June 03rd 2013

Twitter Business Strategy

If your using Twitter then its best to put together a proper Twitter Business Strategy. Since its inception in 2006, Twitter has grown rapidly to become one of the leading social networking sites on the internet. Twitter is based upon an extremely simple premise: it is made up of 140-character messages called Tweets which enable you to become closer to people and topics you care about. According to Twitter, there are currently around 400 million Tweets posted each day with 200 million active users. 82% of businesses use Twitter in some capacity, while 29% of searches performed on Twitter are from people in the 18-24 age bracket trying to find brands. These statistics highlight why Twitter can provide a context against which you can help build your business, whether that be by engaging with topics and conversations relevant to the services your business provides, or through compiling data which can help influence future strategies.

Business Twitter Strategy

Manage Your Account Correctly

The ways in which a particular business uses Twitter can help make or break that business. Over the last eighteen months or so we have seen various news stories where Tweets have landed the person responsible for them in trouble. Rio Ferdinand was found guilty of improper conduct and fined £45000 for bringing the game into disrepute after responding to the now-infamous ‘choc-ice’ tweet. However, it is not just celebrities and public figures that have a responsibility to manage their Twitter account properly. Paul Chambers Tweeted what was later described as a ‘silly joke’ regarding the closure of Robin Hood Airport in South Yorkshire. Although the conviction was later quashed, the case served to highlight the responsibility we all have when using our Twitter accounts, of how sentiments expressed in the form of Tweets are open to interpretation and can therefore get taken out of context.

The Eternal Responsibility of Twitter

In a more recent case, we have seen how Tweets from the past can cause problems in the future for the author. Paris Brown was forced to step down from her role as Britain’s first youth police and crime commissioner because of Tweets she had composed between the ages of 14 and 16. It was alleged her Tweets were “homophobic, racist and violent.” The important point to note here is how we are eternally responsible for the content we produce on our Twitter accounts; it is not a sufficient defence to attempt to confine Tweets to the past, as Ms. Brown discovered to her peril.