1. Select an optimal handle : Using the same technique that you utilize to choose a url for a website (with the most relevant keyword in it), ensure that you choose a handle that’s relevant to your brand or campaign and easy to remember. Do your keyword research to gauge your brand’s (or the keywords related to your brand) popularity. Your handle or your username is then your customized Twitter URL such as twitter.com/yoursite or twitter.com/yourkeyword. This creates a strong static address for future search indexing and is is also strategically relevant when you se the same for online cross-channel marketing.

2. Fill out your profile : Optimize your Twitter page’s “Bio” line so it includes the most important, keyword-rich words to describe your brand’s attributes or benefits. Take advantage of all 160 characters to describe your brand. The search engines index the contents of your profile so ensure that its completed.

3. Add your URL : In the account settings, add your website’s URL to drive traffic back to your website.  Bear in mind that any inbound links to your website from Twitter do not boost your search rankings since Twitter has a “Nofollow” attribute in place.

4. Tweet cleverly : Here’s the good news about the search engines. They will index your entire tweet so make sure you use it to your advantage. Ensure that the beginning of your tweet has the strongest keywords possible. It’s 140 characters so make sure that your message is succinct, clever, enticing and relevant. Now, you cant do this with every tweet as Twitter’s about conversations and if you promote your brand incessantly, you’ll lose some followers and even worse, get negative buzz on Twitter. So, tweet sensibly.

5. Allow for retweet possibilities : This means that you should make sure your tweet’s character limits allow for optimal “retweetability.” Keep your message under 120 characters, if possible,  so that your followers can easily add RT @YourName in front of the tweet without having to truncate the end of your message.

6. Use a linking strategy : Use outbound links from Twitter to your website to redirect users back to your content. Twitter does drive traffic and bloggers and other website owners have used this to the fullest extent. To share links, use a URL shortener like TinyURL . There’s also Bit.ly which also provides real time tracking of who’s visited your website through the shortened link. This is a neat tool and bit.ly, a small startup who usurped TinyURL from the No.1 position is is now the defacto URL shortener tool for Twitter.

7. Market your brand online : Now that you’re part of the Twitter social network, work on ways to build the online reputation of your Twitter account. Start with your website; Make sure that you have a call-to-action button on your website asking your customers and visitors to follow you on Twitter. Ensure that you have a list of social networks where folks can connect with you (Facebook, del.ic.io.us, LinkedIn are some other icons that you can add). Ensure that this list is present on all the pages of your website. This presents an option to your website’s visitors to become followers of your Twitter feeds and help drive your Twitter URL up in the search engines.

8. Manage your tweets strategically : For this, use some of the Twitter tools that have proliferated the landscape. Start with TweetDeck. It has a powerful dashboard that allows you to view your tweets as well as capture any tweets that mention your brand.  Or you can use Twhirl, which allows you to monitor multiple twitter accounts. There’s also PeopleBrowsr, a web based twitter amnagement tool (which differs from the desktop based TweetDeck and Twhirl) which has multi-stack views, reporting functions and a feature-rich dashboard.

What the heck is Twitter?

Twitter is a voyeuristic tool where users have 140 characters to post their message called a ‘tweet’. This tweet appears to their followers. When you follow people on Twitter, you see their tweets. Conversely when they follow you, they see your tweets.

If you choose to follow a certain company, you’ll not only be aware of the newest things happening there but there’s a very high chance that you’ll hear about it before anyone else. Additionally, you’ll also have a direct channel of communication with folks popular on the Internet such as publishers, PRs, bloggers competitors and consumers.

Does Twitter make sense for my business?

Maybe, maybe not. In any case, you have to adapt. The beauty of Twitter is that it becomes what you want it to be. If you’d like it to be a broadcast of new deals and sale offers ( Dell, Southwest etc) then it can be so. If you rather intereact with potential customers/users who commented on your brand (H&R Block, Whole Foods) then that’s possible too.

Who’s my audience?

In Feb 2009, Pew Internet conducted a survey to identify the demographic profile of Twitter users. the major chunk of users ranged fro 16 to 44 years of age. A look at the demographic profile of Twitter users as a whole revealed some additional details about who uses Twitter and how they use it. Typically, Twitter users are overwhelmingly young. The median age of a Twitter user is 31. In comparison, the median age of a MySpace user is 27, Facebook user is 26 and LinkedIn user is 40.7. Twitter users are slightly more racially and ethnically diverse, most likely because they are younger. Twitter users are also slightly more likely to live in urban areas, with 35% of Twitter users living in urban areas (compared to 29% of all internet users) and just 9%  living in rural areas, compared to 17% of Internet users. Very comprehensive research but a caveat, most of this data was compiled form online surveys so its important that you factor in a slightly higher margin of error.

