Russ: This is The BusinessMakers show, heard here and online at The BusinessMakers.com and it's guest time on our show, and we are not in the studio this morning, we are out on the road and I'm very pleased to have as my guest, Tim Walker, business analyst with Hoovers. Tim, welcome to The BusinessMakers Show.

Tim: Thanks for having me.

Russ: We have you here, because we are very interested in your area of expertise. I understand that you follow the business trends, particularly in the world of social media, this might be a pretty exciting category, these days?

Tim: It is, it's changing every day and new interesting things, are happening every day.

Russ: Well, I know, that you are fairly in tuned with what's happened, in the Twitter category, specifically using Twitter for business. I wanna speak with you about that today, but before we dig in, I know most of our audience here, are Twitter users, but for those that aren't, I'd love for you to give your snapshot description of Twitter?

Tim: Well, the technical answer is, that Twitter is a messaging service, that let's you send messages about up to a hundred and forty characters, to anybody who's following you. But I like to think of Twitter, as a cocktail party that never ends. One or most people at the party are sober, lots of interesting people, having interesting conversations. I can hear you from you one second, and the very next tweet I get, could be from somebody in Australia, who I've never met before. It's a free flowing, open borders, kind of conversation, where people end up talking about everything, in these very short, easy to digest segments and it really promotes a lot of free flowing conversations.

Russ: Well, we have had discussions and guests before, that talked quite extensively on Twitter, but I find it to almost be a challenge to figure out, how to use the application in business. So, help us understand that.

Tim: Well, I think the way a lot of people should approach Twitter, if they're thinking of using it for business, is as an intelligence gathering tool. They're probably something like, five million users on Twitter, the exact number is secret to the folks who run the service. But, there's five million folks out there, who are very active online, they're talking online all day, they're talking about every subject under the sun and for most of the people listening to your show, they're probably talking about their line of work. They may actually, be talking about their very business, or their competitor's business. These are folks who are saying good things, bad things, they have questions, they have complaints or comments, they're giving their friends, recommendations. All of these sort of things, that it would be wonderful to know, these sort of word of mouth conversations, that many business people would love to know about their business and they can know them, if they will use some very simple technological tools, to get involved with Twitter, start following people and engage them in conversation. Not marketing speak, but actual person to person kind of conversation, like the kind, we used to be, used to, when we went into the neighborhood store.

Russ: Isn't that, a whole lot, like what we tell businesses to do about paying attention to the blogosphere, and what's going, and what's being said about you and your company on blogs?

Tim: I absolutely, think it is, and there' this sort of false dichotomy, that people wanna draw, you know, "if it's in the newspaper it's real, but if it's on a blog, it's not." There are plenty of blogs, that get a lot more readership, then a lot of newspapers do. And, and the ratio, is going in favor of blogs now, they're growing still and newspapers aren't. But, on top of that, I don't think you should pass up on an opportunity to talk to somebody, who has taken such an interest in your company, that they will go to the trouble, of writing about it online, or talking about it, and especially on Twitter, you can capture moments, because the entries are so short, it's less about a plotted out blog post and more about people's immediate feelings. You can really track people's emotions, if they're really frustrated, and they'll say "company XYZ stinks, because they just did this, to me." Well, what if you were company XYZ? You wanna be able to hear that. And if you're on Twitter, using simple tools, and keep paying attention to the conversation, you can get back in touch with that person and say "Wow, I'm really sorry, that happened, get in touch me",you know, maybe change the channels, so that you can be talking to them on email or the phone, or some other way, you are more used to doing customer support. You can maybe, make a problem, going away for them, and they'll be impressed, that you found them on Twitter, to do it.

Russ: So, four of five months ago, our social media experts here on the show, were recommending that all companies pay attention to what's happening on the blogosphere and to have their own blog as well. So, are you sort of saying that Twitter, is just one step up above that, that you also should be paying attention to Twitter?

Tim: I would definitely, pay attention to Twitter, because there's a lot of folks, who have opinions, who sign up on Twitter and use it heavily, who don't consider themselves, enough of a writer to maintain a blog.

Russ: Right.

