As our week-long focus on Twitter draws to a close I thought it would be useful to interview a leader (some would say casualty) of the Twitter phenomenon. Stefan is a self-confessed Twitaholic. He justifies his addiction by virtue of his position at the agency heading up our social media group. I couldn't tear him away from his monitor long enough to conduct a face-to-face interview so we agreed to this Twitterview.Â
@Brandranter: Why do you use Twitter?
@TheDuffyAgency: Started using Twitter to keep up with friends in US, then to make new friends, now use it find news, ideas, suggestions & recommendations.
@Brandranter: What are your greatest Twicheivements to date?
@TheDuffyAgency: I've expanded my network in amazing ways. I can get help from people in Sweden, Brazil, US & elsewhere by sending out a short message.
@Brandranter: What are your top 3 unmet needs as a twitterer?
@TheDuffyAgency: 1. Automated FollowFriday - I forget to recommend the people that really helped me out in the week. A site that helps with that would be helpful.
2. No Fail Whale - Anyone that uses Twitter knows that if traffic picks up, it will crash. More stability would be a huge improvement.
3. Multiple accounts in Tweetdeck - I run multiple Twitter accounts, it would be nice to have all the accounts running through Tweetdeck.
@Brandranter: What are your top 3 shortcomings of Twitter?
@TheDuffyAgency: 1. You can become too focused on getting followers that you forget to meet people offline.
2. Once you get a large number of followers keeping up with tweets can be impossible.
3. Learning how to use Twitter as your understanding of it and followers grow.
@Brandranter: What are your top 5 twitter tools and what do they do?
@TheDuffyAgency: 1. Tweetdeck - allows me to monitor accounts, create groups for friends, track words and translate tweets. It's the base of my daily use.
2. Splitweet - I can login to multiple Twitter accounts at once instead of having to log into Twitter every time I want to use an account.
3. Twitstat - It allows me to see what my Twitter useage is, who I talk to and what I tweet most about. Great analytics tool.
4. Twitterfeed - This is a great tool if you have a site that updates a lot. You put your RSS feed in and it updates your Twit stream.
5. Socialtoo - Find out who follows you and who quits you with a daily email. Best way to track your followers
6. Friend or Follow - Best way to trim people that aren't following you back.
@Brandranter: What business applications do you feel twitter has?
@TheDuffyAgency: You can use it broadcast a message, get customer feedback, promote a contest, break news, build your brand, & 100's of other reasons.
@Brandranter: Top 5 ways marketers are using Twitter?
@TheDuffyAgency: 1. Find the people that are interested in your brand or subject.
2. Address concerns that people have towards a product.
3. Promote an offline event like a concert, social cause or contest.
4. Promote a company by providing information related to the company.
5. Share links to news of interest.
@Brandranter: What advice would you give to someone getting started using Twitter?
@TheDuffyAgency:Â You get out of Twitter what you put into it. The more you use the site, the more important it will become to your business.
@Brandranter: If you could only follow five people, who would they be and why?
@chrisbrogan - He is a social media guru that isn't caught up in his own hype.
@Raiha - She's leading the offline social media campaign by creating Tweetups.
@linnetwoods - Her daily trivia challenges are one of the highlights of my day.
@svartling - He's a great resource for social media news.
@Maydbs - She's one of my personal favorite people on Twitter. I talk with her almost every day even though she lives in Brazil.