50 IDEAS ON USING TWITTER FOR BUSINESS

FIRST STEPS

1. Build an account and immediate start using Twitter Search to listen for your name, your competitor’s names, words that relate to your space. (Listening always comes first.)
2. Add a picture. ( Shel reminds us of this.) We want to see you.
3. Talk to people about THEIR interests, too. I know this doesn’t sell more widgets, but it shows us you’re human.
4. Point out interesting things in your space, not just about you.
5. Share links to neat things in your community. ( @wholefoods does this well).
6. Don’t get stuck in the apology loop. Be helpful instead. ( @jetblue gives travel tips.)
7. Be wary of always pimping your stuff. Your fans will love it. Others will tune out.
8. Promote your employees’ outside-of-work stories. ( @TheHomeDepot does it well.)
9. Throw in a few humans, like RichardAtDELL, LionelAtDELL, etc.
10. Talk about non-business, too, like @aaronstrout and @jimstorer.

IDEAS ABOUT WHAT TO TWEET

11. Instead of answering the question, “What are you doing?”, answer the question, “What has your attention?”
12. Have more than one twitterer at the company. People can quit. People take vacations. It’s nice to have a variety.
13. When promoting a blog post, ask a question or explain what’s coming next, instead of just dumping a link.
14. Ask questions. Twitter is GREAT for getting opinions.
15. Follow interesting people. If you find someone who tweets interesting things, see who she follows, and follow her.
16. Tweet about other people’s stuff. Again, doesn’t directly impact your business, but makes us feel like you’re not “that guy.”
17. When you DO talk about your stuff, make it useful. Give advice, blog posts, pictures, etc.
18. Share the human side of your company. If you’re bothering to tweet, it means you believe social media has value for human connections. Point us to pictures and other human things.
19. Don’t toot your own horn too much. (Man, I can’t believe I’m saying this. I do it all the time. – Side note: I’ve gotta stop tooting my own horn).
20. Or, if you do, try to balance it out by promoting the heck out of others, too.

SOME SANITY FOR YOU

21. You don’t have to read every tweet.
22. You don’t have to reply to every @ tweet directed to you (try to reply to some, but don’t feel guilty).
23. Use direct messages for 1-to-1 conversations if you feel there’s no value to Twitter at large to hear the conversation ( got this from @pistachio).
24. Use services like Twitter Search to make sure you see if someone’s talking about you. Try to participate where it makes sense.
25. 3rd party clients like Tweetdeck and Twhirl make it a lot easier to manage Twitter.
26. If you tweet all day while your coworkers are busy, you’re going to hear about it.
27. If you’re representing clients and billing hours, and tweeting all the time, you might hear about it.
28. Learn quickly to use the URL shortening tools like TinyURL and all the variants. It helps tidy up your tweets.
29. If someone says you’re using twitter wrong, forget it. It’s an opt out society. They can unfollow if they don’t like how you use it.
30. Commenting on others’ tweets, and retweeting what others have posted is a great way to build community.

THE NEGATIVES PEOPLE WILL THROW AT YOU

31. Twitter takes up time.
32. Twitter takes you away from other productive work.
33. Without a strategy, it’s just typing.
34. There are other ways to do this.
35. As Frank hears often, Twitter doesn’t replace customer service (Frank is@comcastcares and is a superhero for what he’s started.)
36. Twitter is buggy and not enterprise-ready.
37. Twitter is just for technonerds.
38. Twitter’s only a few million people. (only)
39. Twitter doesn’t replace direct email marketing.
40. Twitter opens the company up to more criticism and griping.

SOME POSITIVES TO THROW BACK

41. Twitter helps one organize great, instant meetups (tweetups).
42. Twitter works swell as an opinion poll.
43. Twitter can help direct people’s attention to good things.
44. Twitter at events helps people build an instant “backchannel.”
45. Twitter breaks news faster than other sources, often (especially if the news impacts online denizens).
46. Twitter gives businesses a glimpse at what status messaging can do for an organization. Remember presence in the 1990s?
47. Twitter brings great minds together, and gives you daily opportunities to learn (if you look for it, and/or if you follow the right folks).
48. Twitter gives your critics a forum, but that means you can study them.
49. Twitter helps with business development, if your prospects are online (mine are).
50. Twitter can augment customer service. (but see above)

By Chris Brogan at http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ideas-on-using-twitter-for-business/

THE FLIGHT OF THE HUMMINGBIRD by Michael Nicoli Yahgulanaas

"Every individual, no matter how small or inconsequential that individual may seem, has the power to make a difference in the lives of others and to make positive changes occur on the largest scales.

