Reason #2: IT’S AN ARBITRARY NUMBER. There are often many ways to achieve search engine optimization or social media hiring secrets or Twitter tools you can use. Top 5, Top 10, Top 13.5…you’re choosing an arbitrary number to not-so-transparently try to make your blog post seem easily digestible. There’s really no Top 5 anything, there’s just your own self-promotion and again, it’s become super-boring.

Reason #3: IT KILLS YOUR DIFFERENTIATION. Sure, it’s great to try to capture attention by suggesting your content won’t require a heavy time investment. Shouldn’t your content already be targeted at a time-starved audience? If you want your content to sound like everyone else’s, go ahead: give us your Top 10 Tips to Tepid.

Reason #4: YOU REINFORCE THE ECHO CHAMBER. Let’s say you create an interesting post and it gets retweeted or reblogged and reGoogled and regurgitated and now we’re hearing about your Top 5 Ways to Achieve SEO Nirvana post through multiple channels.¬† IT it it GETS gets gets REPETITIVE tive tive.

Reason #5: There is no reason #5 because the first four are plenty. Show your creativity for god’s sake. Do something different. Stand out from the crowd. Don’t follow the pack of blog lemmings off the Cliff of Undifferentiation. Demonstrate your value, without demonstrating your willingness to follow others.

UPDATE, 9/22: Every once in awhile, a marketing meme sweeps through the profession. Sometimes it’s “repeat the 800 number three times in the DRTV ad.” Another is, “make sure you have a suggestive call to action at the bottom of your mailer.” Now it’s “make sure you try to create a definitive list in your content by calling it your Top X Whatever.” And what happens? Everyone lines up to do the exact same thing, and individuality and differentiation go out the window. And every ad, every mailer, every infomercial, and every blog post sounds exactly the same.

It’s tough enough to have your content stand out in the noisy social space. Don’t water it down by jumping on the same tired techniques as everyone else.

Twitter has gotten tremendous press in the last three years, has been used by presidential candidates, actors and seemingly the entire, highly vocal social media crowd. But many companies and brands still haven’t considered Twitter as a channel for brand dialogue and engagement. So let’s talk about how a marketing team can use Twitter as another arrow in their engagement quiver.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a website that allows registered users to post short comments to their followers: other Twitter users who subscribe to your posts, or “tweets.” Posts can be made from the Twitter website, from numerous cell phone applications, and from instant messenger clients like AIM, so “tweeting” is very easy to do, from pretty much anywhere.

Originally, Twitter was intended to be a means of posting your status, such as you might do in AOL Instant Messenger: “I’m heading out now – back in 5″? or “working on a project.” Twitter’s founders launched the site in March 2006 as a “what if” proof-of-concept: what if you could take your status updates out of the IM clients and place them on the web? Now, less than three years later, what was created as a side project has turned into a full-blown short messaging service serving millions of users.

“Sounds like a whole lot of people boring the world with the mundane details of their lives.”

Not anymore. When Twitter was launched, many users assumed it was similar to IM status: a place to share the day’s details, like I’m having a sandwich, doing my laundry, heading out to a movie. Because of this initial start, Twitter developed a reputation as a place for others to bore you to death with incredibly self-interested trivia. But a much bigger set of uses was forming.

People began to tweet at conferences and events, starting with the 2007 South By Southwest Festival. You could “listen in” on commentary of people attending events, even if you weren’t there. Some dramatic events were twittered, such as an American student who was being arrested by the Egyptian police and alerted family via Twitter. Users started providing instantaneous updates from the scene of catastrophes. NASA provided real-time Twitter updates from the Mars Phoenix landing as if the probe itself was tweeting. And people with fascinating careers, such as Jim Long, an NBC cameraman on assignment with the White House Press Corps, provided insight into the events in their lives.

Brands get involved

Within months of launch, a few experimental brands saw the opportunity and jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. Delta Air Lines started tweeting special offers. Comcast, often a target of angry bloggers, began to answer customer service queries on Twitter. H&R Block started offering tax advice, and Aston Martin started sharing car news with AM fans. And news providers like the New York Times and the BBC began posting headlines.

Simultaneously, myriad applications were developed to allow easy tweeting. Twitterific let Mac users see tweets and replies in real time, while Twhirl provided the same functionality for Windows users. TweetDeck allowed a broader view of the conversations. TwitterMaps and the fabulous Google Maps mashup called TwitterVision allowed you to not only show where you were physically located, but also see where people were twittering from. Cell phone applications were developed for iPhone (here, here and here), Blackberry (here and here) and Windows Mobile (here and here). And widgets were developed to bring one’s tweets to any other website. All of this, of course, led to a tremendous rise in the number of users, resulting in the Twitter we know today.

