Twitter is a great tool for conversations, building community, finding brand advocates and reading the latest news. That’s why celebrities, athletes, your competitors—and hopefully you—are on Twitter.

The growth and usage of Twitter is not surprising. Compete.com estimates approximately 21 million unique monthly visitors, and a quick search on Twitter yields a variety of conversations from music, sports, politics, events and products.

For business however, there’s an art to using Twitter, and the most successful at it follow an unwritten set of rules. The following are 5 important tips to follow on Twitter; all lessons that I have learned while working for companies like HP, Yahoo! and Intel.

#1: Do Some Research

Research is fundamental. I suggest that marketers or small business owners spend a few weeks understanding what types of conversations are happening on Twitter and then formulate a communications plan before actually engaging. This will help drive consistency in the messages shared on Twitter.

#2: Determine Your Goals

Not all businesses use Twitter the same way. Some, like @ComcastCares, use Twitter merely for customer support. Dell uses Twitter to sell products or share company-related information. Often, I see smaller, more local businesses use it to build relationships with their constituencies to drive customer loyalty programs.

Whatever your goals are, it’s important to think about what you want to achieve with Twitter before spending your valuable time and resources on it.

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birdbathBUZZ works with businesses to develop solid marketing, social media marketing and online lead generation campaigns. Email founder and "buzz creator" Chris Isaac for more information.

In just one day, we’ll all be sitting in front of Ev Williams and Biz Stone as they announce Twitter’s new Facebook Connect competitor, @anywhere.  

This is Twitter’s big statement in the developer ecosystem, stating that they are shifting from a script and backend-focused model of developer integration, to a very front-end, javascript-centered focus that centers around any brand or developer’s own site.  However, I’m worried that Twitter may actually be focusing too much on developers, considering their audience of large brands.

I wondered, just after @anywhere was announced at South-by-Soutwest in Austin, TX, how similar @anywhere would be to Facebook Connect.  Facebook Connect, a Javascript-focused set of libraries that sits on top of any website, enables just about any brand manager, marketer, or even developer from the new to the very advanced to simply copy and paste a piece of code and have it immediately create widgets that integrate tightly with the Facebook environment.  With Facebook Connect also comes a tag language, called FBML (I wrote the book for O’Reilly about it), which enables HTML-like tags to be placed anywhere on a website and also get similar functionality.  So basically, no Javascript knowledge is required.  Know how to write a little HTML?  You can integrate Facebook Connect into your website.  At least that’s the message Facebook wants to send to Marketers and Brand Managers (and it’s true how simple it is).

Twitter seems to have the same audience in mind for their @anywhere platform.  After just launching an Ad platform, you can bet more Enterprise features are about to be announced very likely at Twitter’s Chirp conference along with developer tie-ins to those features.  Twitter wants the brands just as bad as Facebook does.  Running a site that targets Brands, I know first hands that the Brands are where the money is.  Enterprise, and contractual relationships with big companies and brands is big money in this industry.  Twitter wants to be on each and every one of these major websites – that’s why they’re launching @anywhere.

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birdbathBUZZ works with businesses to develop solid marketing, social media marketing and online lead generation campaigns. Email founder and "buzz creator" Chris Isaac for more information.

It’s no secret that social media marketing is the most powerful business-building tool on the planet.  Now any business can directly reach customers, anytime and anyplace.

To take your social media marketing to the max, here are hot social media tips direct from 12 of the top industry masters. You’re going to want to model their priceless advice:

#1: Engage Your Facebook Fans With Questions

“Discussions are the currency of Facebook.  When your fans engage, your fan page comes up in their feed regularly.  A great way to get your fans active is to end each status update with a question.  You can add your own comments to get the ball rolling.  Do your best to respond to fan questions as promptly as possible to keep the discussion alive.” Mari Smith, author of Facebook Marketing


Asking engaging questions gets your fans involved, as seen on this fan page.

