SIIA Brownbag: Twitter for Corporate Use
Jinfo Blog

18th March 2010

By Nancy Davis Kho

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On Wednesday the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) hosted a brownbag lunch called 'It's not about Ashton and Oprah: how to engage a professional audience using Twitter'. The topic couldn't be more timely; as Twitter usage soars, companies are trying to figure out exactly how to leverage the tool effectively and looking for some practical tips. Moderator Barry Graubart (@graubart,) vice president of product management for Alacra, joined panelists Michelle Leder (@footnoted), founder of Footnoted.org, and Catherine Ventura (@catherinventura), a social media content strategist. Graubart started off the session with a list of best practices on Twitter, which boiled down to the kindergarten rule: don't be rude, be nice, and share, share, share. Techniques for achieving it included having something relevant and informative to post, being an effective curator, resisting the urge to be self-serving, and using hashtags to make your posts more findable. Ventura shared her 60-30-10 rule of thumb for corporate tweeting: 60% of your tweets should be value add to the community via advice, links, and retweeting relevant content. Thirty percent can be network building, and the remaining 10% can be personal stuff that puts a human face on the company's Twitter activities. ROI was on the mind of those in the audience but remains a bit tough to quantify. Leder talked about the fact that, through Twitter, she's made contact with a corporate counsel who has become a friend and trusted advisor, and Ventura pointed out that the Twitter voice is a long-term branding opportunity. In her case, she presents corporate clients with a list of keywords to underpin their brand, and suggests they use those words as often as they can - as appropriate - in their tweets. Keyword cluster visualisation tools like Twitscoop and Tweetstats can help monitor that branding. The panel also discussed the importance of curation, especially for publishers trying to maximise their Twitter activity. As Graubart pointed out, 'Nobody wants to go to your site to read the news. You need to put it in front of them, and they're on Twitter, or on email.' He suggested curating key stories to post to the Twitter feed to show value and keep readers coming back. Finally there was a good discussion on the List function to help manage the Twitter firehose. Some use it to opt out of following particular Tweeters so regularly, others use it to opt in more effectively, and all agreed that private lists can be a good way of gathering competitive information. The webinar is archived and can be viewed at http://digbig.com/5bbgff VIP LiveWire postings are included in the FreePint Twitter feed @freepint.

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