Twitter Strategy, Take Two

Are you one of the millions who remain mystified about Twitter? While I’ve written about this before (Twitter Strategies), I thought it might be worthwhile to boil it down again, but from a different perspective.

Here are five key Twitter activities that might expose a previously hidden opportunity:

1. Monitor: Professional development, risk mitigation, or keeping tabs on prospective clients (or employers) are great ways to stay in the loop of what’s going on. How: Use a tool such as Hootsuite.com, and set up streams that track relevant keywords – one per column. Each morning, do a quick scan to review any relevant posts.
2. Discover: Identifying today’s trends – and seeing tomorrow’s news today – gives you a unique perspective on the world. How: Click on Discover within Twitter to discover trending topics. Many will be irrelevant, but a quick scan can separate the wheat from the chaff. Key question is so what?: Thinking through the relevance (and impact) of those topics for your business is the key to unlocking the value of discovery.
3. Interact: Discussions with others who have similar interests can have many benefits, including professional development, business development, and personal connection. How: LinkedIn has groups, Facebook has pages, and Twitter has … #hashtags. Here’s how they work:
   • Groups decide on unique hashtags as an identifier for open discussion on a specific  topic
   • Individuals then include that hashtag when tweeting on that topic
   • Individuals set Hootsuite to monitor that hashtag, which then displays the stream of relevant conversation
4. Share: Passing relevant information – Retweeting – to your followers sends two messages – the tweet itself, and that you are “connected” as an in-the-know source. How: Find a relevant tweet, and click the Retweet button.
5. Direct Message: This is a private one-to-one message to a specific person, exactly like a (very short) email. How: A DM conversation is possible only when both people follow each other.

The value of what you share on this platform – tweet, retweet, DM, and interact via hashtag – is a direct reflection of your brand online. In this way, Twitter is no different than any other interaction.

This week’s action plan: How are you currently using Twitter? This week, develop more comfort with the channel: choose one “new” activity, and see what happens. You may just make an important discovery: a better return on your time investment.