#2: ‘Listen’ to Know What to ‘Say’

“The way to make a connection is to talk about what people want to hear.  No-cost and low-cost listening tools help you ‘grow bigger ears’ and then apply what you’ve learned from listening to improve your sales, your service or your future products.  That’s the single most important thing you can do with social media tools.  Free tools: blogsearch.google.com and icerocket.com.  Fee-based tools: radian6.com and scoutlabs.com.” Chris Brogan, author of Social Media 101
IceRocket allows you to track blogs, Twitter and other social media sites for activity based on any date range.

#3: Use Video to Turn Company Mistakes Into Gold

“Even customer service errors present a powerful relationship opportunity.  Create a 2-minute video apology, post it on Viddler and tweet about it as a real-time response.  Give thanks, admit the mistake, apologize, and then WOW your customer to turn the situation around.” Ramon De Leon, Operating partner of a six-store Domino’s Pizza franchise.
Watch as Ramon De Leon uses video to turn a company error into a golden customer opportunity.

#4: Leverage YouTube’s Keyword Power

“In February 2010, Americans conducted 9.9 billion ‘expanded search queries’ on Google, 3.6 billion on YouTube, and 2.5 billion on Yahoo! But YouTube users are searching for video content, so they’re less likely to look for something to buy on YouTube than they are on Google.  That’s why I use YouTube keyword tool to get new keyword ideas instead of the Google AdWords keyword tool.  Use your keyword discoveries to optimize your video pages for YouTube users.” Greg Jarboe, author of YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day The YouTube keyword tool allows you to capture YouTube users with popular search terms.

#5: Promote SMS Campaigns on Facebook and Twitter

“One hundred million users access Facebook from their mobile phones.  So you want to be promoting your text campaigns there and on Twitter.  Send messages that encourage people to text your keyword and sign up for your mobile coupon or get on your alert list.  Example: ‘For weekly mobile marketing tips Text KIMDUSHINSKI to 95495.  Message & Data Rates May Apply.’” Kim Dushinski, author of Mobile Marketing Handbook

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birdbathBUZZ works with businesses to develop solid marketing, social media marketing and online lead generation campaigns. Email founder and "buzz creator" Chris Isaac for more information.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could develop a valuable business network online? Twitter’s real-time communication capability makes it a great business networking platform you can’t afford to ignore. By honing your social networking skills and adapting them to this fast-paced environment, you can use Twitter as the starting point to build a strong business network. There are two parts to networking on Twitter:

• First, you need to connect with the people you want to get to know.
• Second, you need to find a way to establish relationships with the right people and get beyond the scope of Twitter.

Read the rest of the article on Social Media Examiner. birdbathBUZZ works with businesses to develop solid social media marketing and online lead generation concepts, strategies and tactics. Please email founder and "buzz creator" Chris Isaac for more information.

In this video I interview Chris Garrett, co-author of the book ProBlogger. Here Chris provides great advice to helps businesses achieve value with social media. Chris shares the best way to approach Twitter and how to avoid the biggest mistakes people make. He also highlights the importance of attraction, retention and conversion for your business blog.  Be sure to read the other takeaways listed below. Here are other things to pick up in this video: Read the entire article on Social Media Examiner. If your business needs assistance understanding the benefits of Social Media and implementing solid Social Media Marketing and Optimization concepts, strategies and tactics, contact Chris Isaac at birdbathBUZZ – cisaac@birdbathbuzz.com Cheers!