This is the message in Flight of the Hummingbird: A Parable for the Environment by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas. The author takes a story from the Quechuan people of South America about Dukdukdiya, a fearless little hummingbird who tries to put out a fire in the Great Forest one drop of water at a time. While the other animals stand at the Forest’s edge, afraid and confused and hopeless, Dukdukiya tirelessly picks up droplets of water in an effort to save her and her companions’ home. Rather than give up like the others, and despite her diminutive physical form, her heart shows its grandness as she does what no one else will. “I am doing what I can,” she says."

This is a book review made by JUSTIN VAN KLEECK on SEPTEMBER 3, 2008

And it is available online at http://blog.sustainablog.org/book-review-flight-of-the-hummingbird-by-michael-nicoll-yahgulanaas/

HUMMINGBIRD BUSINESS

I wanted to find out if there was already any applications similar to a pet hummingbird and I found the Hummingbird app for iPhone. But there is nothing to do with Hummingbirds or sugar levels.
This app is a schedule management software. There is not much to understand to me because the app is in Japanese, but it looks like the "calendar" that comes in the iPhone. Or at least I use the calendar for the same purposes.
In addition to that I wanted to find out why a Hummingbird is associated to business, as this information would be the link between Diabetes UK and my targeted audience.

I found business softwares named Hummingbird.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0FOX/is_n13_v3/ai_21051189/

and further more, one explanation of a business called Hummingbird who quotes a folk tale called "The Flight of the Hummingbird", which is a parable for the environment.

http://hummingbirdenergy.us/faqs/

DIABETES UK ROADSHOW DANCE

To call attention, not only the Roadshow comes in a pink mini bus, there is also a local dance group who volunteers to dance for 10 min before their actual class, and 10 min after.

This is to emphasise and encourage over forties to keep up with physical activity.

They have a local group for each location.

For advertising this event they publish an ad on the local newspaper, on the local GPs and they also appear in BBC breakfast from time to time.

DIABETES UK ROADSHOW PECKHAM

 

 

 

 

 








Roadshow is one of the charity's events


I have spoken to the three organisers in regards to audience and also asked them to explain what is offered on these roadshows. I have also experienced myself the facilities.
Alexandra Preston - one of the organisers who has also a PR and Marketing background - explained  how they have defined the locations for the roadshows (they go to 70 locations for 2 days each over 2 years). She mentioned that they chose locations that are the most deprived areas in the UK. Peckham (which is the roadshow that I have attended) is one of these areas. They also base themselves on ethnical backgrounds. Areas which are highly populated by black or asian ethnical groups are more likely to get diabetes. 
I have asked how they find these information and she told me it is provided by the government as an indices of mass deprivation.

http://data.london.gov.uk/datastore/package/indices-deprivation-2007-ward-level-summary

The roadshow offers a risk assessment - they measure your hight, weight, waist, and ask you a couple of questions in order to find out wether you are at low, increased, moderate or high risk (in which case they will offer to send a letter to your GP and recommend that you make an appointment as soon as possible).

Diabetes UK is also working in partnership to MEND (Mind, Exercise, Nutrition, Do it), which is an organisation aimed at mostly children and families. What they do at the roadshows is that they advise people on how to eat well - portion sizes, calories, what nutrition information they need to know in order to keep a balanced diet. Also, they offer a 6 weeks program in the local gym (free of charge) that you can learn about healthy lifestyle - exercising and eating well.

http://www.mendprogramme.org/home

TOP APP - WHYs and HOWs

http://www.mauronewmedia.com/blog/2011/02/why-angry-birds-is-so-successful-a-cognitive-teardown-of-the-user-experience/

Angry Birds Cinematic Trailer

So everything I research about Angry Birds leads me to think this is a very dull game.
There is no context - birds got angry because the pigs were cooking their eggs - ok, any living thing should care for its babies but that is not strong enough as a story to me.

