Twitter for Service Professionals -- What Are You Missing?
This is the third post in TIS’s “Twitter 101” series. If you missed the first two posts, then start with “What’s the Point of Using Twitter Anyway?” and then read the second post on how to sign up for the free service.
The Importance of a Targeted Approach to Twitter for Marketing Purposes
Getting comfortable with finding stuff on Twitter is important if you’re using it for entertainment or personal social or educational purposes. If you’re using it to market your solo law practice or other professional services business, then it’s crucial.
Twitter is a madhouse. It was designed in such a way that chaos in the global timeline is a virtual certainty. Now, hanging out on the global timeline is an experience everyone should have at some point. But it isn’t very conducive to purposeful, targeted marketing efforts.
With millions of users chattering away about anything and everything — with no internal hierarchy or organizational structure to speak of (other than that which is imposed on the service by users themselves) — with the speed with which tweets waterfall down the page when refreshed — having some sort of strategy to search for relevant people, tweets, and information is critical to success.
But how do you do that, without spending an hour every day that you simply don’t have available in your schedule?
Option One: The Twitter Search Function
The first option is Twitter’s own search function. Fairly robust, this search function can be used to find tweets on any topic, whether it’s hashtagged or not.
Twitbit: Hashtags are signalled by the use of a preceding # symbol immediately before an identifying word or abbreviation in the body of a tweet. This identifies the tweet’s substance as relating to a certain subject. An example: a few weeks ago, literary agents banded together to tweet about book queries, finding an agent, and getting published. Their hashtag: #queryday. Participants used this hashtag to search out all tweets that were part of this discussion, both questions from writers and answers from agents.
In particular, the “Advanced Search” feature can greatly enhance your ability to find relevant people and conversations on Twitter. You can search by person, topic, location, and even attitude. Experiment with this function for a few minutes to get a feel for its capabilities.
Following Trends With Other Twitter Tools
One of the richest features of Twitter doesn’t come from Twitter at all — at least, not directly — but from the wealth of tools that have been developed from Twitter’s API that help users refine, hack, and turbocharge their Twitter experience.
- What The Trend lists trending topics on Twitter with brief descriptions. Users can also add their own topic entries to publicize their discussions.
- Twitter’s home page also lists the top trending topics on the site.
- TweetDeck, one of the most popular tools for Twitter, boasts an interface that allows users to set up permanent search queries that are constantly refreshed, with the results updated in dedicated columns. This is a great way to keep track of your personal/business brand search terms (such as your user name, your real name, and your business name, as well as your area of practice).
- TwitScoop uses a tag cloud format to show the relative popularity of trending topics.
There are many other ways to go about this, of course. The trick is finding the one that’s “good enough” for your purposes, and then turning your attention to the business at hand: sending and following tweets. Like productivity systems and contact management software, Twitter tools can turn into a black-hole timewaster if you let them. Pick one or two that get the job done, then get on with it.
What to Search For
As a business professional using Twitter for marketing purposes, you’ll want to set up regular searches for your identifiers: your name, your user name, your business name. Refresh these searches from time to time, whatever tool or method you use.
You’ll also want to search for and find other people using Twitter who (A) are your colleagues, practicing your profession either locally or in other areas; (B) can serve as potential referral sources; or (C) may be potential clients. With each of these groups, of course, your best approach is not one of overt marketing, which is never welcome on Twitter, but of forming relationships and having conversations — just as we do in blogging.
Using search terms and hashtags, which you can suss out using one of the Twitter tools described above, you can find the people who are talking about topics you’re interested in from a business perspective. Identify those people, and follow them, then their tweets will show up in your timeline.
Want More Info on Twitter for Marketing?
As easy as Twitter is to use, a full discussion of its utility is beyond the scope of even a series of blog posts. If you’d like more help, or want to find out more, or are interested in advancing your Twitter usage to the next level, you may be interested in the upcoming TIS ebook Res Ipsa Tweet: The Twitter Book for Lawyers. Although it’s directed at solo and small firm attorneys, other service professionals can use the guide in their own business marketing plans. The book will be available for sale and immediate download from our EBooks page this coming Sunday, May 3, 2009.
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