How to Build a Strong Brand Presence on Twitter
There's so much information out there about Twitter that it can be rather difficult to sort out how to properly establish your brand presence. Do you go with a profile? A brand page? What's all this about Hashtag pages? (Side note, if you want to know the good, the bad and the ugly about them, check out Tonia Ries' piece on the new Hashtag pages, the best I've seen so far.)
As part of MediaBistro's Social Media Marketing Boot Camp today, I went over the brand basics for Twitter. Lauren Dugan, the founding editor of AllTwitter did an excellent job on Twitter 101, so I avoided discussing things such as your avatar and most tools and analytics. (I'll udpate this post with a link to her presentation once it's online.)Of all the things I talked about, however, there are a few that bear repeating. Again and again. And again. And again.Don't follow everyone who follows you JUST to follow them. Follow them back if it makes sense to. If you're getting something out of the engagement, by all means, follow them back.Don't follow vastly more people than are following you (you can't help but follow more when you start, because you're just starting). But you don't want to follow thousands and have 100 followers. When people look at your profile to decide whether to follow you, they may well think twice if they see a ratio like that.Don't be afraid to retweet competitors. Be the authority on your subject. If someone else publishes or tweets out something that's of value to your audience, share it. People will recognize that you're not afraid of the competition, and you want them to have all the best information that is - whether or not it originates from you. That's a valuable opinion for your followers to have of you.Don't buy followers.DON'T buy followers.DON'T BY FOLLOWERS.Seriously. Don't do it.Here's my presentation; I'd love to hear what you think about it and where you think I'm wrong. Or, you know, maybe right? What am I missing?