Angry Birds - number 1 top app in various countries

Angry Birds is an app which is extremely popular in various countries and was voted number one in a series of them (list above).

My intention is to find out why this game is considered to be so good as I played myself and can't seem to see why people like it so much.

From the reviews it says it is very addictive and it is like a puzzle game as it makes use of physics to calculate where the bird will land.

OTHER CHARITIES - APPS

Do something good - Orange UK

This is an app full of actions for you to complete, each of which takes 5 min to be completed on your mobile.

There are all sort of things to do from taking photos of wildlife in your local part to completing surveys. All those actions are helping UK charities.

What is in it for the user? The user gets rewarded every time he/she completes an action and if you give 4 hours (that's 60 actions) he/she'll get music reward from Orange RockCorps Collective.

The British Heart Foundation Recipe Finder

All recipes featured in the app are checked by the BHF dieticians. This app is aimed to people with diabetes, people with high blood pressure, or people who are trying to reduce the cholesterol.

This app's aim is to provide information (nutritional) and assistance on having a healthy balanced diet, not aimed for fundraising.

Battersea Dogd & Cats Home

With this app you can view dogs or cats that are waiting to be adopted whilst on the go. I figure that is it useful for people who are thinking on adopting a dog/cat already, not necessarily who will think of it on the future. My aim is to get people who don't necessarily care about diabetes because they don't know that they are at risk. My aim is to make them worried.

iBreastCheck app

Breakthrough Breast Cancer provides on this app a video tutorial on how to check yourself, the ability to set your own reminders for a breast check and a risk report to assess how your lifestyle could affect your risk of getting breast cancer.

This app is particular interesting to me because there is this lifestyle check which is crucial for people to know if they are at risk of getting diabetes.

Finger Marathon II Lite

This app does not provide any chances for donations. The app was created for fundraisers who will be running the Flora London Marathon but it is nothing but a game (a simple one). The aim of this app is to advertise the full version of the app, which raises money for the charity MIND when bought. There is nothing clever about it and it is also not cost effective since 30% of the purchase of the full version of the app goes to Apple Inc.

 iMutt Dogs Trust app

It is essentially a virtual pet, just like Tamagotchi and The Sims (virtual person or family), which brings to your attention how much effort it takes to look after a dog. The donation part is present on the app but very poor. It is a number to call or a text message service.

Do Something Funny for Money - Red Nose Day

 
This is an existing app which features most of the actions I mentioned on the Challenge App idea. You must have a Red Nose Day Giving Page and you can post updates, messages and links to your page on Facebook and Twitter, you can process any credit card and PayPal donations safely and securely, track donation made to your page and use your address book to send out sponsorship emails to your family and friends.


So this app sums up all I wanted to do but it works only with Red Nose Day.
I need to come up with something extra for this app because I am not convinced that everything has already been created.

Hoopathon Comic Relief app

This is a simple game which costs £1.79 (of which 30% goes to Apple Inc.) that is nothing but a silly challenge that you buy only in support of Comic Relief. Even though it is very silly this app has 84 ratings whereas the useful Red Nose Day app has only 11.

IDEA

I want to reach people's phones so they can text an amount they wish to donate (even £1), and they can do this on the go. I want to make it easier for people to donate so rather than text £1 to this number, they only have to reply to a text message.

GAPS - How does the Facebook app will send a text message?

It can be like skype > but skype needs credits in order to be able to send a text message

or can we use skype for people who have skype app?  (filtered audience and no link to facebook anymore)

OTHER CHARITIES - JUSTGIVING APP

 

I found this app more interesting than the iHobo app because even though iHobo passes a really important message and make people think, you do get annoyed with the app (which is the point anyway) and perhaps it will make you donate once.

JustGiving app is an extension of the website. First you create a page on JustGiving website - similar to the set yourself a challenge page on Diabetes UK - the app will help you keep updating your page with photos and keep track of your progress on fundraising. Also, it allows you to connect with your sponsors as the app sends you a text message when you receive donations.

