• It’s a quick and informal. Twitter’s informality is • You can follow anyone, and anyone can follow
the key to its success. You can stay in touch with your you – unless you block them. Remember that other
contacts without being all over them. A tweet is also Twitterers are under no obligation to follow your up-
surprisingly effective at getting a quick response from a dates if you follow theirs. It’s not considered bad
contact. You can even use Twitter for ad hoc market re- manners not to follow someone who is following you.
search: just tweet a question to all your followers. • Spammers may become a problem. Twitter is still
relatively spam-free, but if someone starts following
The expert view: no more chicken sarnies
you, be sure to check their profile information and up-
date history. If they are following thousands of people
Stephen Waddington (pictured right) is Managing Di- but only have a handful of followers themselves,
rector of London-based PR firm Rainier. He works with there’s a good chance they’re not for real.
a large number of clients in the technology sector, and • It’s easy to integrate Twitter into your company
is enthusiastic about the benefits that Twitter offers. website, providing a live feed of your Tweets direct to
‘I was sceptical about Twitter at first,’ he says, ‘be- your homepage.
cause it seemed like just another online service that I’d
have to keep track of. But then I began to discover
what it really offers to business. Twitter enables com- Stephen Waddington
TWITTER TIPS
munications within your own sector. You can drop in You can follow Rainier’s
and out of dialogue with your network and contribute MD on Twitter by visiting Thinking of signing up to Twitter? Here’s some
as you see fit. Previously that would have required net- his profile page: advice to get your started!
working events – an endless round of cheap white wine • Before you start writing tweets, browse
and chicken sandwiches.’ - www.twitter.com/Wadds around the profiles of other successful Twitterers.
Getting the right tone and approach is crucial.
• The more interesting your tweets, the more
likely it is that people are going to follow you. It’s
hard to be witty in just 140 characters, but
But for Stephen, the benefits go far beyond simple you’ve got enough room to include some useful
networking. ‘Twitter lets you reach out to all your audi- information and a link. You can save space by
ences - potential employees, journalists, potential using a service like www.tinyurl.com to shorten
clients – and communicate with them easily and infor- web addresses. Usually (but not always) Twitter
mally, making new contacts as you go. In the last three will automatically turn a web address you enter
months here at Rainier we've hired a new staff member into a TinyURL address.
and met a client through Twitter. It’s a level of formality • Tweet regularly, but not too regularly – if
below even email. The really interesting thing is that you’re sending a tweet every two minutes people
Twitter breaks down barriers. It makes it easy to inter- are soon going to get annoyed that you’re clog-
act across industries and levels of seniority. I’ve seen ging up their update list. A dozen times a day is
entry level graduates talking to very senior executives fine (if you can manage it), and just one tweet a
on the site. It’s hard to explain how this happens - day will keep you on people’s radar. There’s
you've really got to try it to see why it’s so useful. nothing wrong with sending out a series of
‘The other overlooked benefit of the service is that tweets in quick succession if you’ve got some-
it’s a wonderful way of maintaining contact and manag- thing exciting to say. Again, the best advice is to
ing a distributed team of employees and contractors. I browse around and see how other successful
work Mondays and Fridays from home, but Twitter Twitterers handle it.
helps to keep me in the loop.’ • Be careful what you say – remember that if
your profile is open and public, every tweet you
Some features and limitations of Twitter
write is visible to all Twitter users if they choose
to view it. If you’re going to make a habit of writ-
• Twitter is completely free. ing sensitive, secret or saucy tweets, it’s best to
• You can read and update Twitter on the move, make your profile private.
from any web connection or web-enabled mobile de- • You can judge a Twitterer’s status or influ-
vice. You can also update via text message, though the ence by the number of people that are following
UK service is limited compared to the rest of the world, them. Very high-profile Twitterers tend to have a
owing to Twitter’s failure to reach an agreement with large number of followers, but follow a rather
British network providers. smaller number themselves. There are some ex-
• Friends who ‘follow’ you can be directly tweeted ceptions: for example, if you follow a high-profile
by adding @theirusername to a tweet. It still shows up LINKS organisation or politician such as @down-
in your public list of tweets, but a tweeted friend gets www.twitter.com ingstreet or @barackobama they’ll probably fol-
an email message to announce that he or she has an www.tinyurl.com low you in return.
update directed specifically at them. www.rainierpr.co.uk
enterprises. In every issue you’ll find cutting-edge features and advice from the biggest names in business.
e now by visiting www.bmmagazine.co.uk/subscribe
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