If there were a single piece of advice I could give company execs who are trying to use Twitter as part of their marketing tool set, I'd say
Be mindful of your time.
The time you spend is valuable, and if you were to assign your hourly rate to everything you do each day, spending an hour or more on Twitter starts to get pricey.
Effective Twitter for Business in 15 Minutes a Day
There are fabulous books about Twitter Marketing, some mentioning an hour a day (I've read them; they're good); but, if you don't have an hour to spend each day, you can still make good use of Twitter.
Set a 15 minute timer each morning (around the time you check your email for the day), and do the following:
1. Follow any new followers from the previous day provided they fit your acceptable criteria. Only you can decide what that is, but in general, follow people back unless they are vulgar or tweet about money-making schemes or things you'd prefer not to be bothered with each day. If you use a service like SproutSocial (I recommend), you can see what each person is tweeting before you decide to follow them.
What this does: This is part of intentional growth (which is discussed in The Strategist). In the beginning, when you are following fewer than 100 accounts, you will still be able to see everyone's tweets and not feel overwhelmed. As you start to follow more accounts, you will need to use lists to sort everyone into appropriate categories. If someone (or many people) you are following are not producing valuable content, simply unfollow them.
2. Set up 3 to 4 retweets of things that fit your area of expertise. To make this easier, find retweets from people that you follow, or for best engagement results, specifically find things to retweet from people you have just followed in step 1. Scan your Twitter feed (again, made easier with SproutSocial), pick out 3 to 4 things that you believe have value, and schedule them. Note: I make it a priority to always click a link before I retweet it, first to make sure it actually works and then to quickly scan the page to make sure it's quality. You can always read it thoroughly later (or if you are a speed reader, just read it right then).
What this does: This type of activity is to keep your Twitter account active, engaged, and to stay relevant, attracting more followers and setting yourself for people to start retweeting your updates in return. It also helps you stay up-to-date with new content and new trends.
3. Set up another 3 or 4 unique, original tweets of your own and schedule them. First, you can reply to someone else's tweet, either in agreement or disagreement. Then, if I were you, I would set up tweets that link to recent posts on my blog, or to other content on my website. Also include a tweet or two that doesn't contain a link (not all tweets need links).
What this does: Replies engage your Twitter audience and can help you connect with someone new. Fresh, original tweets add your own content to the Twitter stream, so that you are providing something of value that is completely your own.
The more you update, the more followers you will attract. It's part of how it works.
Repeat this process daily (I typically exclude Saturdays and Sundays, and holidays, but it's up to you) until you get it down to 15 minutes. But do spend all of the 15 minutes on this; if you find yourself with more time left over, scan your RSS feed subscriptions in Google Reader to find more things to share on Twitter. You want to become a person that has valuable content to share - either your own, or general things your audience can benefit from.
PowerTool: SproutSocial. Check it out.
Image Credit: Alan Levine (flickr)
Effective Twitter for Business in 15 Minutes a Day is a post from: WebbedInkInc.com. © 2010. Share it freely, but please link back to this source.