Using Twitter To Build Brand Integrity

A company’s ability to humanize itself gives its reputation an endearing appeal to the public. High-ranking executives who take time to interact with ground-level clients and customers are assets to a company’s marketing and advertising goals.

With the advent of enterprise blogging, companies can now use social media to reach out to their potential customers just by using a social media platform. Twitter is at the forefront of the microblogging trend where people share thoughts and information real-time.

Here are some pointers on how to make the most out of your Twitter account to build a solid relationship with your clients and develop a humanized image of your company:

Using Twitter To Build Brand Integrity

1. Put yourself out there and really share honest, personal information about your company. You are not expected to tweet your own personal issues in your life, but giving your followers real-time updates about company activities will make your business more relatable.

2. Share what you can about yourself. Do not just have an image of being the company head-—how about sending a tweet or two about a funny encounter you had at the mall? Your clients want to know that they are not just reading updates from a company representative who churns out boring updates—-they want to know that there is an actual interesting human being behind your Twitter account.

The CEO of Zappos takes this tip to heart. Not only does he talk to his employees and customers about company issues, but he also shares mundane, amusing things he sees while traveling. Recently, Seth Godin was critiqued for his lack of interaction with his followers. His Twitter is not subscribed to anyone else, and he doesn’t respond to his followers. Godin argues that he lacks the time to reply to his subscribers and maintain an interactive series of tweets on his account.

If you find that you don’t have time to maintain a good Twitter relationship with your customers, get the services of an employee that will do this job for you. It is better for your followers to build a fun relationship with your employee than a boring relationship with busy you.

Be Fast and Fun

Twitter is lauded for its ability to break news stories real-time. The social media is being used to coordinate vast amounts of activities, share information from seminar speakers and government officials’ speeches, and at the same time blast out opinions about these information sources— on real-time or within seconds. Be a fast Twitter user and utilize this sharing speed to your company’s advantage.

And while you’re at it, you may also want to inject a bit of spice into your daily tweets by starting Twitter games. Initiate fun hashtags such as #myfavoritesongofalltime or #theinsecticantstandis and watch as your followers get on this bandwagon. You may also want to include your company name or product in these hashtags so as to generate more popularity both from the trending topics list and the retweets that your account will get.

Don’t Be Afraid To Ask Help

Are you about to name your next product? Try sending a tweet blast to ask for name suggestions from your followers. They will love the fact that you trust them enough to actually value their opinion in your product-naming. Showing your followers that you trust them will encourage them to trust you even more in return. They may even share your products with their own followers by retweeting you. After all, retweeting is the high-tech version of “word of mouth”.

Make Yourself Known in Conferences

Participants of seminars and conferences now have the habit of quoting speakers and sending out tweets about the information these experts are saying. Should you happen to find yourself in a panel or conference, use this opportunity to say only tweet-worthy statements. However, this route to popularity is a double-edged sword—-should you so much as say one senseless thought, the whole world will immediately know about it, too.

Make Use of Tools to Track Your Progress

The following tools will help you know more about your followers’ activities and other relevant statistics:

TweetStats – produces multi-colored graphs on hourly and daily tweets, people being replied to the most, monthly Twitter use, and exposure of Autobots.
Tweet Clouds – gives information about the topics being talked about the most by a Twitter user.
Tweriod – It analyzes the tweets you send and your follower’s tweets to find the optimal time for engagement.
Audiense – A nearly all-in-one platform for all things Twitter. The free plan comes with analytics, the best time to tweet, follow/unfollow tools, and community segmentation.

Twitter is a very powerful tool to establish rapport with your employees and customers. When all the factors above are put into strategic use, you will find your brand rising in popularity and credibility in no time.