DISQUS

Twitter is certainly creating a lot of waves - in certain circles. When we take a step back and look at the rest of the world, many still don't know about it (although I am sure that is changing rapidly with Oprah now on there).
I love Twitter, as it is a great way to connect up with friends, colleagues, and my favorite brands. Do I wish certain brands were on Twitter? Yes, mostly because I just wish they were listening. I think it is OK for a brand not to be on Twitter if they are listening to the conversation somewhere and are responding to their customers in the way that works best for them. Completely ignoring the conversation - that could suck the life out of a brand!

Thank you for the post, Michael - you rock!

Mike, thank you for the shout-out on my Customers Rock! post. Social media is so often seen as the savior, and there are certainly a lot of great things that are being done with it. I believe the most important thing is the customer relationship! If the customer wants to use social media, then you should, too.

When I look for conferences to attend, I look for a few things. I look for information that will help me improve what I am doing for my business and for clients. I am getting a little tired of panels, to be honest; I think I prefer to hear case studies (like the BlogWell series). I want to see what people have done, what works/doesn't, and hear about metrics/results. I also look for who else will be there so I can meet up and network with them.

The conference I just finished organizing and running, the 11th Annual AMA Cause Conference, turned out to be a huge success because we had speakers which spoke on the current needs for the attendees. This is a tough year for conferences, as you said, and especially challenging for the Cause Conference as the target attendees were non-profits (whose budgets are very tight). But it worked. People who had attended in the past helped rally those who weren't sure. Facebook and LinkedIn groups helped get people interested. Shout-outs from partners and sponsors all helped spread the word.

But the true value was in the event itself. We made sure to understand exactly what attendees wanted to hear and had our speakers tailor their talks to those topics. We set up opportunities for attendees to network with each other, share frustrations, and look for success stories. We hit directly onto their deepest concerns.

I hope these ideas and examples help! I know you will have a rockin' event!!

Thank you for sharing this, Connie. It is amazing how God sees the bigger picture always and we so often forget He is in control. I have been leaning on Him heavily lately, and it makes all the difference. His promises never fail.

Blessings!

Great set of suggestions for a brand voice on Twitter; I may roll some of these into the UC San Diego class I teach on marketing with new media (will full credit to you, of course!).

I also see some of these suggestions as great for a brand voice in any social media tool, including blogs and social networks. Being human, not promoting self too much, and most importantly, listening first are all keys to being part of a real conversation via social media, rather than just the old way of shouting at customers.

Well done!

I have made more and better connections with people via social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs than I used to make by attending lots of "networking" events. The relationships are longer lasting, as they can be instantly refreshed with each new interaction.

This doesn't just work for personal relationships. It works beautifully for businesses that thrive on building relationships with their customers as a foundation for ongoing success.

I find that the best relationships are with those that I have actually connected with in some way via the offline world - met at an event, talked on the phone. Combining online and offline is magic!

Thanks for the post and the great examples, Chris.

Chris, this will be a totally rockin' event! I just heard David Meerman Scott talk about World Wide Rave last night at Bryan Elliott's event here in San Diego, and he had the room buzzing. Also excited that Brickfish, my new gig, will be there to share ideas and hear ideas. See you soon!

Thanks for the info! We are already playing it on the iPod Touch, so I am glad to
hear it is coming to the iPhone, too. Fun times! :)

Thanks for the great post on Twitter examples and all the hard work to pull this together. Brands using Twitter seem to be expanding every day! The best ones are really working on using this to build community, as you said. I can't wait to share this with my UCSD students later this term.

Thanks for the great post on Twitter examples and all the hard work to pull this together. Brands using Twitter seem to be expanding every day! The best ones are really working on using this to build community, as you said. I can't wait to share this with my UCSD students later this term.

Great tips; I will refer my Marketing via New Media UCSD students to this post as I teach them about Twitter use for business!

This is a great conversation around Twitter. When I talk about how to use Twitter for business in my UC San Diego class on Marketing via New Media, I tell my class the first thing a brand or business should do before starting is to listen to your customers. Listen to what people are saying about you.

Now, if you hear a lot of customer service issues on Twitter, it makes sense to have a brand's customer service team helping out via Twitter (and with the appropriate Twitter handle to match, like @comcastcares). Help the customer where they are hanging out!

