Three Ways To Build A Brand With Twitter

Using Twitter to further product branding was a hot topic Tuesday at the Twitter Conference in Los Angeles. A panel comprising branding and social media experts fielded questions posed by moderator Guy Kawasaki, former Apple brand evangelist and currently a managing director of Garage Technology Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm. Here are tips on how to make Twitter a successful extension of your product marketing.

1. Use Twitter To Dramatically Increase Customer Engagement.

Starbucks has one -- only one -- person in charge of all its tweeting. That person is Brad Nelson. "It's important to have a single voice, a single personality," said Nelson, who started Twittering in the summer of 2008 and has about 300,000 followers.

That doesn't mean that one person necessarily must do all the tweeting. Andrew Blair, social media strategy consultant for Comcast Entertainment Group (E! , G4TV, Mystyle, and Fearnet) said some companies offer social media training for employees so they can have numerous employees tweeting about their brand. Intel, for example, he said, offers a certification for employees and now has 900 employees who can evangelize the chipmaker's brand. Training also helps employees stay on message so they don't get into trouble.

Mari Smith, relationship marketing specialist and social media trainer, advised that tweets should be authentic and true to the brand. When the tweets are consistent, a brand's following will grow. Twitter's custom background and single landing page were also key to that continuity, so important in successful branding. "I'm always marketing myself," she said. "You want to get followers to be engaging, not so much pushing content. I'd rather be the voice that is remembered [rather than simply] heard."

2. Tweet Early, Tweet Often.

Starbuck's Nelson generally tweets a couple of times in the morning, followed by a couple in the afternoon and then rounds out the day with two in the evening. The company wants to engage in conversation, but doesn't want to deluge followers with spam-like activity, said Nelson. He mostly tweets to start a dialog -- like talking about his morning Joe -- rather than to push his company's product. Kawasaki added that sometimes he retweets something he finds very interesting two or even three times during the day. That way, he said, his tweets have a better chance of being seen by followers who might receive hundreds of tweets daily.

3. Use Twitter To Drive Followers To Your Web Site.

The panelists discussed the Twitter platforms they use on their desktops -- which included twhirl, Seesmic, ubertwitter and HootSuite -- as well as on their phones -- which included ubertwitter (again) and Tweetie. One of the most valuable benefits to Twitter, said Mark Suster, partner at investment firm GRP, is its ability to quickly and easily share URLs within a huge community. "If you want to build relationships, you have to have more than just 140 characters. You have to drive them to your Web site," Suster said. Any business should be able to easily tell its story by detailing the company's founding, having a contest or hosting a blog, he noted.

For instance, added Smith, even the most mundane product could host a Twitter account and then engage followers by asking how the product is used? Is it being used now? What is the best thing about the product?

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