Category: Twitter

I recently attended the Social Media World Forum where one of the speakers suggested that to be successful on Twitter, you needed to have some kind of personality disorder. Either you’re:

1. A Narcissist: You’re constantly checking to see who has followed and un-followed you. You’re obsessed with gaining more followers and regularly check to see if there have been any mentions of your self.
2. A Stalker: You always try to gain the attention of other Tweeters in order to enter a business (or some kind of other) relationship with them. This may take the form of direct messages or regular mentions of those users in your tweets. (There is actually a website for rooting stalkers out! http://www.tweepsect.com/). 
3. You have OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder): You feel the need to regularly update the world on what you’re up to, or to share your pearls of wisdom, regardless of the time of day. Even when you’re on vacation, you have to take your Blackberry with you so you can tweet from the beach. 

When I’m notified that someone is following me on Twitter, the first thing I want to do is find out who they are and what they’re talking about. If the subject matter is relevant and of interest, I will follow them, but if their Twitter feed is nothing more than links to their own articles and products, I lose interest. Even worse are followers who tweet every five minutes.

Connecting with other people on Twitter is no different than connecting with people in real life. When someone has something interesting to say, you listen, and when someone engages with you and asks you about yourself, you want to respond. Conversely, when you’re stuck in a room with someone who does nothing but talk about themselves, you want to run a mile!

Early in the Summer, one of our pipes sprang a leak late at night. I tweeted about it and minutes later, got a reply from a local plumbing company offering to help me. When I flew to Israel a couple of months ago, I tweeted to my followers that the plane had landed. And later that day, I received a reply from a local car hire company suggesting I take a look at their online offers….I ended up booking a car with them. 

The beauty of Twitter is that it enables you to track the people who need your products and services whereas in the past you had to go out and find them either by advertising or by making sales calls. And it’s so easy. By using tools such as www.tweetdeck.com or www.hootsuite.com , you can create a list of keywords related to your business and be alerted when people mention those keywords in their Tweets.  

Earlier this year, the web hosting for one of my websites failed. I called the hosting company and they promised me  they would sort things out, but hours passed without anything happening. Then I complained about the company on Twitter. Within minutes, someone from the hosting company called me to sort things out. And they kept calling me even after the problem was resolved to check that I was happy.

And why do you think the response was so speedy?  It’s very simple. When you say something on Twitter, everyboy can read about it, both your target customers, and your competitors. And in reponse to this, more and more companies have a dedicated Twitter based customer service.