It is a handy tool

GAPS -

it only works with pages you create in JustGiving website. I could develop an app that would allow you to connect your facebook friends to your blog, which will show to people that you are on the top of the game, making yourself more reliable for people to donate.

to connect from app to people's mobiles> because they are also on the go. 

Similar to whatsapp which allows you to text anyone in the world (who has the same application which is compatible to iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones only). It works through the internet as a kind of messenger and it allows you to send videos, images, voice notes and texts at no extra cost.

http://www.whatsapp.com/

what I wish to do is to create an app that will send text messages to everyone linked to your blog and facebook page that only have to reply a number to donate to your challenge (created in the challenge page of Diabetes UK site)

OTHER CHARITIES - JUSTGIVING

The 10 best ways to use Facebook to fundraise – Justgiving Edition

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Facebook is a huge deal to us here at JG. It provides more than 20% of all our incoming traffic, which means thousands of people are using it to fundraise every day. And it’s getting bigger.

It’s a good time to share our knowledge of the platform as it is. So here’s a start.

All of these tips can be used *in conjunction with* our Facebook app, to help you raise as much as possible for your charity.

Also it’s worth noting, these tips are not Justgiving-specific per se, they’ll work with any fundraising app you use more or less, and we think Facebook can have a much bigger impact for charities than a few other folks. So spread this post, we’d love to see the results from it.

Before we start getting into detail, let’s get the most important part out of the way.

Fundraising is a story. You have to tell that story. Facebook is one of the simplest ways to tell that story, to a group of people who will be interested, interact and support you.

1. Status Updates

Status updates are so easy. It’s the bread and butter of Facebook – telling your network what you’re up to.

Are you using status updates less these days? Are your friends? In my experience, people seem to be updating less and less (which could just mean I need some new friends). That means the overall noise levels are reducing. That’s a good thing, because as a fundraiser you should be posting an update fairly regularly, and it should *always* have your Justgiving page attached to it. Maybe you’ve had a big donation, or gone training, it could be anything. Tell us. We wanna know.

Update. Be rigorous and organised about it. Three times a week is acceptable. After all, you’ve got something to promote that can be a discussion point. It’s a surefire way to be omnipresent on your friend’s newsfeeds so there’s no possible way they *won’t* know what you’re up to.

Also, look out for opportunities to start conversations based on your friend’s status updates. Commenting on statuses has really taken off since Facebook launched it a few months ago.

Maybe enlist a couple of your closest friends to share your page URL on their status too. Remember how everyone donated their status for Barack Obama on election night? Maybe they’ll donate their status to you too. Make them fun, snappy and, if you can get away with it, cheeky.

Cheeky updates spur conversations, which in turn raise awareness in your network.

The golden rule is don’t just post the URL all on its own. Link-baiting alone is kind of annoying and we’ve all seen it (and they’re normally linking to ‘hilarious’ YouTube videos).

2. Dress Your Profile with Notes

New Facebook changed profiles loads. So much, in fact, that I think we’re all still getting used to it. The upside is certain things have been given much more prominence, which is great for people who escape the comfort of their newsfeeds and go profile-surfing.

Posting notes is an effective way of regularly sharing your page. The Facebook sharer can pull out the image from your page and the link, which is all you need. That’s what our app did more or less. So do it, and keep it fresh. If you upload a new photo to your Justgiving page, or edit your personal message, or hit a fundraising milestone, post it as a note.

3. Post Photos

The Facebook photo app is pretty cool. The one thing that really elevates it over other photo apps is the ability to tag people. Make sure you try and capture as much of your story on camera and regularly upload photos, tagging yourself and anyone else in them as necessary. Photos lookMASSIVE on profiles now, so get snapping. Also, make sure your profile pic is suitably related to what you’re up to.

