unless your account is a boring robot with a specific function.

- DO NOT get carried away or tweet too far off topic. We'd love to occasionally learn about your employees or general industry or local topics. We generally don't want to hear your views on politics or sports.

- DO share links, photos, and videos. If you're a retail store, pictures of your newest items could be a great sales pitch. If you're a tech company, sure, show us some of your press. If you're a cafe, maybe a video of your superstar barista.

- DO NOT spend too much time retweeting customers saying nice things about you. Once in a while, maybe. But too often, companies blast 4 or 5 tweets of praise in a row. Many people simply unfollow those accounts.

- DO engage with customers over customer service concerns -- only if you think you can provide sufficient, consistent, and excellent care. Your best bet will probably be to use Twitter to funnel customers into your existing customer service channels, such as email or phone support.

- DO NOT negotiate or try to service an unhappy customer in public. There's generally no reason for the rest of the world to see you discussing an issue they're having with your service. Try to get the customer to chat via email, direct message, or phone. If anything, to avoid the negotiations from ending up in the press. 

Join the conversation ( 2 )

• Yacouba TRAORE 1 year 7 months and 15 days ago

  

  Very interesting points. Congratulations, be sure I'll experience it.

• SUZANNE VARA 1 year 10 months and 11 days ago

  

  to add to his list,
  
  DO tweet about industry news, events, articles that will be of use to followers
  
  DO tweet more about others than yourself.
  
  I am not so sure that it is bad to tweet off topic about outside interests like sports. For a larger company I can see where this would be a bit of an issue however with a smaller business, the realness is showing that you do have other interests is important. Tweets about your favorite team all day is not advised but sharing that information or tweeting about such interests is just showing the more personal side of you and people buy from people that they feel like they know and like.
  
  @SuzanneVara