What's All the Fuss About Twitter? (Part 1 of 2)

article three in our social media series (article one / article two)

April 2009
Allison Klein, Account Development Manager, Patron Technology

At the end of last year, I was among the many who readily admitted "I don't get Twitter." I too asked the question that many of my friends, colleagues, and family keep asking me now: "What's the point of Twitter? If I'm already on Facebook, how is it different?"

I knew that a few of my colleagues were already using it, and I knew that some celebrities were too; I didn't want to be left behind, so I signed up. But it wasn't until the beginning of this year that I decided that I really wanted to become a more active user, so I donned my investigative-reporter hat and decided to transform myself from a Twitter novice into a bit more of an expert.

I never imagined that the subject of this side project would, over the course of the last few months, become the buzzword on everyone's lips. You've probably heard about it in the news. Twitter has become especially popular with celebrities (who use it backstage at awards ceremonies) and politicians (who use it during presidential addresses), and unique visitors to Twitter have increased a whopping 1,382 percent from February 2008 to February 2009. According to a recent survey by Nielsen NetView, there are over 7 million people on Twitter in the United States alone. (Of course, compared to Facebook's 200 million users, Twitter has a tiny audience — but it's growing exponentially.)

I'm not here to tell you that Twitter is absolutely the "Next Big Thing" in arts marketing, and that you should make it your number-one priority right away. That might very well turn out to be the case! But until we know for sure, I do think there are some ways for arts marketers to get some value from this popular new site already.

Today I'm going to start off by explaining what Twitter is and how people use it. I'll also show you a simple yet fantastic way to start using Twitter for marketing research for your organization.

Next month, I'll give you my thoughts and observations (as well as some techniques and examples!) about how arts organizations can use Twitter as an effective marketing tool.

Twitter 101

Twitter is, as stated on the site itself, "a service for friends, family, co–workers, and others to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages." Simply put, you set up an account and username for yourself and write short updates (called "tweets") of 140 characters or fewer.

Here's one of my typical tweets. (My Twitter username is nyalli.)

You can send your tweets by signing in on the twitter.com Web site, or you can set up your mobile phone to tweet by text message.

The messages you write are posted on your personal Twitter page, and also sent out to be read by your "followers" — the people who opt to read and subscribe to your tweets.

But Twitter's not just a broadcast service, it's also a social one. You can interact with other tweeters in a few different ways. When you find someone else's tweet interesting and want to comment, or if you want to answer a question they've posed, you can do so publicly — meaning others on Twitter can read your reply. By starting your tweet with the "@" symbol, followed by the username of the person you want to reply to, your tweet is automatically linked to the other user.

Here's an example:

You can also use the same @[username] convention to simply refer to another user, even if you're not addressing them directly. This is useful if, say, you want to give a public nod of appreciation to your coworkers:

If you don't want anyone but the user you're addressing to be able to read your message, you can also use Twitter more like e-mail, and send a "Direct Message" to a friend's Twitter inbox' by starting your tweet with "d [username]" (d for direct!), or by using the Direct Message interface shown below. These private messages are also limited to 140 characters.

For more of the basics, I recommend watching the fun two-minute video below, reading up on some vocabulary, or even just checking out Twitter's own FAQs.

Listen Up!

Now that I've given you the basics and the terminology, I hope I've allayed any fears or confusion. Twitter is actually pretty simple — no profile questions, no complicated settings, none of that configuration work that you may have been putting off doing to your Facebook page.

Let's talk about using Twitter for your organization. Here's my number-one suggestion:

Don't sign up for a Twitter account for your organization yet.

Instead, I want you to try this. Go to the Twitter Search homepage.

Search for your name, the name of your organization, or even just the name of your favorite TV show.

To give you an example of what I mean, I just searched for various terms associated with Patron Technology — "Patron Technology," "PatronMail," "Eugene Carr," "Michelle Paul" — and came up with a few interesting results. These are actual tweets from the past couple of weeks.

What do these results show? We're already on Twitter, whether we know it or not. These Twitter users are not talking to us, but they are talking about us. Our clients and potential clients are working with our products and listening to our presentations, and they're sharing their experiences with the Twitter community at large.