And to answer the original question: if you find that someone is boring you with minutiae, it’s quite simple to unfollow them.

What other companies are using Twitter?

The list is too long to go into but this should give you a good idea of the brands who are using Twitter for outreach, customer service and engagement:

• Whole Foods
• Marriott International
• TJ Maxx
• Fast Company
• MTV
• Wall Street Journal
• ESPN
• Comcast
• Dunkin’ Donuts
• Starbucks
• Urban Outfitters
• Carl’s Jr.
• GE
• Overstock.com
• American Apparel
• Apple
• QuickBooks
• Dell
• CNN
• JetBlue
• Virgin America
• Ford

“What will joining Twitter provide me?”

It depends on who you follow, but Twitter can provide instant news as it happens, helpful professional hints, the chance to follow thought leaders in your industry, to connect with like minds or brand zealots, or the opportunity to merely learn more about people. Like a radio that can tune into a million stations at once, Twitter can connect you conversationally with people all over the world.

“Who should I follow?”

Like figuring out which cable channels you want to watch, finding people to follow involves a lot of trial and error. You can search for conversation topics, the city you live in, search terms from your profession or certain people by name.

As a marketer, you might want to follow Jeremiah Owyang of Forrester Research. Former colleague Steve Rubel of Edelman PR. The latest social media news from Mashable. Or social media professionals like Ford Motor Company’s Scott Monty.

You could follow ProfNet for a chance to get some press by providing a quote for a journalist, or NBC’s Jim Long for an inside view into the White House. There are many many options for new Twitter users.

If you want to see who is being followed by the largest number of people YOU are following, try Twubble. It’ll show you those most followed by the people you are following.

“What should I watch out for?”

1. Above all others: give Twitter time. It takes time, effort and thought to create a successful Twitter experience and to build a following. If you hang a Twitter shingle and only have a handful of followers, it may be that you aren’t providing value. You will get from this tool and the community what you put into them.
2. Do not use Twitter as a monologue channel. If you are merely spouting outbound messages, you will seem as uninteresting as a person at a cocktail party talking only of themselves. Twitter is about conversation, so converse! Even if it’s through direct messages, be sure to respond to inquiries and conversation starters. Remember that old interpersonal communications adage: the best conversationalists are the best listeners.
3. Assume that everything you tweet will be recorded permanently within Google search results. Everything. From now in perpetuity. Do not tweet anything you don’t want found. Assume it will live outside of Twitter as well as within it.
4. Not everyone on Twitter is who they say they are. For example, one user calls themselves “ComcastScares” evidently as a joking reference to ComcastCares, the official Twitter ID for Comcast. “4Starbucks” is a wag who makes fun of the real @Starbucks.
5. Not everything you read on Twitter is true. Should be obvious but warrants restating. It’s easy to react to a tweet but before you do, best to investigate before saying something permanent.

“What should I tweet about as a marketing professional?”

if you set up your own personal account on Twitter, decide what you want to use it for. Are you merely connecting with others? Are you sharing personal stories or experiences? Are you going to do a mix of personal and professional updates? Decide what you want Twitter to be for you.

Personally, I use it to demonstrate expertise and value. I post helpful tips, try to provide insights into my areas of expertise, as well as commentary on marketing trends. I also call out examples of bad marketing behavior and sometimes will talk about major cultural issues dominating the public consciousness. I typically avoid politics and religion unless they are part of a major discussion.

Think about how you might want to represent yourself online as a marketer and tweet accordingly.

“What should we tweet about as a brand?”

If you are using Twitter as a channel for brand extension, I would limit tweets to some combination of the following:

• Category/sector news
• Company news (that would interest more than a few folks at HQ)
• Current events that impact company business (e.g., are you a food manufacturer? Discuss the recent peanut recall)
• Talk about CSR efforts
• Pointers to genuinely-helpful thought leadership pieces on the company blog or in the press
• Reports from the floor of events such as marketing conferences
• Special offers to Twitter followers (discounts, promotions, contests)
• Customer service requests

“What should I not tweet about?”

As a rule, I counsel my clients to NEVER tweet something that has no value. Valueless tweets merely add noise to the stream and we’re all time-starved. Respect this time starvation by being succinct, valuable and interesting.

A press release about a minor rev of your software product may interest a few people, but chances are few will care. If you truly believe your followers will find it interesting, go ahead and tweet about it. If it’s questionable, I’d pass.

