Interview by Max Chafkin

Source: INC Magazine

Three years ago, Twitter was barely known outside the geeky confines of San Francisco. Today, it’s a marketer’s dream: a free service with an audience of nearly 125 million people, who use it to keep tabs on friends, celebrities — and their favorite companies. Co-founder Biz Stone explains what’s happening, where it’s headed, and how entrepreneurs can take advantage.

Which approaches to social media work especially well?

There are straightforward uses. A New York City bakery uses Twitter to tell customers when the cookies are coming out of the oven and Dell uses it to tell people about deals on refurbished computers. And then there are companies that are blending together marketing and customer support and using it to build their brands. I once sent a tweet that said, “I’m getting on a JetBlue flight,” and I got a reply from JetBlue’s Twitter account that said, “You should try the smoked almonds.” That’s customer service, but, because our conversation happened in public, it’s also branding.

You have 1.6 million Twitter followers. How can a normal business develop that kind of following?

You just have to start slowly and react to what people are already saying about your company. You might try to offer a coupon or post pictures of your offices or give a sneak peek of a new product. You don’t need a million followers to be successful. If you have 3,000 people who really care about your company and are interested in what you have to say, they’ll share it with their followers, and you’ll gain a much bigger audience.

Don’t businesses with a presence on Twitter run a risk of appearing overly opportunistic or unseemly?

You have to walk a line between making announcements, as you would in a press release, and talking directly with your Twitter followers, the way JetBlue did with me. If you mix it up and keep it authentic, you’ll build a personality around your company and your brand.

Lots of businesses now use Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites to market themselves and even to sell products. Should companies making money on Tiwtter be worried that you eventually will try a piece of that revenue?

We’ve tried to be clear that our advertising platform, Promoted Tweets, is the main way we’re going to make money. If a business wants advertise in the Twitter timeline, it has to split the revenue with us 50-50. That’s our business model. But there are lots of other ways to make money that we are never going into. For instance, a company called Co-Tweet built a system for businesses to use Twitter to improve their customer service. They went from having the idea to being acquired in 16 months.

How pervasive will social media be five years from now?

I hope it’s less pervasive. I hope we can get sophisticated enough so that people aren’t hunched over computers, spending hours looking at their friends’ photos. Instead of doing that, the information you want will come to you, allowing you to save money, save time, or serendipitously meet up with a friend. Companies like Netflix and Amazon are already doing this by giving people recommendations for products.

When Twitter came out, a lot of people said, “I already have Facebook, LinkedIn, and a blog. Why on earth do I need another social media site?” Is there still room for start-up in this space?

There’s always room for something that delivers value in a new way. Someone once asked me, “What new technology will allow entrepreneurs to create the next big thing?” But the Next Big Thing already exists. It’s just a matter of thinking like an artist — of trying to take something that already exists and repurposing it for something it wasn’t intended for.

I’m sure everyone reading this blog are on some sort of social networking site whether it be the ever-so-popular Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.  However, the real question is whether your business is on social media platforms?  Both large and small businesses should have a presence on social media.  Even if you are not an expert on social networking there are a lot of tools out there (like this blog!) that can help you!  Here is a great article from Mashable that gives you 8 essential tips on how to relate and communicate via social networking.

“Since the evolution of communicating online and the formations of social networks, many businesses have shut down the access from their locations. Some might say it is due to the prevention of wasting time and improving time management. Others might be weary of hackers or phishing scams that could possibly be associated with the social networks. Regardless of the reason, blocking access to social sites is hurting your business.

Why It is Important to Establish your Business Online

You need to begin branding your name. Branding is a way to reach various audiences and demographics that may be interested in what you have to sell. Firstly, you must remember that they are people, not customers. Establishing your name on social networks will already alert your fans of who you are and since the various social sites provide places such as info tabs, bios, hours of operation and more, there is no urgency to then turn your social networks into a constant feed of what it is you do. Just make sure that you have filled out all the information areas that each social network provides and those keywords will help people find you online. More importantly, in order for them to find you, you must exist and you must be active.

Why it is Important to Maintain your Social Networks

Many businesses think that if they have the links out there then people will come. This is not only wrong but can hurt your business. Yes, having Social links with your business’s name on them will have your name stretched across the internet and of course people will be able to find you. However, once they do and all they see are empty shells of what they thought would be a community, they will be disappointed and move on. People aren’t impressed with ghost accounts; they want interaction, knowledgeable information, and life breathing from these sites.”

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I have a Nikon SLR digital camera with 10 megapixels of power to capture the finest detail digitally and reproduce analog printed masterpieces that I hang in my home and office. Instead I opted for the camera my Blackberry Curve to capture a rare, low-the-sky double rainbow in the Adirondacks, leaving me only the opportunity to share it’s miniature likeness here or on Facebook, or use it as the home screen on a display that’s smaller than a business card.

We have no less than 4 working computers in our home, each with brilliant wide screen displays, yet I sit outside typing away on the small keyboard screen of my iPad, battling the harsh glare of the summer sun.

