Now Twitter presents users with a friendly message asking “What are you doing?” and a space to fill in with 140 characters about just that.  People who sign up to the service can receive other peoples/businesses messages by “following” them.  Following an account causes the updates they post to appear on the home page of the user following them.  To be heard though, you need to have people following you.

Simplicity seems to be at the core of Twitter’s popularity.  With only 140 characters to work with, messages need to express their meaning in a small space.  Twitter is not profitable but it was recently announced in the press that it may charge for corporate profiles, recognition that businesses have moved on to Twitter to market to the large number of users gathered there.  Twitter profiles with hundreds of followers are being auctioned on eBay.  Twitter is the new “next big thing” and businesses are again trying to figure out how to market to the people gathered there.

One of the challenges of engaging to advertise over social media is the significant investment of time required.  It is not enough to create a profile and expect users to stumble across it – businesses need to be proactive and engage.  Some businesses on Twitter do just this with a combination of announcing business news while also chatting with potential and existing customers.  Other businesses use Twitter as a broadcast only platform.  Yet others create a profile and abandon it.  Only those who engage reap any benefit.

Most social media from MySpace though Facebook to Twitter can only be used for marketing through engagement.  Creating then abandoning social profiles can reflect badly on the brand and will not be as effective at communicating to customers with. Engagement needn’t take a tremendous amount of time.  Understanding and managing expectations as well as engagement can result in valuable brand engagement.

To engage effectively on Twitter as a business there are several steps you should take.  First step is to sign up as your business/brand name and “follow” some of the suggested people that Twitter offers.  Look at what they do.  Spend no more than an hour in this research phase.  Understand the flow of the posts, the information communicated and the response rate to messages directed at these individuals.  The research phase should give a feel for the type of communication which is most effective.

This kind of engagement is possibly more within the territory of the brand manager and marketing but be aware that your employees may already be Twittering.  Utilise these existing experts within your company to help drive your understanding forward.  The best brand engagement is a mix of PR and personal engagement.  As Twitter only broadcasts to those who opt-in, it is essential to add value to those who choose to receive updates so previews of new releases, engaging users in consumer research or access to exclusive specials or advance ticket ordering can really drive opt-in.  Additionally promoting your Twitter profile through regular mailings will help increase readership.

Twitter has become very popular and has a community of tens of thousands of users.  Twitter is getting larger by the day as more and more people adopt it after hearing about it from celebrities such as Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross.  Much like Facebook and MySpace, a company does need to engage however there is great potential to push brand awareness out through this channel and create brand fans and champions.  Engagement is the key to success