“How much effort will this take?”

Twitter is a qualitative, rather than quantitative, brand channel. It’s a great tool to build dialogue, engender trust, establish brand loyalty, and to raise awareness. IT IS NOT A MASS COMMUNICATION MEDIUM, nor should you consider it an outbound-only channel.

To cultivate a Twitter “garden” has required me to spend approximately an hour a week as an occasional “tweeter.” If you plan on really learning and making connections, expect to spend at least 2-4 hours a week getting started.

For those of you who shudder at the idea of adding another activity to your time-starved lives, I offer you this: social marketing is the New Marketing. Spend less time with older, less effective methods like email blasts and tradeshow booths and rethink your marketing program spend. Reallocate some of your time and effort away from older techniques and try the new. You’ll have fun, learn a lot and will be able to demonstrate new expertise and innovative marketing approaches.

“What is proper Twetiquette?”

Great question. It’s easy to offend an online community if you’re unfamiliar with the rules. Many of the following are currently open to debate, since Twitter changes so rapidly. My recommendations are:

• Stay positive. It’s easy to get snarky, easy to scoff. Unless you specifically want to critique or criticize, be shiny and happy.
• Thank people who follow you with a Direct Message. Twitter allows you to send private messages (called “Direct Messages” or DMs) to individual users. Rather than publicly replying, send a DM saying thank you.
• If someone asks you a question, respond via DM. If your response would benefit a number of followers, reply publicly.
• If it makes sense, thank those who retweet your tweets. If you see “RT @yourname” in your Replies, it means someone has found your tweet valuable enough to share with their own followers.
• There is some debate about automatically following those who follow you. Some think it’s only fair to follow those who follow you, as a sign of mutual respect. Others, myself included, only follow interesting Twitterers, regardless of whether or not they follow me. Like everyone else, I am time-starved and drowning in social media noise. So I thank them and continue to keep my Twitter reading workload to a manageable 400 or so.

“How do I attract a large audience?”

As with many social media venues, size is not what matters. You might have a small number of followers who are extremely vocal brand advocates. Or you may also have a large audience that provides little feedback and takes a lot of your time.

There is no formula for Twitter success, in my opinion, other than if you feel you are getting value out of your audience and spreading value back to them.

“How do I measure this activity?”

Twitter is new enough that metrics around Twitter programs are questionable. There’s no way to measure pageviews or impressions, other than followers. There’s no way to know if a tweet has impacted behavior other than if they respond directly to it. You could measure product or brand mentions but there’s no way to tie it to your outbound twittering. And finally, there’s no easy way to measure influence, although some are working on a formula.

WebAnalyticsDemystified has put together a formula to measure Twitter influence which, after some recent tweaks, looks reasonable. Enter the Twitter ID of yourself or someone else to see how influential that user is.

An earlier yet less substantial influence calculator is TwitterGrader. Follow @grader to get access to a report on your influence.

Yes, according to the Twitter Influence Calculator, I am “slowly emerging.” And I’m down with that.

In summary

In the mid 2000s, there was an explosion of Web 2.0  sites that mostly provide a one-off technology or service. Twitter survived the Web 2.0 shakeout that hobbled several competitors, including Pownce and Jaiku. Despite service outages and negativity from the uninformed, Twitter has prospered and grown.

Recent Compete.com numbers show Twitter.com to be at around 6MM unique visitors at the moment. However, that doesn’t include mobile phone or instant messenger users. Suffice to say this is one Web 2.0 channel that will continue to be both a benefit and tool for marketers.

When you spend most of your time immersed in the Social Media/Social Networking “scene”, discussing where things are going with other social media proponents, it’s often easy to forget that most companies are still trying to determine what this phenomenon is, and whether or not they should participate. I was recently asked some questions by Katie Ford, who is compiling some ideas and suggestions for customers of Hoover’s, that made me go back and think about what massive shift in culture, commerce and media is all about, and why companies should pursue it.

She had some great questions, which I’m posting, along with my responses, here.

Q: What does marketing in the age of social media look like?

The growth of social media and networking are signs of dramatic shifts in how consumers express interests and needs, share affinity, and find value.

As marketers, our job is to craft and communicate a value proposition that generates market interest and compels our prospects to purchase. For decades, this has been a one-way communication effort. But lately, as our customers use these new tools to communicate with one another, marketers are finding their audiences expect to engage in dialogue with brands rather than merely listening passively. Social media and networking provide powerful, inexpensive tools with which to participate in dialogue with your target markets.

