Using Twitter to Build Business Engagement The exponential growth of social media and ubiquitous use of mobile technology has changed the way we communicate both socially and for many also professionally. This workshops looks specifically at how Twitter can be used as a communication channel to build business engagement and an introduction to some of the ways this can be measured. Sue Beckingham | @suebecks Sheffield Hallam University

1. Using Twitter for
Business Engagement
Sue Beckingham | @suebecks
Sheffield Hallam University

2. What is Twitter
Twitter is a microblogging site that allows you to send short
messages with up to 140 characters. You can interact in
three ways:
Send a message
publicly
Send a message to a
specific person publicly
Send a private message
to a specific person

3. Number of MAUs
(monthly active users)
http://www.statista.com/statistics/282087/number-of-monthly-active-twitter-users/

4. Type of Account
Company
• Keep your audience up to
date on news
• Promote recent blogs
articles, website updates
or events
• Offer support and
guidance
Personal
• Act as a liaison between
the public and your
company
• Make connections to
expand your company’s
network
• Communicate what you
and colleagues are
working on

5. Aims for using Twitter
• Establish thought leadership
• Build academic reputation
• Develop relationships
• Promote events
• Generate leads for your business
• Interact with your client/customer base

6. http://visual.ly/twitter-and-science

7. Visibility
Approaches:
• a) ensuring that search engines can easily
locate your content online
• b) promoting that content through word-of-
mouth
• c) using Twitter to share and amplify
information

8. Search
• Paid search
displays sponsored links for certain
predetermined keywords
• Optimised search
the practice of editing both the content and
code of a website in order to improve its page
ranking within search engines.
• Social search
relies on a user’s social network rather than
traditional search algorithms to determine the
relevance of search results.
Weisgerber (2012:36-51)

9. Building a Network
Involves:
• attracting new followers on Twitter
• building a community,
• and most importantly, maintaining it.
Two way communication

10. Strategy
• Understand your audience
• Create and curate content that will be of
interest to them
• Schedule updates so they are well spaced
• Monitor comments and respond

11. Impact
measurement
action
attitude
attention

12. Paying Attention
• Follows
• RTs
• Mentions
• Clicks (on links)

13. Attitude of your audience
• Is there a dialogue?
• Is it positive?
• Is there interest?
• How will you deal with
negativity?

14. Actions
Leading to:
• Conversations
• Applications
• KTP requests
• Invitations to speak
• Media interviews
• Collaborative projects

15. What to say…
• Broadcast updates and reminders
• Share useful links to videos, audio
• Promote events
• Share expertise linking back to your
website or blog
• Create share-worthy
experiences

16. Engage with your network
• Interact with your followers and open up a
dialogue
• Ask questions
• Reciprocity - RT others
• Use DMs for personal one to one
messages

17. Be…
• Consistent
• Relevant
• Current
• Personal
• Patient

18. Monitoring activity
• Check for replies, mentions and new
followers by going to the Notifications tab
• Consider receiving email updates
• Use analytics software
– Twitter Analytics
– Shortened URL tools such as bit.ly and
goog.gl

19. Orchestration
• Defining workflows
• Content and message creation
• Scheduling content in advance
• Conversation moderation
• Escalated response and tracking
• Making use of social data

20. https://www.mediabistro.com/alltwitter/twitter-business-tips_b31823

21. Building Followers
• Be findable – select an easy to remember username
• Promote your username on your business cards, email,
blog or website along with any promotional materials you
may use
• Add follow buttons to your blog or website
• Make it easy for people to connect with you

22. Your Profile
1. Photo, Avatar or Logo
2. Bio
3. Link to your website or blog
WHY would someone want to follow you? Your bio
will help them make that decision

23. Finding people to follow
• Who to follow tool (makes suggestions)
• Twitter Search
https://twitter.com/search-home
• Look at the people your followers are following
• Follow Industry contacts
• Collect People’s Twitter name at events
• Build your connections steadily

24. Twitter Jargon
• Twitter handle: the username you select to represent yourself or your
company
• Follow
• Follower
• Status update
• Reply
• Direct message
• Retweet (RT)
• Mention
• Modified tweet (MT)
• Twitter stream
• Hashtag
• Trending topics
• Promoted Tweets

25. Twitter Shortcuts

26. Creating Lists
to organise who you follow into groups
Examples of Lists

27. Filter
By developing good connections with shared interests,
collaboratively we can filter what is relevant to us

28. Use of Dashboards
• Hootsuite
https://hootsuite.com/
• Tweetdeck
https://about.twitter.com/products/tweetdeck
View your lists in columns

29. #Hashtags
• Hashtag confusion - use with care
#nowthatcherisdead
#susanalbumparty
• Uses: Events, TweetChats, emphasis
#SHUevent
#Sheffield
#BYOD4Lchat
Always check a hashtag via Twitter search to see if it is
currently being used.

30. Advanced Search
Via the url: https://twitter.com/search-home
Via the search bar.

31. Analytics
URL shorteners
• Bit.ly
https://bitly.com/
• Google url shortner
http://goo.gl/

32. Analytics
To sign up go to: https://analytics.twitter.com

33. Social Analytics
• Hootsuite
http://signup.hootsuite.com/twitter-analytics/

34. Social listening
• Conversation histories:
keywords, conversation topics, hashtags,
timing of interaction
• Social user profiles:
demographics, interests, connections

35. Learn by good example!
I like to listen. I have
learned a great deal
from listening
carefully. Most
people never listen.
~ Ernest Hemingway

36. http://first-tweets.com
We all started with a first Tweet

37. Using Twitter to Build Business Engagement
The exponential growth of social media and ubiquitous use of mobile
technology has changed the way we communicate both socially and for
many also professionally. This workshops looks specifically at how Twitter
can be used as a communication channel to build business engagement
and an introduction to some of the ways this can be measured.
Sue Beckingham | @suebecks
Sheffield Hallam University