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More than any other social networking site in worldwide use today, Twitter owes a significant portion of its growth to pyramid schemes, egocentric celebrities, get-rich-quick gurus, and kids from Amsterdam with nothing better to do than collect thousands of new followers per week.  While these people continue to tie up Twitter’s bandwidth by posting 140-character brain farts in rapid succession, there are also tens of thousands of actual companies—entities with things like employees and balance sheets and health insurance plans—trying to figure out how to use Twitter to gain an advantage over their competitors.

With this in mind, a few months back I wrote and posted an article titled 5 Unbreakable Rules for Using Twitter as a Business Tool.  Surprisingly, this article is still the most popular 700 words I have ever typed into a computer.  Not because using Twitter is overly-complicated, but because using it effectively within a business context isn’t nearly as easy as it looks.  For example, Tweeting from a mobile device after draining your seventh beer might get you a laugh or two from your friends, but it has a markedly different effect among your customer base.  Twitter’s lack of a rulebook (or any real standards, for that matter) makes it tempting for us as corporate marketers to do whatever the heck we want.  But things like ethics, discipline, planning and strategy are what separate us from our neighbor who sells cleaning products out of her car.  And a few rules never hurt anybody.

After investing close to 500 more hours in the research and use of Twitter, I have come up with five additional rules that should never be broken when attempting to use Twitter as a business tool.

Rule #6: Allow Your Twitter Account to Develop a Personality. By virtue of being a social technology, Twitter is a wonderful place to show your customers and prospects a different and more personal side of your business.  Does this mean employees should be allowed to Tweet about upcoming vacations and family milestones?  Of course not.  But Tweeting in a more informal voice can go a long way in building loyalty among Twitter followers.  This is especially important at virtual companies, where customers and prospects need to be constantly reminded that there are real people behind all of the webinars, mass emails and online newsletters.

Rule #7: Follow Your Industry’s Support System. Not surprisingly, a critical component of building a successful Twitter presence for business is the actual ‘networking’ part—extending your company’s reach by finding people to follow, and identifying potential customers who are interested in following your company.  Most marketers do a great job of choosing Twitter members who have a high probability of being customers some day.  But experienced Twitter marketers will also follow people and organizations who keep their customers educated and employed.  Does your industry landscape include professional associations, educational portals, consulting companies and placement firms?  If so, you might want to follow them.  Not only will they be tempted to promote you to their followers, but they will also Retweet your news, offers and white papers once in awhile.

Rule #8: Automate the Day-to-Day Account Management. I obviously have no idea how much your company pays its marketing people.  But if it’s anything over $30 per month, an automated Twitter marketing tool might save your company a significant amount of time and money.  After just a few hours of setup time, subscription-based services like SocialOoomph (formerly TweetLater) can help your company find followers, send Tweets, and track chatter about your products and services—on multiple Twitter accounts and from a single user-interface.  In fact, some automated tools even go out of their way to appeal to marketing geeks like me by offering features such as Clout Calculations (to determine which of your followers have the most Twitter influence), customizable Friend Filters, and various other types of advanced analytics.  Most automated Twitter tools have free trials, and several allow companies to join month-to-month and cancel any time they wish.

Rule #9: Don’t Forget . . . Your Compeptitors Are ALWAYS Watching. True story: several months ago I heard through the industry grapevine that one of my company’s competitors was working on a new product.  The product was going to be positioned head-to-head with my company’s cash cow, and was expected to take a significant percentage of our market share.  After making a few phone calls and learning nothing, I decided to check the Internet.  Within a few short minutes I was able to not only confirm the rumor, but assemble most of the company’s initial rollout plan and marketing strategy.  The surprise here is not how I found this information, but where—in the Twitter account of the company’s CEO.  Over the course of several months, the CEO of my closest competitor had been giving his followers blow-by-blow strategic planning updates.  The point here?  That social networking sites come with an implied barrier of confidentiality that really doesn’t exist.  And if your people can’t keep a secret, they need to lock their profiles.

Rule #10: Build a Community

Contrary to the belief of most companies, the best way to monetize your business-related Twitter account has nothing to do with selling.  The key, which might be counter-intuitive to many, is making your followers feel involved.  Building a community among your followers through the sharing of knowledge and general communication will lead to more traffic, more activity, and eventually more sales than any 140-character ’special offer’ you could ever hope to distribute.  Tweeting links to free white papers and Webinars, using your follower base to test market products, and leveraging Twitter’s @reply function to host open debates are three great ways to jump-start your community-building efforts.  Not only will initiatives like this directly involve your followers, but it will keep them coming back . . . so you can sell them something later.

Comments?  Questions?  Feel free to reply to this post.  Otherwise a Retweet, Facebook Share, LinkedIn Share or other type of social share (handy buttons provided) would be greatly appreciated.  Thank you!

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