Marketers who leverage these tools are showing their markets that they are not merely window-dressing when it comes to expressing an interest in their customers.

Whirlpool created the American Family Podcast, a parent-targeted, downloadable talk show in which they interviewed thought leaders on the state of the American family. Little or no mention was made of Whirlpool or their products. (2009 update: it appears the American Family Podcast has been discontinued by Whirlpool, an incredible shame.)

With no marketing budget, the podcast has generated more than 70,000 downloads per month, all through word-of-mouth marketing. Through this, Whirlpool was seen as an advocate for the family, which spoke strongly to their core brand values.

Eager to experiment with Facebook, Target created a Facebook group (2009 update: group page no longer active) aimed at helping college students deal with moving away from home into a small, cramped dorm room. The idea was to help students come to terms with this adjustment, with the ulterior motive of selling furnishings.

By October 2007, the group had attracted over 7,000 members, over 400 photos posted by students, 483 posts and 37 discussion topics. Feedback from students was primarily positive (statistics from Jeremiah Owyang at Forrester Research)

Q: Why should marketers pay attention to or consider social media as part of their strategic planning? Secondly, what price will they pay for ignoring it?

If marketers value their customers, they MUST consider social media as part of their brand strategy. Any Google search (typically the first place customers go to find out more about your brand) will not only turn up your official site, but will likely show customer-generated commentary on your brand — both positive and negative. Marketers who ignore this community conversation do so at their brand’s peril.

According to a 2006 Edelman PR study, when asked where they turn as the most credible source of information regarding a brand or product, 68% of respondents said “a person like me.” Clearly, trust and authenticity are hugely important to purchase decisions. As the “volume” of the customer dialogue grows around a brand, the more “people like me” are heard – and the more a finely-honed, one-directional marketing message will sound self-serving, inauthentic and untrustworthy.

Marketers will invest millions in lead-generation and brand building efforts this year. Without taking into consideration this very loud conversation happening outside of their control, they are dedicating marketing spend toward highly-polished communication channels that are of less and less interest to their targets.

A metaphor I think works well for the social media space is a large cocktail party. You’ll enter the room and be sized up by attendees. They’ll wonder what kind of person you are, what your values are, who you associate with, how impactful you are to the market. They WILL talk about you behind your back, in groups that trust each other’s opinions. Knowing that, what will you wear? How will you act? What will you say? When encountering a snide remark, how will you react? If all you care about is your (brand’s) own appearance, and you ignore and disengage from these conversations, a marketer is a little like a person spending more and more on clothing to attend a party where no one wants to talk to them. What’s the point?

Q: In your observations, what types of companies (or industries) are embracing social media in their marketing plans? Which ones are not? Do you have theories on why certain companies/industries are leveraging social media and others aren’t?

Many companies have taken tentative steps into the social media space over the last three years or so. Consumer brands with youthful audiences, such as Coca-Cola, Ford, Target, American Apparel, Juicy Couture, and Acuvue have embraced social media as part of their marketing efforts. American Apparel, for example, got a huge awareness spike by merely opening a virtual store in the 3D world of Second Life, in which they sold virtual goods.

Social media adoption – tied to marketing leadership generationalism?

Why are certain companies or categories investing more into social media? I believe it’s due to the generational social issues inherent in their marketing leadership.

Marketers like myself, perhaps aged 38 and above, were from the generations who were taught not to overshare, not to over-express nor to be self-aggrandizing. For these generations, you put on your best outward appearance, controlling your own behavior and appearance as best you could. Adages such as “never let them see you sweat,” “put your best face forward,” and “keep a stiff upper lip” were taught to us since childhood. Marketers my age were also taught to try to displease as few people as possible, to be appropriate and acceptable to as wide an audience as possible, in hopes of maximizing revenue opportunities. These marketers seem to direct their outbound communications in a similar way: high level of polish, avoid dissent and control your image.

Gen X and Gen Y marketers, however, learned to share more with others, to worry less about façade and more about substance. To me, they seem less concerned about appearances and more interested in being understood. They prefer to be themselves and to find others with shared outlooks and affinities rather than trying to be all things to all people. Their marketing seems to follow similar directions: to seek out more venues to express brand values and to communicate with audiences with shared affinity. With the search and affinity tools inherent in social media, younger marketers seem to embrace these tools more readily, compared to older marketers who are more likely to vet image and copy through management, PR and legal departments.

Q: In your opinion, are their certain types of businesses that shouldn’t include social media in their marketing plans? If so, who are they and why is social media not their best bet?

