Russ: And now it's time for the Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. And this morning we're going to roll back to Episode 192 from the beginning of this year when we had Tim Walker, business Analyst with Hoover's talking about how Twitter can help your business. We enter the discussion where Tim is sharing with us his answer to the question: what is Twitter?
Tim: Well, the technical answer is that Twitter is a messaging service that lets you send messages of up to 140 characters to anybody who's following you, but I like to think of Twitter as a cocktail party that never ends, but where most people at the party are sober-lots of interesting people having interesting conversations. I could hear 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, 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. There are probably something like five million users on Twitter-the exact number is a 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 the sorts 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 then 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 shore.
Russ: Isn't that a whole lot like what we tell businesses to do about paying attention to the blogosphere and what's going on and what's being said about you and your company on blogs?
Tim: I absolutely think it is, and there's a sort of false dichotomy that people want to draw. You know-if it's in a 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 than a lot of newspapers do, 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 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-of 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 then they'll say, "Company XYZ stinks because they just did this to me."
Well, what if you're company XYZ? You want to 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 with me." You know-maybe change the channel so you can be talking to them on email or the phone or some other way you are more used to doing customer support. You could maybe make a problem go away for them, and they'll be impressed that you found them on Twitter to do it.
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 grow all over the map, so people are more genuine, they're more open, and it's more immediate conversations that they're 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 actually 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, 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 then 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 particular industries, you've got legal compliance issues; if you're in a publically 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 kinds of conversations. And because people choose who they're going to follow, the folks who don't want to have those kinds of conversations-the folks who want to make it packaged or want to make it very precise or really force attention to 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 they can get people to listen to them is to actually engage them in conversation person-to-person.
Russ: 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 would keep you from doing both, and in fact, it could be a good idea. I'll give you two examples off the top of my head. There is a corporate account for Zappos-you know-they're the online 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' 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 its business by offering shoes.
Russ: Okay. Tim, before I let you go, let's say, here I am. I've got a business out there and I've just been completely ignoring the whole world of social media, and I've decided, after hearing you, that, "Man, I'm missing a big conversation that's taking place that I need to be part of." What kind of advice would you give me to get started?
Tim: Well, the key thing I'd have you keep in mind is that it's fine to start small. It's fine to start at the grassroots and then iterate, do it bit by bit. That's how Twitter works because very message is only up to 140 characters. So you can talk about what's going on. You can listen to people who you find interesting. You can find them because they're talking about certain topics that you can search on and say, "Hey, this person seems to be in my same industry," and you can just start following. You don't have to talk that much at first. Listen to what they say. When somebody asks a question, you say, "Oh, I know somebody who can help you with that." Don't even promote yourself. Just be helpful. Be a good person and make it clear, "Okay. Yes, I'm doing this, and I'm the head of this company or I'm the head of communications for this company or I'm a salesman for this company," or whatever. You don't have to hide it, but the point is, you're a person, you're having conversations, and you start to open that door and you do it bit by bit. And over time, what's going to happen is people in that community will come to respect you-they'll see you as a real member of the community who's not just there to shill, but is actually there to take part in the conversation. And you don't do it by tweeting 1,000 times in a day. You could start with three tweets a day. It takes very little to sign up, it cost you nothing, and it's an interesting way to just get a ball rolling that, in the end, can do very good things for you online.
Russ: And that concludes our discussion with Tim Walker, Analyst with Hoovers. And that wraps up this morning's Aflac BusinessMakers Flashback, brought to you by Aflac, ask about it at work. And now, it's time for Tech Talk with Planet, so let's welcome Kevin Hazard.
[Tech Talk with The Planet]
Russ: You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and online at The BusinessMakers.com. Stay tuned in for Chris Baggot, founder and CEO of Compendium Blogware.
