Twitter 101 - Part 1

A beginners guide to Twitter

Ever been curious about Twitter but don't know where to start. It seems to be everywhere, TV shows ask you to share your views on Twitter, ads in magazines ask you to follow them on Twitter and even your local cafe is sending out regular tweets.

Maybe you need to understand it for work, perhaps you just want to get a better understanding of what your husband/wife/son/daughter/friend is on about. Maybe it sounds like something you might enjoy but don't know how to get started, No problem, then this guide is for you.

So what is Twitter?

Twitter is a micro blogging platform site: you can say anything you like but each message is limited to 140 characters. 140 characters doesn't sound like a lot.  But if you have something you can't say it in 140 characters, then you just write a blog post or article about it and then post the URL to Twitter.


What do you use twitter for?

1.Telling people what you are doing
2. Sharing information like funny pictures, blogs or a cool pair of shoes.
3. Following / listening/reading what people you are interested in have to say.
4. Asking questions of brands or industry experts.


Who will read what I "tweet"


Users of Twitter have followers and in turn follow other Twitter uses. People who follow you will have your tweets appear in their timeline, and your tweet can also be read if it appears in a Twitter search on that topic.
Most people on Twitter like to be heard but it is possible to lock your Twitter feed so it can only be read by their followers.

Above is a screen shot of the Virtual Elehants Twitter Page.  On the right is my timeline, which shows all the tweets coming from the people I follow.  On the left is information about how many followers we have and how many we are following.  Twitter also offers suggestions on who you might like to follow and a list of trending topics in the region of your choice.  I will cover these in detail later on.




Who can I follow?

You can follow almost anyone with a twitter account. Some people only want to be followed by people they know but otherwise you can follow must twitter users unrestricted.

You can follow celebrities, sportspeople, your favourite brand, TV shows, your local cafe and your friends.  Often people you follow will follow you in return but sometimes they won't. Twitter will happily suggest people for you to follow based on your interests.

It is quite ok to follow lots of people but not have any followers yourself, you don't have to say anything unless you want to.

To follow someone, you find their profile- or search for their twitter name such as @virtualelephant then click on it.  Under their profile simply click the follow button and watch it change to following.

The profile of Virtual Elephants
Notice now the follow button is green and says following

Celebrities and persons of note will have a verified twitter account,signified by a blue circle with a white tick in it.  This will save you from signing up to a fake celebrity account,where someone is impersonating the celebrity in question.

Ok,so now you are all geared up to write short punchy updates, you sign up for a Twitter account and gone OMG (Oh My God) what language are they speaking.
Coming Soon : The language of Twitter

#qantasluxury #socialmedia #fail

Never ever underestimate the power of social media and Alan Joyce never ever underestimate how badly you have upset your clients.

Air Travel may be comoditised but the emotions that drive us to the skys are not, births, deaths, weddings, funerals, holidays, job interviews, reunions, all have a lot of emotion driving them, so if they get missed, I dont think a few freebies will make it up.

As I write this I am watching the most epic of social media marketing fails unfold on twitter, an hour ago a simple competition was posted to twitter by qantas.  It didnt differ much from the thousands of other competitions posted to twitter each day, say something witty using a particular hash tag and you are in with a chance to win

so Qantas posted this

 

It looks fairly innocuous and also Qantas took a pounding in the media with their inpersonal tone used on twitter during the recent Qantas industrial dispute where workers were locked out and the fleet was grounded.

So obviously the word has come down from on high - use twitter to build goodwill and get the social media flowing again.

But Qantas has totally under estimated how negatively they are now seen by customers since they esculated the industrual dispuate and grounded their fleet a couple of weeks back.

and here are some of the results

 

Someone took it seriously

and what do they do now

they are not getting any sympathy

 

To make matters worse, the winner of the original competition would have received a $30 prize pack.

 

So what does Qantas do now?

Sorry Qantas but you just have to ride this one out. With luck it will run out of steam in a few hours, It will feature in tomorrows papers and should really become a case study for all social media marketing students.

You have to stop, apologise properly and focus on what is important to your clients.

Admit you screwed this one up, laugh at yourself and promise you have learned your lesson, No more cheap and nasty stunts and no silly PR gimmicks.  

Qantas you have to get back to old fashioned brand buildling.

Your Tweet Has a Half Life of 5 minutes. Now What?

A recent study by Klout a company that provides a measure for how influential you are in your social media circles has announced that unless you have a higher Klout score, your tweet has a half life of about five minutes.

That is right, five minutes, so in essence, five minutes after you posted a tweet, people have stopped talking about it. That is not strictly what a half life is, but will suffice for our conversation.  Higher Klout scores above 80 can go on to have a half life of 5 hours or so but that is rareafied atmosphere in social media circles which most of us will never aspire to.

So what does this mean for our tweeting in real terms?
The results themselves are not suprising, there are 1000's of tweets rushing through my twitter feed every hour and there is no way I read them all.  I do check back on the accounts I have listed to catch any I know I don't want to miss but otherwise I can happily live with the missed tweets.

So as a social media marketer, besides getting an automated system and spamming your users every five minutes what can you do to ensure you get your message across.

Here are my top five tips
1. Content Content Content.  Content is no longer King, Good content is King, it doesnt matter how well you time your tweets, how many followers you have or how often you tweet, if you dont have content that is unique, useful, fun and engaging you are wasting your time.  Just having content is no longer enough, now you have to strive to have the best content.