What I'm suggesting here is that you should first use Twitter to listen. Twitter makes it easy to pay attention to what others are saying about you.

We've all done Google searches for our own names and the names of our organizations, just to see what comes up, right? Then you've already been practicing this idea of listening — keeping an ear out for people talking about you on the Internet. The truth is, the idea of "listening" as a means for marketing research and brand management is being bandied about in the "social media marketing" corners of the Internet all the time these days, but it's something that I think arts organizations might not be embracing yet. Twitter affords you the ability to see if any of its millions of users have mentioned you, and you don't even need to sign up for your own Twitter account to do this!

What makes Twitter search incredibly powerful is that it's done in real time. You don't have to wait for a newspaper review to find out what people think of your event, because it's possible that people will be tweeting about your event DURING your event. People may also tweet about your event before they've bought tickets to it: asking their followers if they should go, wishing tickets were cheaper, complaining about the traffic on the way to your venue. Not every tweet you discover will be universally useful, interesting, or flattering, but isn't it always a good thing to know what's being said about you?

To take your use of Twitter search as an effective listening tool one step further, you can do something really clever: Set up an RSS feed of your search results. The same way that you can subscribe to a blog and get notified every time there's a new post, you can sign up to be updated whenever new results to your search query occur. When I shared the results of my search experiment yesterday, Gene Carr said to me, "Hey, shouldn't we really be tracking all these tweets about us?" Of course we should. And you should too. Twitter makes this easy. Every time you do a search, there's a handy "Feed for this query" link.

Isn't that nifty? Now instead of just being a one-off test search, you can use these search results on an ongoing basis to listen in on what Twitterers are saying about you.

Homework

I've given you what I hope is an easy rundown of the basics, and an important lesson on how to listen. Are you ready to get started using Twitter for your organization? Maybe... but I'd still advise that you don't sign up yet! Instead, create a personal Twitter account for yourself — one that isn't meant to be associated with your organization.

This way you can see what's out there, get comfortable with the format, and immerse yourself in the twitterverse. It's easy, it's fun, and it won't take up too much of your time (or at least it doesn't have to). You can continue to listen to the conversations that are happening, and you can start getting involved without worrying about doing so as an official mouthpiece for your company. This way, if and when you do decide to create an account for your org, your tweets will feel a lot more natural and have a personality that is often lacking from other kinds of marketing copy.

There's a ton of articles and blog posts you could read about what you should and should not tweet about (Twitter etiquette!), but ultimately I'd just start by signing up, finding out if any of your own friends or contacts are on Twitter, and following them. You're also welcome to follow me on Twitter, if you want an example of how an average person uses Twitter throughout the day.

After you've gotten reacquainted with your friends via Twitter, you can also look for some of your favorite brands, celebrities, personalities, etc. and follow them too. (You can even start following Patron Technology's Client Services team.) Among these, I have some favorites, catered to my own interests, of course:

NatHistoryWhale: One of the first non-friends that I started to follow, this account is affiliated with the American Museum of Natural History in NY, but written from the perspective of the giant blue whale model in their ocean life hall. It's a combination of commentary on life in the museum and whales in the news. I know it sounds weird, but it's fantastic and often hilarious! A great example of how to mix things up and develop a unique voice.

Tastidlite: This frozen-treat chain is a pretty big national brand, but they use their Twitter to maintain a personal relationship with local patrons (including some you may know...) in lots of fun ways.

ruthreichl: Ruth is a restaurant critic and author who I really admire. Her tweets give readers a behind-the-scenes look at her fabulous life, while at the same time, they show that she's a real person too.

 TheEllenShow: Ellen DeGeneres tweets about guests on her show and about life in L.A. in general. She's the only real celebrity who I follow right now — she is, of course, funny, and she makes you want to be her friend.

I want you to become one of my favorites too!

Your assignment is to spend one month on Twitter as yourself — figure it out, understand its appeal. Once you've got a handle on that, next month's article will dive right into the real question: How can your arts organization benefit from using Twitter?

If any of you are already using Twitter for your organization, be sure to write and let me know how it's going — I'd love to use you as an example in future articles.