Encouraging Clients to Twitter

If you are a developer or work with an interactive agency of any sort, you probably already know that encouraging clients to Twitter is one of the toughest things to do.  I think that in the back of their mind they already know that it is something they need to be doing, if no other reason than just from hearing about it in the media so much.  But, finally getting a client to make the plunge and start using Twitter is usually not as easy as you would think because to them it’s just an unknown…

Something I have been trying to do with my clients when I sit down with them to have the “social media conversation” is to first explain social media as a conversation.  I then go into two distinct types of conversations that I see taking place, the long conversation and the short conversation.  I go into a lot of detail about these conversations in my presentation on Brand Promotion & Reputation Management.  I usually equate Facebook as being the longer conversation, hopefully the client is already somewhat familiar with Facebook going into our meeting, if not, the conversation is likely going to take a lot longer. 

Pointing Out Some Conversations:

Once I have given them a good idea as to the long conversations that take place socially online, I then show some simple brand searches on Twitter to them to let them see what’s being said by users on a daily basis.  Here are some conversations I typically pull up to use as examples:

• Twitter Search: AT&T
• Twitter Search: Otterbox
• Twitter Search: Microsoft Windows

Pointing Out Some Good Examples:

I then take the conversations being had about these three products and equate it to how their products or brand could be discussed in the exact same manner, then I show them some negative posts that were adverted by customer service reps, thus protecting the brand or products reputation.  Below you will find a few examples from ChromaticSites.com:

Some companies have quickly caught on to the obvious benefits of monitoring and managing their brand on Twitter. Here are some case studies about small and large companies using Twitter as a tool for brand management and customer service:

• Comcast: If we could give an award to the company exhibiting the most extraordinary PR efforts on Twitter, Comcast would be the recipient. Rebecca from SEOmoz shares her fantastic experience with @ComcastBill.
• Southwest Airlines: This airline giant checks up on a dissatisfied Twitter user.
• NetworkSolutions: This NetworkSolution’s client was having trouble updating a client’s website due to the fact that she couldn’t gain access to her client’s FTP server. NetworkSolutions came to the rescue within an hour of her initial tweet.
• FireFox: A user of the FireFox browser changed a setting that resulted in an undesirable result. A FireFox representative quickly provided a fix via Twitter and saved the day.
• Verizon: A customer ran into some issues with Verizon’s fiber-optic service (FIOS). After some complaining on Twitter, a “top Verizon presence on the web” came to the aid of the distressed customer.
• DISQUS: The co-founder of DISQUS, a popular third-party commenting system, came to the aid of a blogger having difficulty getting the service to work with his blog. A very interesting service-oriented approach.
• Comcast: Since Comcast is exceptional at Twitter-based customer service, we share another one of their fantastic PR efforts. This time, Michael Arrington from TechCrunch shares his positive experience with Comcast via Twitter.

Usually from this point I have their understanding as to how they can best represent their company or brand using Twitter and then move onto showing them it’s basic operation, etc.  The entire conversation can take up to an hour, if not longer, but the results for your clients moving forward with a presence on Twitter can be incredible.  You owe it to them to show them the ropes…