The Role Of Twitter In <b>Social Media Marketing</b> | Social Media Forum

Twitter is a social network, instant messaging and micro-blogging service that allows users to post “tweets”– 140 character updates that can be seen by other “Tweeters” who are following them. Users are prompted with the question, “What’s happening?” but tweets have evolved from descriptions of day-to-day life into conversations around popular topics, real-time news updates, shared links to interesting web content, photos, music and videos. For businesses, this ongoing dialogue makes Twitter a valuable social media marketing tool.

In order to successfully use Twitter in your social media marketing campaign, you have to post more than one-off advertisements and coupon codes. More than 50 million tweets are sent from Twitter each day, so hard work is required to make your business stand out. Stay afloat by gathering your target audience– the people who regularly tweet about your business’s subject. As well, if your posts contain popular keywords, people will also be able to find you. Once you have your preferred audience, interact with them. Pay close attention to their wants and needs and frequently post information they’ll find useful. After all, the most important part of social media marketing is being social.

Retweeting is crucial for a successful social media marketing campaign. Tweets that are exceptionally relevant and interesting have a chance to be spread and re-spread by other Twitter users, which allows your tweet to reach an infinite audience and possibly become viral. Posts that contain multimedia, such as links to videos, photos, fun articles, news and blogs have the best chance of being retweeted.

Tweetups, which are in-person gatherings of Twitter users, can easily bump your social media marketing plan to a higher level. You’ll have a chance to strengthen current relationships, make new ones and network with people who are just as passionate as you are. Afterward, participants will post followup tweets that contain valuable industry insight. Tweetups give your business a face and a name and close the gap between the virtual and physical worlds.

Twitter is a highly beneficial tool for social media marketing, but it still needs to be used in conjunction with other social platforms, such as Flikr, Facebook and YouTube. When used to its full advantage, Twitter will help create a far-reaching, robust social media marketing plan.

Before starting a social media marketing campaign, be sure to read this informative article on Twitter’s role in social media marketing.

View the original article here

New Twitter Now Available for All

Twitter has finished rolling out the new version of its web interface (a.k.a. the “New Twitter”) to all users, the company announced Wednesday.

In a blog post, company spokesperson Carolyn Penner revealed that the New Twitter is now available to all 160 million of Twitter’sTwitter users in six languages. She also said that users will only be able to switch between the old and new versions of Twitter for the next few weeks, after which time only the new version will be accessible.

The company told us last week that the majority of users had access to the new interface (which many have viewed as an all-out attack on third-party Twitter clients), but today marks the official completion of a rollout process that began in September.

The New Twitter, the design of which is based on the proportions of the Golden Ratio, brings many new features to Twitter’s web interface. Most notably, the new version provides support for multimedia viewing directly on Twitter.com, which prevents users from having to click off-site to view images and video.

The new interface also displays a slew of new navigation controls, concentrated in a drop-down menu bar that runs across the top of the screen. Another favorite feature of MashableMashable readers is the ability to view threaded conversations more easily on the Messages page.

Now that everyone has the New Twitter, we’re eager to hear how you like it. Do you prefer it to the old version? Do you now use Twitter.com instead of a third-party client on your desktop?

View the original article here

Washington Post Tells Journalists Not To Engage on Twitter

The Washington Post sent a memo to its staffers telling journalists not to answer critics from Post-branded Twitter accounts or to use their personal accounts to “speak on behalf of the Post.”

The memo comes after the Post published a controversial guest article online, “Christian compassion requires the truth about harms of sexuality,” by Tony Perkins.

The article was published after a number of suicides by teenagers, who were bullied for being gay. The article argued that homosexuality is a mental health issue, which prompted GLAAD, a gay activist group to complain about the article via Twitter and on its site. Responding to GLAAD’s public tweets, a staffer from The Washington Post tried to defend the publishing of the article as giving a platform for “both sides” of the debate. The response only fueled more frustration from GLAAD, which took to Twitter to say that there aren’t two sides to the issue at all:

As a result, the following memo was sent to staff by Post Managing Editor Raju Narisetti, who is no longer on Twitter after offering his thoughts on more spending for health care:

This week, some Post staffers responded to outside critics via our main
Twitter account. At issue was a controversial piece we’d published online. The intent in replying was to defend the decision to publish the piece, but it was misguided both in describing our rationale for publishing the piece and as a matter of practice. It shouldn’t have been sent.

Even as we encourage everyone in the newsroom to embrace social media and relevant tools, it is absolutely vital to remember that the purpose of these Post branded accounts is to use them as a platform to promote news, bring in user generated content and increase audience engagement with Post content. No branded Post accounts should be used to answer critics and speak on behalf of the Post, just as you should follow our normal journalistic guidelines in not using your personal social media accounts to speak on behalf of the Post.

Perhaps it would be useful to think of the issue this way: when we write a story, our readers are free to respond and we provide them a venue to do so. We sometimes engage them in a private verbal conversation, but once we enter a debate personally through social media, this would be equivalent to allowing a reader to write a letter to the editor–and then publishing a rebuttal by the reporter. It’s something we don’t do. Please feel free to flag Marcus, Liz and me when you see something out there that you think deserves a response from the Post. As we routinely do, we will work with Kris Coratti and her team to respond when appropriate.

The Post is clearly trying to do some damage control, but in a time when it is often difficult to encourage traditional journalists to embrace social media and dialogue with readers, this will only discourage it further. News organizations should be encouraging dialogue and debate, not stifling dialogue between readers and journalists.

Sure, it makes sense that they should rein in who manages the Washington Post-branded Twitter account, as that could be seen as an “official” response of the company and not an individual. But putting a stop on engagement and conversation regarding Post stories from journalists will only distance those reporters from the very community they are a part of. Perhaps a clarification to “speak on behalf of the Post,” could clear up what is okay for journalists to engage in dialogue. But it is also likely that some journalists will now avoid it altogether. There also seems to be a disconnect in what journalists are encouraged to increase audience engagement with Post content, and not the journalists themselves.

The memo goes on to explain why this sort of response or rebuttal for a story should not come from a reporter at the Post, with the reasoning pointing to an old model of dialogue that distances the reporter from the community. Basically, what Narisetti points to is the current process of dialogue and conversation in the controlled environment of “Letters to the Editor.” If readers have something to say, they can respond through that avenue and reporters are not able to write a rebuttal back.

Of course, this varies from news organization to news organization, but this model is broken. It only reaffirms the old model of “we publish and you listen,” and a model that had a disconnect from the news process and the former audience. It is not a model of conversation and dialogue around news that has become increasingly social. Why not encourage reporters to have a dialogue around the news? Around the stories they cover, producing and giving more transparency to the process?

It does appear that some dialogue will still take place from the Washington Post account, but the process seems overly bureaucratic at a time when responding quickly is important.

Thumbnail courtesy of iStockphoto, fotosipsak

View the original article here