2. Know when your audience is ready to be engaged.  Do you know when the majority of your twitter followers are online and on twitter? The Techandlife blog has a great graphic on time zones for tweeting, if your audience is Australian then life is easy, but if you are looking to engage an overseas audience, an automated system preprogramed with tweets will be the way to go.  The best way to find the right time to tweet? Experiment, try a morning, midday, afternoon and evening tweet, what respose are you getting.

3. Tweet frequently but not too frequently?  How do I do that I hear you ask. How often do you have good content to share? If you are like me I generally get out one good blog post per day. 1 tweet per day? That doesnt sound like a lot when people are advocating 4 tweets an hour.  Four tweets an hour will probably break through the clutter. Hubspot has some interesting graphics that show 22 tweets per day is a sweet spot, that isnt a lot when you think there is probably a lot of thank yous, retweets and replies.

4. Build Networks: Your tweets will live longer when they are retweeted into other peoples networks. Want someone to notice you? The best way to build networks is to engage, forget automated systems and do it the old fashioned way Follow, List and Retweet their content, start a conversation with them, thank them for their contributions, flattery will get you everywhere. Hopefully they will then return the favour and retweet your content.

5. Know what response you want.  It sounds silly but always keep in mind what you want from your twitter life.  Do you want retweets, replies, blog comments, facebook visits/likes, website visits, competition entries, or sales?  Knowing what you want makes it a hell of a lot easier to know if you have been sucessful.

Last Gasp?

I got very excited last night when on my way to a dance class I came across the GASP store with a big closing down sale splashed across it.  I quickly tweeted and texted out the news. I had followed the GASP saga closely, here was two of my favourite things combining, fashion and social media.

Last Gasp

Some further trawling through the seedy world of the GASP saga seems to show that this is the "outlet" store and is the one closing, the conventional store further along Chapel Street is still in existance. Although bloggers are reporting sales across all GASP stores so perhaps they are hurting a little more then they want to let on.
I think most of Australia is well across #gaspfail  Where a customer complained and the unconventional response provoked a war with. If for some reason you have been out of the country, living under a rock or really not caring, you can read both the complaint email and the response here.

Following the saga there was a debate raging about whether or not it was staged ( I didn't think so) and if it was a good thing for the brand ( I still dont think so).  Although I considered it bad PR, I didn't think it would be terminal despite social cursaders baying for blood, Facebook spouting We Hate GASP fan pages and the term gaspfail entering general use.

So what went wrong
Firstly - going out on a limb here, there is actually nothing wrong with GASPs branding and brand values, if they think that is the right niche for them to play in then good luck to them.   Given the state of Australian retailing in general I think it is very brave but a quick review of Vogue forum and other fashion blogs has GASP dishing out this kind of behaviour for quite some time so perhaps it is working for them.
How they chose to portray that brand via an email complaint is where it went badly for them and it is easy to see how quickly it can get out of hand.  Even resulting in "Chris" the sales assistant at the heart of the saga fleeing the GASP shop and leaving it unattended due to the attention his and management emails were gairnering.

GASP could have done one of three things in response to the email that would have been on brand.
1. Ignore it: If they truly didnt care for the customer and did not value the complaint then it would have been completely on brand to dismiss it

2. Provide a well draftedresponse that still conveyed the required tone without being inflamatory.

3. Respond with a phone call, you can be as snooty as you like in a phone call, the thing about emails is they are evidence and they can go around the world really really quickly.

Managing a brand like GASP would be hard work, it would be a fine line to walk between having the right attitude and not alienating yourself from 99.9% of the world.

In ethics class at university many years ago we are taught, do not say or do anything that you would be embarrassed to see on the front page of a newspaper. Nothing holds more true today when it is just so easy for someone to put you on the front page of a newspaper, or a website or a blog or even your own hashtag.
Unfortunately GASP underestimate its audience, as a women there are few things more vulnerable than going dress shopping, especially for high end special occassion dresses.

The emotion of a special occassion and high expectations combine with the sad fact that when we go dress shopping we have to deal with every blemish, every extra chocolate or beer we have had, it is not alway a positive experience at the best of times. We have all been there and nothing will bring out the claws faster than negativity at such a vulnerable moment.

Their message and course of action was not thought out:

Starting with GASP's claim that Kim Kardasian and Katy Perry wear the GASP brand, What they actually do is wear a line of clothing stocked by them and it is unlikely they have ever set foot in a GASP store - Full Story Here.

They were deleting negative comments from their facebook page, smart maybe since it fueled the ire of the irate as they chose other methods, blogs, twitter and mainstream media to get their message across, but so great was the volume they eventually had to close the page altogether, which drew more critisism.

Why I think this wasn't a stunt.
They didn't have a twitter feed set up, if this was a carefully orchastrated stunt then you would expect them to be geared and up ready to respond, even if with more negativity.

The staff involved personal facebook profiles were still public which meant they were targets for the flamethrowers as well, Now I have loved my jobs in the past but I would not put myself out there in that fashion for any company.

Then there is this found by StewArtMedia which seems to prove GASP management were posting positive comments about themselves on blogs - ouch now they just look silly.  If it was an orchestrated attempt at a stunt, a SMM professional would have ensured such amateurish actions would not have occurred.
No attempt was made to physically protect "Chris" the protagonist in all of this.

In Summary
How GASP goes from here remains to be seen, they claim they are experiencing amazing sales, commentators say their stores are empty. In twelve months time I think the true ramifications will be clearer, GASPs actions might have made them more popular with thier chosen target market, whether there is enough of them to sustain the company remains to be seen.

It is actually refreshing in these days of PR stunts to see a genuniely stupid blunder and witness the collective power of social media, and will be a case study for SMM students in the years to come.