Tim: and really build a readership around a blog. But with Twitter, it's very organic, it's very incremental, things just grow on their own, and if you're interesting, people will start following you. And it's an opportunity for people to have these conversations, that just go all over the map, so people are more genuine, they're more open and it's more immediate conversations, that they are having. If you can artfully, put yourself in the way of those conversations, so that you're not answering back with some package, marketing message, or the stuff that comes out of your annual report, but you're actually talking to people on a human basis, one to one, it's a way of personalizing your company and taking away the stigma "this is a big nameless, faceless brand, that doesn't care about me" and I'm just saying "oh wait, maybe the company doesn't care about me, but wow! my buddy Dave from Twitter, he works for them and he seems interesting, and so they can't be all bad and he did help me take care of that one thing." You can actually, change people's opinions that way, and it's not just about that one person you helped, it's about the good word of mouth, that comes from that, and the overall reputation, you can build, on that basis.

Russ: I liked your reference earlier, to it being a cocktail party, it seems like there's a Twitter culture, that you have to get acclimated to.

Tim: There is, and I would say that the main thing for folks, coming from the business side, is to let their hair down a little bit, lower the walls a little bit. You still have to do things like, if you're in a particular industries, you got legal compliance issues. If you were in a publicly traded company, you wouldn't discuss internal finances, those sorts of things, that should be obvious, to any businessperson. But the point is, we can talk like you and I are having this conversation now. You've got some questions, I've got some information to share and we can just be open about it. Twitter fosters those kind of conversations, and because people choose who they're going to follow, the folks who don't wanna have those conversations, the folks who wanna make it packaged, or wanna make it very precise or really force attention into going a certain direction, people just stop following them, they ignore them and there's nothing a big company can do to force people, to listen to it. So, the only way that they can get people to listen to them, is to actually engage them in conversation, person to person.

Russ: Great. We're talking with Tim Walker, business analyst with Hoovers. Talking about Twitter for Business. We'll be back with more, with Tim, after this. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show heard here and online at The BusinessMakers.com.

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Russ: This is The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at the BusinessMakers.com. And continuing on with Tim Walker of Hoovers, a specialist in the area of social media and specifically using Twitter for business. If I were like, the communications director of a large company, should I actually consider having, a company Twitter account? Or should I, as the communications director, have my own personal account?

Tim: Nothing will keep you from doing both, in fact it could be a good idea. I'll give two examples of the top of my head, there's a corporate account for Zappos, you know, the only shoe sellers.

Russ: Right.

Tim: I get my shoes there and their CEO has a Twitter account, that he maintains actively, follows a lot of people and a lot of people follow him back, and he's the CEO, so he gets to be Zappos, himself. But, there's a lot of other folks at Zappos, who are using it, with Zappos's blessing and it really increases the impression, that Zappos has worked so hard to build, that more than being a shoe company, they're a customer service company that started it's business by offering shoes. The other example I would give of an individual, tweeting under their own name, but on behalf of a company, is my friend Scott Monte, who was a consultant in the social media space in Boston, until he was snapped up by Ford Motor Company.

Russ: Wow.

Tim: And there's an old school...

Russ: Yup.

Tim: Talking about a mainline.

Russ: Yup.

Tim: Old school company, they snapped him up, because they realized, they're trying to do things a smarter way, in a lot of areas of sustainability, they knew they were gonna have to do something smarter, about the way they interacted with people online. Scott was a great choice for them, he still tweets under his own name, the same account he's always used and he might give you a recommendation for a tailor, to visit in New York. Scott is a very snappy dresser. But he will also be able to respond to people, who have direct questions, about what's going on, at Ford, what's it doing about the auto industry bailout. For example, I know he clarified to a lot of people, that Ford, they weren't asking the government for guaranteed loans. They're in better shape, than the other two big Detroit automakers. I know he answered that question for a lot of people, both directly and indirectly, by word of mouth. So, those are two contrasting examples, you can do it under the company name, you can have somebody at communications director, like Scott is, doing it under his own name, because he had already built up a good reputation for himself.

Russ: And that's all the time we have, for my radio broadcast, with Tim Walker, analyst with Hoovers. But obviously, there's more. And that more, can be found at The BusinessMakers.com, under the Tim Walker web extra. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at The BusinessMakers.com.