Wednesday, April 28, 2010

10 Dos and Don’ts for Brands on Twitter

From Mashable:

Interesting tips for using Twitter to support, promote and defend your brand. Click to the post for the details on each, but here are the 10 headers...

1. Don't be a showoff
2. Use proper grammar and spelling
3. Don't get too personal
4. Don't auto-Tweet
5. Don't leave air in the conversation
6. Don't overtweet
7. Do shout out to those who tweet about you
8. Do monitor keywords and competitors
9. Do make an informative profile
10. Do fish where the fish are

To me, the most interesting AND most painful as a PR guy is #1: "Give Twitter users your features and benefits. Let them know about special deals. Don’t post links to your latest press release, promote articles written by your CEO or make extravagant claims. A good rule of thumb to determine whether a tweet is user-friendly or brand vanity is to ask yourself, “If I didn’t work here, would I care about this?” If you’re not sure, ask a brutally honest friend who doesn’t work at your company."

When I have a good press release, I want to at least link to it. There are journalists and bloggers that follow me. So what do we do? From #3: "Keep your conversations warm but professional; it’s what users expect from a brand ambassador, and anything else comes off as creepy."

Twitter is a place for conversations, not broadcasting. And if you're going to converse, who wants to converse with someone jargonizing in PR-speak? When I tweet announcements, I keep them casual and fun. I also like to use it for breaking or leaking the news. Twitter followers like getting exclusives! Who doesn't?

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