4. Do Video. Seriously.

The barrier to creating videos has lowered so much, there’s almost no excuse to not make a video of what you’re doing. Phones do video. My camera does video. I’m pretty sure the toaster will do video soon enough. Video is an extraordinarily powerful medium to get stories and concepts across to people quickly. You’ve got a few options with Facebook video:

- use the Facebook video app. This is great for short videos, especially if your friends are in it. It has the same tagging functionality as the Photos app, so can spread through newsfeeds effectively.

- use a dedicated video site like YouTube or Vimeo. Both YouTube and Vimeo have pretty awesome Facebook integration. If you’re already using them then make sure you share the videos in your newsfeed or you can use the dedicated applications.

5. Events

If you’re actually doing an official event, like a marathon for example, then search for it and see if it’s listed on Facebook. If it is, add yourself to it.

If you’re doing your own thing and you want others to take part, then you can build your own event on Facebook and send it to your friends. Don’t build an event around just the *page* because, well, that’s a bit annoying.

6. Groups vs. Pages

You should definitely build a group. Invite everyone to it. Those who actually join are the ones who you can lean on a bit harder. Get some forum discussions going, don’t let it stagnate. The other good thing about Groups is they act as the bridge to other Facebookers who you might not be friends with. They can be a very powerful networking tool, especially around fundraising. We’ve seen some really interesting examples with campaigns aligning themselves around their Facebook group. Like with Wossy and that bus.

Just do a search for ‘justgiving’ on facebook and have a look through some of the groups. There are some great examples in there.

Just don’t throw a house party or anything. Things could get messy.

Also, I recommend Groups over Pages. Pages work much better if you’re a band or a famous person, since everyone becomes a ‘fan’. I don’t know about you, but most donors don’t like being referred to as your fans. Pages are good for broadcasting to people, but Facebook works best when you’re having a conversation about stuff and not just trumpeting to people without listening back.

7. Facebook Mail

The internal messaging system in Facebook is really, really powerful. It’s really good. It’s a lot more effective than standard email because it threads messages properly and integrates well with your registered email address too.

So this tip is an easy one. Use it.

Nine times out of ten it works better than your normal email software (especially if you’re saddled with Outlook or Hotmail, in particular. Or even worse, the dreaded Lotus Notes). It works great for group emails and even better for one-to-one comms.

Don’t underestimate the power of writing to people individually. It will yield much better results than sending the same message to everyone.

You can also dissect your friends into different groups and write a different message to each one. You could have a colleagues group, for example, that might be a bit more formal than the message you’d write to your bestest buds.

Think about how you would carve up your contacts based on how you know them and write some sample messaging. It could make hundreds of pounds worth of difference and keep people happy too. Plus you get to track it all from the comfort of your Facebook account. Win.

8. Network with your charity

Ah yes. The benefactor! Quite a few charities have an official (or sometimes unofficial) presence on Facebook. Find it. Connect with them. Share your tips and stories with the fundraising team so they can pass on the goodness to others.

9. Don’t forget to say thanks

Say thanks. A lot.

Wall-post a thankyou note when somebody sponsors you. It acts as a thanks AND a reminder to others in the newsfeed that they need to sponsor you because other people are. Double trouble.

When your activity is over don’t forget to thank people collectively and individually. Let them know in as much detail as you can how much of a difference everyone has made together through your activity. It’s the end of the story. Make sure it gets told.

10. A few other things to think about in no particular order

- think about the intensity of your facebook promotion. Try and find the balance of keeping it regular without becoming overbearing. Ask for feedback if you think you’re pushing it too much from a close friend.

- lots of other sites have very tight integration with Facebook. Justgiving doesn’t yet, but we’re figuring it out. Which of those sites can help spread your story? Is it worth using them? Do you use them already and haven’t set up the integration yet? Get. On. It.

- Have a long, hard look at your privacy settings. The more closed things are, the harder it is to get the message out beyond the inner circle of your friends.

- Structure your activity into three acts. Like a movie or a play. Beginning, middle and end. Always have the story at the heart of what you do. I know I’ve said that loads already, but it’s soooo important.

I think that covers it for now. The next step is for you guys to tell us what has worked in the comments. You can do that here or join 8,000 or so other lovelies on the Justgiving fan page.

Have a good December people. Don’t forget you can follow JG on Twitter too for more regular, bite-sized news.