Why? Convenience. As technology “miniaturizes” it becomes more convenient. It enables us to jump online even though we are a couple hundred feet from our homes. It enables us to capture a moment in time - at our convenience - and share it with our friends, and the rest of the world, just as it happens.

This convenience comes with a cost, of course. The quality of my photos isn’t always what it should be, although I am able to capture memories I might have otherwise missed.

While I type away now on my iPad I might be able to get this done much more quickly on my larger laptop or desktop computer - and with far less eye strain - however the compact nature and ease of use makes the tradeoff worthwhile. I can site comfortably and catch a few rays, while at the same time, write this post.

The same goes for our messaging. Twitter has enabled the world to share information in 140 character sprites - quickly and easily from anywhere you can get online.

Our conversations are miniaturizing, yet we are communicating with one another like never before. The question remains, is the tradeoff quality? The answer: not necessarily.

The access to information and the speed of which we are able to share it allows us a far greater platform for communication. Combining a better understanding of the principles and techniques of Internet marketing, with the same for social marketing, you are now wildly enabled to provide relevant messages of extremely high quality. The tools are transparent yet the thoughts remain complete. I can ensure you hear the latest news about our company with a quick tweet and elaborate later in a longer blog post. I can do either of these tasks while on the road, in my backyard, or in my office - from my laptop, my cellphone, or any device I choose - and you’d never know the difference.

The portability and choice provided by technology has empowered us in ways most of us have never imagined. The challenge remains to ensure that these choices do not interfere with a quality outcome. Enjoy the freedom that “small” provides but strive to keep the ideas and messages BIG.

source: Mashable.com

From an agency perspective, many utilize social media monitoring at the request of a client who either doesn’t know much about it, or depends on their agency to educate them. With no client direction, it can be a bit difficult to decipher the first steps of what to monitor, who the players are, and the information that will prove valuable to your client.

Volume, Influence and Sentiment are metrics that will come in handy once these five benefits are realized.

1. Crisis Management

Crisis communications strategies are ingrained into most PR professionals’ skulls from the beginning of their education and internships. However, many don’t ever have to execute a crisis communications plan. In the traditional space, it was few and far between, but social media gives customers instant access to a real-time complaint channel.

Creating a presence on social media networks won’t stop this type of conversation from happening, but will enable brands to make the conversation a two-way street. So, what type of metrics can you measure in a crisis? You can look at conversation at the start, middle and end for benchmark comparison, and evaluate response on a cause-and-effect spectrum.

2. Influencer Identification

Influencer identification is a processes that is unique to each brand. If the client’s presence is heavy in forums or blogs, it helps to look at post mentions, commenter count and post volume.

Work with your client to determine whom they think is the most influential. A few questions to ask them:

• What platforms are you currently using?
• Are there others in the works?
• What type of demographic does your typical customer belong to?
• Where do you see conversation happening?
• Where would you like conversation to be happening?

These questions will start to form a picture of who the heavy influencers are and how to target them.

3. Building Relationships with Media and Customers Alike

We are in the field of communications. Journalists are utilizing social media to stay on top of the news, get leads and build relationships not only with PR professionals, but also with the community. It also enables brands to see if the discussion, content and approach is resonating with their target audience.

This is an area where customer service will come into play as well. What type of conversation is your customer base having? Does the sentiment skew heavily toward positive, negative or neutral? What areas are they focusing on? This will enable brands to act quickly and efficiently for their current and future customer base.

4. Creative Feedback and Ad Targeting

If you work in an agency that also handles the advertising for a specific client, the creative feedback and ad targeting principle is something to incorporate in your monthly metrics report.

Advertising campaigns reflect brand positioning, which should also be reflected by social media efforts. Incorporating the mindset and campaigns into your social media presence isn’t being promotional. It’s not about using the campaigns directly, but the idea the campaign presents.

For Facebook (Facebook), you might see an ad for shoes once you update your status dealing with that particular subject. Monitoring if someone actually clicks ad that will be beneficial.

Other questions to answer: Is the message hitting the right demographic? Is it resonating with the audience, or is it having the opposite effect? Did the platforms we chose work?

Benchmarking your efforts can help with this. Set attainable objectives and the type of demographic desired. Set up a pyramid effort to check in increments of three months, starting at six months out. That will give you enough time to measure the “before,” “during” and “after” of a campaign.

5. Competitive Monitoring

Your clients want to know if they are measuring up to the competition — literally. Monitoring industry conversation is the first step in identifying who the competition is in the social space.

With this, it can be two-fold: Who the client perceives as their competitor might not be the same across different social networks. It’s up to the agency to identify and further define what is successful and what’s failing. The latter is important when one needs to prove why a certain idea isn’t the best route.

Knowing competitor efforts can affect not only what a brand does in the future, but current efforts. You can see where the consumer is, and what efforts they react positively and negatively to. Brands like to see competitor efforts for consumer validation, trends and market research.

From these five areas, you can then start focusing on specific metrics to report on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Monitoring specific topics will always come down to what the brand wants to achieve and if it meshes with objectives.

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