Quantcast has more information stating that 25% of all Twitter users are aged between 25 and 44. It also seems that 63% of all Twitter users are male. About 10 million people use Twitter. Wow!

How to Tweet without being a Twit :

1. Sign up : First things first! Sign up for a Twitter account. Register your company name and create individual accounts for key marketing team members. Set some ground rules stating that everyone has to tweet at least once an hour either on their own accounts or on the company account. When you have several people using a single active account, this keeps the account busy with multiple tweets being sent out and this is a good thing.
2. Complete your profile thoroughly: Add a picture to your account along with a good logo. Provide  a clear concise introduction of who you are and what you do.
3. Follow other users : This is the fun part. Begin to follow people interested in your company and your industry. This may include customers, potential customers, competitors or suppliers. More ideas below on whom to follow and how to do it.
4. Interact Interact Interact: This isn’t a vanity page for you to post what you’re up to every moment of the day. Ask questions, answer other people’s questions, give opinions, offer tips and advice and post useful links and information. Build your brand on Twitter in the same way you’d focus on your brand building in the offline world. Your Twitter stream builds your credibility. The more useful it is, the more followers you are likely to attract and retain. Don’t be a spammer and send out sales offers or deals ( you can do that too, just do it sparsely), you could lose your followers. Humanize the process. Make sure that you provide your opinion. Be yourself. Folks like to see what you have and if they like it – Voila! you have a follower.
5. Strategize : Create a strategy on how you’re going to use Twitter. Build a vision of what you’d like to be perceived as by your community. Have a clear idea of the messaging hat you want to promote in there, who you’re going to promote it to. Have some clear goals on what you want your Twitter account to achieve.

Who should I Follow and What should I do to get followers?

1. Use follower-finder tools : This is critical. Followers are people whose updates you’ll be seeing, who may choose to follow you back, and who you’ll be forming relationships with. Start with using tools like Twitter Search or MrTweet to find people tweeting about topics in your industry. Once you follow people who are like-minded, they’ll follow you back if you both tweet sensibly about the same topics.

2. Make the experience interesting : Don’t just be a broadcaster of information or shameless promos. Talk to people and not just your followers. Talk to dissenters. Talk to people who’ve mentioned you randomly. Twitter may just yet become the closest tool that you can sue to get instant product feedback from customers. Make the experience as interactive as possible.

3. Identify and follow Alpha players : Find the twitter communities centered around your product and follow them. Find opinion-leaders within those communities and ensure that your voice is heard too.

4. Offer free advice : In line with the ‘sharing’ nature of the twitter environment, provide advice to anyone who’s asking for it.

5. Tweet intelligently : Make sure that you post material of interest. It shouldn’t be just links to your website. Post things of relevance that will capture your audience’s interest.

6. Make it fun : Organize contest, giveaways, discount codes, coupons. Moojuice recently ran a promo where they offered free ipods? to any one who tweeted ‘moojuice’ on their feed. Ben & Jerry had something similar.

7. Other promotional platforms : Use other non-twitter avenues to promote your Twitter account on your website, blog, emails and other offline promotional material.

What can I hope to obtain using Twitter?

Product feedback : Get free advice on product and service performances, problems, features etc. Monitor conversations and get a sense of what’s being said about your company, your products and services. Use Twitter search to setup some search queries, subscribe to the RSS feed and receive email updates every time you’re mentioned on Twitter. Then follow those talking about you, respond and listen to what they have to say.

Build your network : The technorati is very involved with Twitter and many bloggers, journalists and PR folks who are amongst the heaviest adopters of social media are in this category. If you’d like to build a network of influencers in your industry, this is a good place to start.

Customer Service/Support & Brand Building : Use the platform to build your brand and yourself as a domain expert. Offer product information, answer questions of concern and obtain/provide feedback.

Promoting items of interest : Promote your product and brand. Don’t be shy abut it. Just don’t begin to spam people with tons of offers. This could turn them off and that’s not a good thing.Offer discounts, promos. Run competitions. Get creative. This is one of the platforms where you can let your imagination run wild (within limits, of course).

Finally, a good exmple of a Twitter user is JetBlue who use the service to monitor people talking about the airline. They also frequently respond to people, engage in conversation, deal with complaints and aim to resolve issues in a organised and professional manner.