B-to-B companies should monitor the online dialogue around their brand, but until vertical-specific social networks emerge, these companies are less compelled to invest in it.

That said, B-to-B companies can set up their own customer networks to allow brand zealots to connect with one another in a “walled garden” environment. Upside: the pre-sold help sell the unsold. Downside: who has time for all these online communities? Companies need to be realistic about whether such an effort would truly draw time and attention from time-starved customers.

Q: Are certain types of social media better/worse for specific messages that you want to get across to your audience/consumers? For instance, is a blog from the CEO always your best bet?

It depends on the CEO. A strong, outgoing, market-friendly personality can propel a blog to become an authentic platform for dialogue, whereas a tightly-controlled blog with comments turned off will immediately smell like a traditional monologue mechanism.

Blogs are good feedback channels, although companies should be prepared to address how they will handle “trolls” (online louts), how to keep conversations on track, and where or when they should link to external content.

Podcasts and vidcasts put a voice and a face on a brand. They can create a stronger personal connection between the team behind the brand and their audience. These are great channels for brands that need to show more personality. However, audience quality expectations are high.

A brand presence on a social network can be good channels for offers. Like viral videos, social networks make it easy to spread interesting content to friends. This content will have a natural advantage in breaking through market noise, and if it’s a positive impression, it will be given more credibility than highly-crafted marketing messages.

Q: What kinds of marketing goals can social media help you reach in particular?

• Conveying your value to the market.
• Conveying your unique proposition within the competitive landscape.
• Conveying your brand’s values, reason for being and “brand spirit”.
• Creating affinity with your desired audience.
• Creating a viral spread of your value prop.
• Showing your brand and company to be authentic.
• Providing more touchpoints for interested prospects to find via search.

Q: How can you measure your ROI with social media marketing? What metrics can you use?

This is another huge area of discussion. Generally speaking, measurement tools are evolving for this space. Traditional metrics (pageviews, clickthroughs) don’t apply. For example, how do you know that someone downloaded the entire podcast? How do you know they listened to the entire podcast?

Also, many metrics are based upon the end conclusion of a marketing effort: a sales conversion. Yet “social marketing” is as much about building affinity as it is about a conversion. Given this, many marketers are advocating measuring social media from the perspective of outcomes: awareness or conversion. Rather than trying to measure downloads or blog comments, many suggest focusing on measuring overall results.

Q: Any other noteworthy comments or statistics on this topic that my questions did not address?

Regarding the question, should companies invest in social media, here are some interesting statistics:

Now that it has opened up its community to anyone, Facebook has more than 54 million users, which, if it were a country, would make it the 24th largest nation in the world. It adds over 250,000 new users a day — equivalent to the entire population of St. Paul, MN or Fort Wayne, IN signing up each day. That’s just crazy!

Recent statistics released by Facebook claim that over 55% of its users are over the age of 35. They project that 75% of worldwide users will be out of college by December. College students are officially in the minority. This older demographic is interesting to marketers because according to Forrester Research, more than half of adult professionals on social networks are wanting to hear from their brands in those venues.

For comparison, as of September 2007, MySpace had over 200 million active accounts, which would make it the fifth largest country in the world.

POINT: social networking and media are neither fads nor something just for kids. As a primary intersection point between culture and media, they are clear indicators of where marketing efforts must be.

Also, when placing purchasing opportunities into the context of trust networks and shared affinity, more people take action than on traditional websites. For example, Facebook newsfeed ads are generating 4%-26% higher clickthrough rates than traditional banner ads.

Weaver tips for businesses considering social media

1. Take the time to study and participate in social media before engaging in marketing to these audiences. Missteps are painful and public.
2. Be very transparent and honest. Consumers often assume marketers are self-interested. By being transparent, you curtail doubt.
3. Ask your visitors to provide feedback on your communication efforts. These tools allow you to easily gather feedback.
4. Be fearless. Many marketers will cringe when they get their first scathingly negative comment. You will receive both positive and negative commentary. Use it to learn about your market and your brand impression.
5. Draw up engagement boundaries. When should you respond to a negative critique? When should you be silent? When should you ban a “troll” from your corporate blog? Determine how you will behave in the public eye — when you’ll assert control and when you’ll let the market be itself.

The best conversationalists are the best listeners

All in all, social media and networking are incredibly inexpensive to explore. Going back to the cocktail party metaphor, better for companies to know now how they should engage their markets “socially” than to be an overdressed wallflower brand that no one wants to talk to.

2009 Update

I recently found Katie’s whitepaper posted on the Internet. You can view, print or download the whitepaper here.