This is a guest post by Nate Bagley. One of the biggest problems currently facing many major Social Media sites (aside from trolls) is monetization. They thrive on VC and Angel funding while trying to find a way to be cash flow positive without turning off scores of users with intrusive ads. The most obvious example of this is the Twitters. Twitter has yet to turn a profit, because they are avoiding “selling out” by diluting the value of their amazing service with a bombardment of ads or making their service subscription based. The simplicity of the site, however, doesn’t allow for many other monetization opportunities. Read the rest of the article on Soshable.com If your business needs assistance understanding the benefits of Social Media and implementing solid Social Media Marketing and Optimization concepts, strategies and tactics, contact Chris Isaac at birdbathBUZZ – cisaac@birdbathbuzz.com Cheers! ShareThis

Sure, social media takes a lot of time.  Merging Facebook, Twitter and all the other social media options can be challenging.  But what if you could cut that time down significantly by cross-leveraging content? Too many companies are reinventing the content wheel for every social outpost they maintain. A better approach is to create a content ecosystem that allows you to repurpose and cascade your best information. Instead of a series of self-contained initiatives, build yourself a content ladder. Here are 5 steps to get there:

#1: Understand Taxonomy

If you want a new pair of glasses, the Yellow Pages is a frustrating neighborhood. Look under “G” for “glasses.” Not found. Look under “E” for “eyeglasses.” Nope. Only when you look under “O” for “optometrists” do you find what you need. It’s an example of an industry with poor understanding of taxonomy—the words and phrases used to describe products and services. Read the entire article on Social Media Examiner. If your business needs assistance understanding the benefits of Social Media and implementing solid Social Media Marketing and Optimization concepts, strategies and tactics, contact Chris Isaac at birdbathBUZZ – cisaac@birdbathbuzz.com Cheers!

Social media goes beyond Facebook or Twitter.  It’s about connecting with people and developing relationships.  And sometimes those connections can be literally face-to-face! Social media allows us to make connections faster and over greater distances, but there is power in social media to bring us closer to our neighbors, too.  One of the ways to do that is with a Tweetup.

What Is a Tweetup?

There are some things that just can’t be done with a 140-character limit. A Tweetup is an in-person meeting of Twitter users. It has also become a colloquialism for any in-person networking event organized using social media. Read the entire article on Social Media Examiner. If your business needs assistance understanding the benefits of Social Media and implementing solid Social Media Marketing and Optimization concepts, strategies and tactics, contact Chris Isaac at birdbathBUZZ – cisaac@birdbathbuzz.com Cheers!

It has been widely reported that Twitter will soon be unveiling a monetization solution.

Speculation has been rampant with several blogs making predictions on what they think the solution will consist of.

Twitter certainly has many ways to go about revenue generation. At the end of 2009 – Twitter inked deals with Google and Bing to syndicate their Tweets to those respective engines. It was reported that Twitter was paid a bounty for this data. And, more recently, Yahoo inked a deal to publish Tweets on their network of websites. While these deals can bake in a revenue stream for Twitter – it most certainly isn’t the end goal.

According to Alexa, Twitter is the 12th most visited site on the internet. This traffic comes primarily from three different functions. The first, would be users that go to Twitter to post status updates. The second, would be from users that go to Twitter to read updates from the people that they are following. The third, is people that go to Twitter to use the search engine – as a way to see what people are saying right now about a certain subject.

Twitter won’t be looking to generate revenue off of the first group, because those are people whom are trying to communicate on Twitter. The second group, could easily be monetized, as an ad unit could show up within a users friends timeline. This would be a challenging solution because it is difficult to target an ad to a user whom is simply reading updates from all of the people they are following. Plus, a continued problem on Twitter is that there is a lot of noise posted by followers, so if ads were also added into the friends timeline, less people would go there to read what their followers are saying. So, the Twitter search traffic is the most likely place Twitter will go for monetization.

The renaissance of the web happened around 2002 due to the success of search advertising. Companies such as Overture, which was later acquired by Yahoo, had proven to web advertisers that search traffic converts. This was the business model that Google would deploy to monetize their ever popular search engine. So, with distribution in place on sites such as Google and Yahoo – and advertisers moving more and more online marketing dollars into the search marketplace – a successful web business economy was produced.