If your customers on Twitter want a conversation with you (and many consumers DO want to talk with their favorite brands), then join the conversation via your brand's Twitter account. Just make sure to be a human being with them (and I agree with comments that the brand's account should be the one to use, but sub-identified with the person responding, in order to keep those relationships going).

If your customers just want a stream of company news, then that is fine, too (like Dell does with @delloutlet, which has over 2500 followers looking for deals).

I really think it depends on 1) whether customers are on Twitter, and 2) what do they want from the brand?

I look forward to more of this discussion! Thanks for getting it going, Mark.

Thanks, Chris, for pointing this out and telling us how to find the profile. I tried to backward-engineer from yours, but I couldn't quite get there!

I didn't have a profile set up, but I do now! I like it.

Scott, thank you for opening yourself, and your company, up to the world for all to see. The conversation taking place via this post is fascinating! I see a range of loyal Ford enthusiasts, personal friends, as well as those questioning/not trusting a big brand all discussing Ford's future. This post is a great example of social media at work.

As I know you personally, I can see the passion and desire to share your story behind each word, and I appreciate and trust it. I have driven Ford cars for the last several years, and I have always found them not only reliable but great for my family. :)

Keep it up with showing the human side of Ford, and keep reaching out to consumers and sharing their stories.

I love it, Mike! This is a great way for a person, or a small business, to get started. I assign some of this as homework for the students in my Marketing via New Media class at UCSD (they need to blog weekly).

You rock, Mike!

I think this is great - it is creating a conversation around the cans, generating buzz, and connecting to the blogosphere. I would give Pepsi a B+ for their initial efforts! We are often so quick to criticize corporations for what they are trying to do; let's applaud their efforts and hope they continue. :)

Great tips, Chris. I have debated with changing my Facebook photo (it is my headshot I use for business!) as I have both business and personal contacts that I interact with through this site. I don't appreciate the "application spamming", as I don't want to install all those apps on my account.

I do encourage my social media marketing students to create a Facebook account and use it for class. I set up a discussion group for the class to use, which is slowly picking up pace but is a great place for dialog!

The main reason I have them create a profile there is so they can understand how it works. How can we think about building relationships with our customers via social networking sites if we don't use them ourselves? I believe it is important to be part of the customer conversation wherever they are. If it is Facebook, great! Bring it on. :)

Many congrats, Chris! I look forward to seeing your unbridled success - let me know how I can help! You rock!!

Congratulations, Scott! Great exposure for what you are working on. If you ever need input from different countries, the social media class I teach at UC San Diego has international students - Brazil, India, Italy, Mexico, Sweden, South Korea, Japan, Germany, etc. Let me know!

Thanks for the recap, John, and glad you got your own bunny ears photo with Tony! The customer loyalty panel was fun to moderate; I was pleased all the panelists accepted my invitation to speak on it. Nice summary, too!

Come on over to Customers Rock! to continue the conversation. :)

Thank you for having me talk about customer retention and Customers Rock! on the Daily Flip, Jim! I look forward to meeting you in person at BlogWorld this week.

Chris, congrats on taming the email beast! Quick question from a fellow Gmail user: where are you "storing" the messages you are keeping? I have always used Gmail as my storage, as there are tags and great search capabilities. Sounds like you are doing something different in order to keep the inbox to a zero...

Matt, this is very clean and clear - bravo!

To add to the comments, the top circle may put some businesses off of social media. If we are taking the POV of our audience, a business that caters to other businesses doesn't want a "consumer" feel to their content. However, we usually hear more about "Consumer Generated Content" than we do "Socially Generated Content". Not sure a B2B would want to be considered social. However, they would want to have conversations with their customers. Perhaps the "shared" word is better, or how about "Conversational Content"?

Hmm, need to work on that one a bit, as all of these tools are conversational, and potentially many have great content.

Thanks again - I will most likely be taking up this debate with the social media class I am teaching at UC San Diego Extension!

Thank you for this article; it is all starting to make sense now. A few questions:

- Do you lose your Google pagerank when you do this?
- How did you get your subscribers over?
- What about links from other blogs?

Thanks for any help or advice! I have been wanting to do this for awhile now, and I think I am ready to bite the bullet.

Doug, what a testimony to your friend Mike's life. Sounds like an amazing man who had quite an impact on everyone he came in touch with. Thank you for sharing your personal story and for sharing about Mike's gentle witness. I am sorry for the loss of your friend.