Delayed Message with Social Media

One of the common reasons that cause companies to fail with social media is the delay in message delivery. Twitter thrives on immediacy. If your organization requires approval from legal for each message that you deliver, you will not be effective with social media tools like Twitter. If you cannot deliver your message in a timely manner, don't bother entering the realm of social media. If you insist on using Twitter and other social media tools unsuccessfully, you will be placing your brand at risk. It would be better to avoid the space altogether than to have a mediocre presence.

Twitter was designed to allow people to communicate freely and to aid in disseminating messages quickly and easily. If you are protecting your updates, you are limiting the ability of your message. It is possible to succeed while protecting your updates, but be sure that you have a strong brand that people want to receive information from before you use this approach. For the majority of companies, protect your updates could easily be the kiss of death. If it is not easy to receive your message, most people will not be willing to listen.

Many people have approached Twitter as a one-way conversation. While this can be successful for some organizations, the majority will find it necessary to follow at least some of their followers. The organizations that can thrive without following others are typically short lived relationships like concerts and festivals. These accounts are only interested in building buzz for a short period of time. If your goal is to use Twitter to communicate with your customers, you must respond to your followers. One easy way to track what others say about you is to create an RSS feed based on search terms. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this concept click here. One of the best ways to build brand loyalty is to respond to your followers when they talk about you. Be supportive and always thank them for retweeting your message.