Wasting time on Twitter is like sitting around the water cooler and chatting with coworkers about last night’s American Idol segment – it might be fun, and it passes the time, but it wasted time that could have been used to make money.
Here are some tips on how to keep your Twitter time under control:
1. Schedule a time for Twitter. Just like you can spend hours online checking eMails and just surfing the ‘Net, getting on Twitter 10 times a day doesn’t help you at all. Schedule two Twitter times per day – once in the morning and once in the evening – and then stick to it. Your Twitter buddies can survive without knowing your entire itinerary for the day.
2. Decide the purpose for your visit before getting on Twitter. Are you sending a tweet about your latest blog post? Are you trying to find local business people to network with? Deciding what you want to do before you log on is a big time saver.
3. Jot down notes during the day for your Twitter time. It doesn’t have to be anything long or fancy. A sticky note will do. Just keep track of your thoughts so when you get on Twitter you can accomplish what you want and then leave the site.
4. Do not tweet about every single thing you do. No one cares if you are going to the store. They don’t agonize over the fact that your hamster ate too much. Keep your tweets limited to important stuff.
If you take control of your Twitter time, you can take control of how well it works for you. Be strong.
Tweets are like the phone, they touch every aspect of business and companies should be prepared to allow interaction with Twitter at every level and in every department of their company. Twitter is not only useful to promote products and services, it also provides a method to benchmark your company against your competitors, increase the quality of customer support and create better customer intimacy.
For many businesses this must be a horrific scenario. They have always believed that they should funnel all information on the company through very well trained spokespeople. Just the idea that anyone in the company can now be talking to the customers looks like a nightmare scenario. Undoubtedly, internal issues will be brought to the public’s attention and this can hurt the reputation of the company in a great way. However, companies should realize that the worst thing people could say about the company is nothing. Companies should want to hear what the happy customers have to say as well as the criticism on the company itself its products or services.
Especially when companies can promote their corporate All-Star, they are in a position to win the hearts and minds of people and increase the strength of their brand. Sometimes the corporate All-Star is simply the CEO. There seems to be an enormous attraction in the general population to listen to what a CEO of a well-known company has to say. Where’s before the CEOs would say nothing so they cannot divulge confidential information, CEOs in today’s world should realize that there is enormous power in their person as a brand.
Remember one thing: at the other end of a tweet there’s always someone that doesn’t appreciate being hit with advertisements or sales links. They can unfollow and ignore you. Most people on Twitter are smart and educated and don’t appreciate sales pitches. Work on building as many relations as possible with your current followers, and then move on to the next batch of followers and do the same. Treat your Twitter friends as pals and not as clients. Provide true value in everything you do on Twitter.