I think Twitter will go down a similar path. People who perform a search at Twitter can easily be targeted, and this is traffic that advertisers will want. Plus, by displaying ads in its search results, Twitter won’t disrupt its core functionality of Tweeting and reading Tweets from followers. Getting advertisers won’t be difficult, but it could take time, so Twitter could potentially publish another search engines advertisers (such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing) at the get go as a way to start generating income from day one. Then, over time, Twitter could sign up its own advertisers directly to publish into their search results. Another option would be for Twitter to go the Facebook route and only display ads from advertisers that signed up directly on Twitter from day one. Either way, down the line, Twitter could figure out a way to distribute their advertisers into users friends timelines potentially in an adsense like unit down the side of the page. But, at the get go, Twitter has the traffic on its search engine, which they can easily target ads too, and that’s where I think the ads will show up.

For added revenue, it has also been speculated that Twitter will offer up its advertisers to applications using its API, and it would then share the revenue with the application. So, applications that interact with Twitter, such as Sency or Seesmic; would have the option to promote Twitter advertisers for a cut of the profits.

Twitter hasn’t focused on making money as of yet. They have been concerned with their platform, site traffic, and third party developers. However, when you are the 12th most visited site on the web, and when a large portion of your traffic is search traffic – you are going to easily be able to generate revenue. It is also important to note, that real time web traffic won’t be as value able to advertisers as traditional search traffic – because it is less commercial in nature. So, while revenue will easily be generated by Twitter, I don’t foresee the revenue made per visit being on par with what the traditional search engines have been able to produce.

Facebook and Twitter are the two power houses of the Social Media Industry. Social Media has become a new medium within the Media family, its siblings being Radio, Television and Newspapers.

What Makes Up Social Media?

So, what makes up Social Media? Metaphorically, Social Media is the body that holds the various limbs that enables the Industry to grow, and allows you to reach outside of the box and communicate with the world. The “limbs” I am referring to are what we call Social Networks. Social Networks are made up of sites that you are probably already familiar with, such as; YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Reddit, and many others that are not listed here, two of those being, Twitter and Facebook. Each social network enables a person to share content, whether it is photos, videos, music, news or conversation. A social network permits you to engage with other people via the Internet. So what is the heart of social media? You are. You are the very reason social media is alive, it is you who pumps the information out into the social networks and in return, it is you that keeps social media breathing.

What Is the Difference Between Twitter and Facebook?

Twitter was originally created for texting purposes via a cell phone which is where the 140 characters come into play, for texting on a cell phone; you are only allotted 160 characters. Twitter included your username and therefore left you with 140 characters to express whatever happens to be on your mind. Twitter is in real-time, meaning that you will receive information as soon as someone you’re following tweets. Facebook is more complex. It was originally created for internal use at a University, but as its popularity ignited, Facebook as we know it today, was born. Facebook is not only a place you can socially engage through status updates that are longer than 140 characters, but it also offers socially inclined games, profiles and pages that initiate sharing in whatever form of media you choose. Both social networks offer a different format to express oneself, although Twitter is more commonly known for sharing news links and is becoming a predominant resource for breaking news, people still make connections and utilize it to talk about the events of their day or to promote their business in a fast and for many, more convenient way. Which is why I compare it to a drive-thru, it is quick, easy and you always leave full. Facebook is more like a sit down restaurant, a place where you get lost in its menu of choices, from applications, status updates, photos, games, videos, pages and many other tempting interactions. Therefore you need to sit down and dig in. Whether you crave Twitter more or salivate over Facebook, we seem to be starved for these two social networks and for those who use them, you may tend to agree that you can’t help but eat them up everyday. If you are new to Social Media and unsure which social networks to begin with, I would suggest sampling both Twitter and Facebook, for in their own ways, they will satisfy your social appetite. Erin Ryan has a passion for Social Media and is currently working within the industry as a Social Media Specialist. Contact Erin on Twitter @4u2wear2 * * * Read more on this social media blog.