Blogger Jia　佳佳溜世界

This post is what I prepared for my boss at the Interactive dept at PJA.

Reference credits to Jeremiah Owyang.

How a company should and could use Twitter? Any other possible micro blogging tools in local countries?

Identify if it’s the right market place

Use tools such as Twitter Search, twitscoop, tweet scan to dig out. Also, blogs of target audience are great resources if there are any. Once you find someone representative, check out his/her followers and who he/she is following to spot more prospects.

Decide on corporate domain and persona

Adding personal elements is important as social media’s essence indicates. Either register a hybrid domain such as OracleJulio or personalize the About section with more detailed information. Of course, there are brands act without personal interactions such as Popeye’s chicken and TrendMicro. But it may encounter more difficulty to get followers at the beginning.

Decide on method of engagement

1. Publish content in a ‘push’ style: It could be blog posts feed as TrendMicro is doing or other info such as press releases. Twitter in this sense is more of a publishing system aggregating info and helping to augment influences. This is of the lowest level of effort and risk but its success depends on if the content is interesting or helpful enough

2. Dialog: A two-way conversation by responding, answering, and asking questions. Twitter in this sense is more of a customer service center, new business development channel, and a humanized press center. This is of the highest level of effort and risk but may also bring the highest level of success. Companies such as Oracle, Comcast, DELL had been doing this.

3. Glean insight: This method focuses more on listening rather than talking. Twitter in this sense is more of a market research and intelligence collecting tool This is of the lowest risk but medium effort.

Set up the digital communications policy

1. Define the definite line between work and personal stuff.

2. Make clear the difference between company spokesperson and common employees.

3. Constantly review and implement the policy.

Integrate Twitter effort with other online presence

1. At least, brands should cross link twitter accounts from their corporate blogs, traditional websites, etc. and vice versa.

2. Ideally, the twitter conversation be better syndicated on traffic-heavy corporate online hub etc. to influence audiences who are not on twitter. An example is from comcast: http://getsatisfaction.com/comcast/overheard So far this is a service provided by the human-powered customer satisfaction site Get Satisfaction only. I thought if similar features could be integrated into the brand’s micro site, corporate site, or landing page, then the target audience and engaging consistency might be enhanced.

3. A comment mechanism could be set up with the syndication of Twitter conversation to allow audiences’ participation without a Twitter account.

Mash up twitter with other communication tools

Twebinar is such a recent mash up. What it does is mashing up traditional webinar and twitter together. While webinar is going on, webinar attendants who are also twitter users could participate in conversations with webinar hosts. Conversations could be streamlined through a widget embedded in the webinar window and anyone else could see it. This is more than a chat function because attendants could build up even longer relationship with hosts on Twitter afterwards. Also, conversations could be tracked through twitter scanning tools.

The benefit of this is limited if the audience on twitter is just a small group. If the syndication of Twitter conversations on other sites could entice more prospects to participate in Twitter engagement, then this kind of mash up could truly benefit the corporate brands.