Make Twitter work for you with @technicalfault https://www.flickr.com/photos/tripletsisters/7692708314/ using CC-BY-2.0

Make it work for you Aims •  Consider the purpose of Twitter •  Tips for growing your Twitter following •  How to search Twitter effectively •  Useful apps and tools for managing Twitter •  Answering your questions

Make it work for you Learning outcomes •  Able to track and grow your Twitter numbers •  Understand effective tweets and measurement •  Effectively search Twitter for topics + hashtags •  Manage and create useful lists •  Understand Twitter tools for managing followers

Make it work for you What is Twitter? •  Short messages, shared with friends and beyond •  Invented for small groups to communicate •  Created in July 2006 •  Exploded in use after 2007 SxSW festival •  274 million+ active accounts (smaller than Facebook) UK (fourth largest). Manchester top 3 in Europe 2 billion search queries per day

Make it work for you Tim Berners-Lee tweets from the London 2012 opening ceremony (up to 900 million viewers!)

Make it work for you Why do you want to tweet? •  Set your organisation’s goals •  What action should your followers take? •  Tailor your content towards your goals

Make it work for you Six key principles for being a good Twitter Citizen Adapted from Antony Mayfield, iCrossing What is Social Media?

Make it work for you Participation

Make it work for you Openness “At Twitter, we believe that the open exchange of information can have a positive global impact”

Make it work for you Conversation

Make it work for you Community

Make it work for you Connectedness

Make it work for you Modern screenshot of the first tweet

Make it work for you Growing your Twitter account •  It won’t happen overnight – it’s a long-term process. •  First step is to get an account if you don’t already ;-) •  Consider your goals and manage expectations •  Every tweet is potentially golden •  Content + Conversation = conversion (hopefully)

Make it work for you Twitter Glossary •  Mention: when you mention an account in your tweet, e.g. “glad your parcel arrived @technicalfault!”

Make it work for you Twitter Glossary •  Retweet: sharing a tweet by another user – using ‘retweet’, you can instantly forward to your followers

Make it work for you Twitter Glossary •  Message: a private message to a particular user that’s already following you

Make it work for you Twitter Glossary •  Hashtag: #weather – ‘theme’ for your tweet. Users can click on these to see other similarly-themed tweets

Make it work for you Make Twitter interesting •  Share: Photos and ‘behind the scenes’ info about your organisation •  Listen: monitor comments about you/what you do •  Ask: your followers have valuable insight and shows you’re listening •  Respond: to compliments and feedback

Make it work for you Engage on Twitter •  Reward: special offers + time-sensitive deals •  Demonstrate: wider leadership and know-how •  Champion stakeholders: RT and reply to great tweets •  Establish the right voice: a direct, genuine, likeable tone Twitter for Business guide http://business.twitter.com

Make it work for you How do you get clicks? •  Write tweets between 120-130 characters •  Place links ~25% of the way through •  Tweet your links at a slower pace (Buffer) •  Choose the right words and phrases •  Experiment using the paper.li system •  Use action words: more verbs, fewer nouns •  Tweet on the weekends •  Tweet later in the day Dan Zarrella, Hubspot How to: Get more clicks on Twitter http://danzarrella.com/infographic- how-to-get-more-clicks-on- twitter.html

Make it work for you Tracking Tweets •  Sign-up to Twitter ads The Twitter ad interface lets you analyse each message for reach and click-throughs

Make it work for you Searching Twitter •  Official Twitter search: http://search.twitter.com Identify ‘top’ tweets for topics •  You can search any words, not just a hashtag. Hashtags are useful for events + tracking rarely for casual tweets

Make it work for you Useful Twitter apps •  Dump Twitter.com and the official Twitter apps! UI seems more geared to advertisers than users •  Key apps I find useful include: TweetBot for iPhone, iPad Mac Fenix for Android TweetDeck for Chrome MetroTwit for Windows

Make it work for you Useful Twitter apps •  Buffer: http://bufferapp.com Set your tweets to be sent automatically throughout the day – works on mobile + desktop

Make it work for you Using Twitter lists •  You can add anyone to a list you create at https://twitter.com//lists •  Lists allow you to constantly monitor what members of that list are tweeting •  Useful to monitor influencers, decision-makers, news feeds or even competitors! •  Lists can be used to manage vast followings

Make it work for you Using Twitter lists •  Example lists: •  Team members at Government Digital Service https://twitter.com/gdsteam/lists/team •  Manchester Digital council https://twitter.com/McrDig/lists/council

Make it work for you Learning outcomes •  Able to track and grow your Twitter numbers •  Understand effective tweets and measurement •  Effectively search Twitter for topics + hashtags •  Manage and create useful lists •  Understand Twitter tools for managing followers

Make it work for you Questions?

Make it work for you End of Presentation

Make it work for you Sources •  Anthony Mayfield, iCrossing •  http://icrossing.com/ebooks •  Content licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 •  Images from Flickr and Stockexchange. See notes view for links and credit. •  Dan Zarella: http://danzarrella.com/infographic-how-to-get-more-clicks-on- twitter.html •  Twitter for Business: http://business.twitter.com/