5 Ways to Use Twitter if You Hate Social Media
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- by Oleg Mokhov
- October 1, 2010
Using Twitter doesn’t mean you have to love social media. In fact, you can hate it.
I know I’m one of the least social-networking people out there. Heck, I’ve never even had a Facebook account. But Twitter isn’t all-or-nothing. I use Twitter for reasons that benefit me. And so can you, without having to share your updates or what you’re up to, connect with people virtually, and all that other social-networking nonsense. Here are 5 ways to use Twitter if you hate social media:
1. Set up a Twitter feed for your blog.
Free services like Twitterfeed and FeedBurner will take your blog’s RSS feed and automatically post a message on your Twitter account whenever you have a new post. The message will have the title of the post and a shortened-URL link to it. Automated hands-off goodness. Why would you want to set this up? To offer a feed for those who prefer to get their latest content via Twitter instead of RSS and/or email. I’ve done this for my blog detailing my music-making and business-building adventures.
2. Use Twitter as customer support for your site/company/service.
More and more entrepreneurs and companies are doing this. It’s like a hybrid virtual ticket/FAQ system. Your users can quickly send their questions to you (the virtual ticket part). And when you answer them, other users see your reply, thus reducing repeated questions (the FAQ part).
3. Do Twitter searches to find potential leads and clients.
It’s like a pseudo-classified board. You can do keyword searches for your niche, or even search for specific questions or problems that people would have (ex. “I need X for my Y, anybody know someone?”). I’ve personally found web design clients this way.
4. Do Twitter searches to collect free testimonials.
If people are using and digging your stuff, just do a search for your product/service name (or your name if you are the service). When you see positive Twitter messages praising your stuff, you can freely snag that quote and put it on your site or wherever, making sure to put the person’s name (and a link to the Twitter message for authenticity). What’s great is you don’t have to ask permission, since what the person wrote is already public anyway, and you’re attributing and linking to it.
5. Use Twitter as a quick collaboration tool.
Communicate with clients and partners via private Direct Messages. The 140 character limit forces you to be succinct and ask actionable questions. Plus, sending a Twitter message is less of this big thing than an email, so you can fire off quick collaboration questions and updates without making a deal out of it, or taking much time and attention away from your clients and partners.
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- 13
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I think not asking for permission for posting testimonials on Twitter is a big mistake. Just because it’s already public, doesn’t mean the poster wants it widely distributed. Sure, you can come back with the fact that it’s public, but do you really want to take the chance of upsetting one of your fans? You’re also missing out on a great opportunity to connect with your customer base!
Why is someone going to be upset about me publishing on my website a testimonial which he sent to a public social media for everyone to see?
I would agree with you if it had made the testimonial in a private converstaion, but if he decided to let everyone know his opinion, that is what he wants: everyone to know what he thinks about XXXX.
2. is complete nosense, how can you give technical support in 140 characters???
If you hate it, better not to use it if you don’t want to look silly.
Why “nosense”? Some companies (such mediatemple) have an excellent support via Twitter.
Because links to google searches or web pages are more than 140characters?
You can do plenty in 140 characters. I got BANKING assistance (BofA) via Twitter, when calling them was a waste of time (hour wait time for a live operator). As long as you don’t prevaricate, you and your CS are golden.
Federico- Simple: you think outside the square? And Antonio and friends do not hate Twitter- they are being contentious; as a marketing strategy, to get a mass response from hundreds of twitter followers and promote their business… Hardly a social pastime so they tipped their hands a bit lol
Many companies provide a level of technical support over Twitter very effectively, Federico. Much of it is making contact with frustrated customers and inquiring about support requests to look into. You must not spend much time on Twitter :)
If I can’t get in touch with someone directly through their site, I find them on Twitter and send them an @reply. It’s complete nonsense if you’ve never used it with success. #justsayin
i usually get inquires about the status of their online purchases via twitter and i reply also using twitter. the 140 character is not that much of a hassle.
This is good advice. I’ve avoided any social media sites for a while but twitter is just different – it’s pretty secure, private as you want it to be, quick, simple and anyone can post in a matter of seconds. It’s good for quick feedback and communication – less is more! And you can add links to more thorough advice and even to your blog where they can comment in more than 140 chars… now I just need to make the effort to incorporate it into my sites…
Hand written Twitter entries are much better (and it only takes a minute or two) as Twitterfeed cuts off mid-sentence … it looks like spam .. and it sure as hell looks automated.
I personally think 3 sounds awesome. The more I learn about Twitter, the more I love the @ and hash tag prefixes. There’s a huge online base covering almost every topic, and it’s easy to include marketing targets on the tail end of link shares. I had never really considered using twitter as a Support option as most of my web services are much wider than that, but it’s probably no coincidence that SalesForce CRM is implementing a ‘twitter-like’ chat option called Chatter.
A mystical 6th option would be to use twitter as a feedback/feature message board, users can submit features, feedback, or suggestions for your service/app; voting is handled by monitoring retweets or watching the hash tag of their submission. You can even generate great word of mouth and free marketing; this idea begins to branch pretty far the more I consider it.
Also, creating a fresh twitter account to collect client testimonials would be pretty sweet. It keeps their comments succinct and provides a simple URL to present a potential client; also it gives your past clients an opportunity to linkback the site you’ve developed for them, everyone wins!
My 6th: Use Twitter as a replacement for your RSS reader.
Just follow people/sites that you know post interesting news, via links in their tweets.
I don’t hate social media, but 80% of my time in Twitter is to get industry news that way
Your tips are great. But all these work quite well only when you get a nice chunk of Twitter followers and people rarely have too many followers.
This is great advise to talk clients into using Social Media for their own advantage. Thanks for sharing
Some very good points here, although I’d point out that while setting up a feed from your blog is ok, be careful to get involved personally as well. Responding directly to people and joining conversations/retweeting content etc is a really good way to build trust and communicate what you or your company are all about.
Setting up searches for your brand, company and industry terms is a great idea. I have searches for subjects like ‘digital marketing’, with keywords such as ‘help’ ‘can anyone suggest’ and ‘advice’ and have found that incredibly useful in identifying new customers etc. There’s a great slideshow about Twitter monetisation here if you’re interested: http://ecly.co/9XeY58
So much info, so little time. I want try to worked into my plans. Thank you so much.
Awesome article, I have never used twitter, but you have opened my mind!!!… thanks a lot!!..