Global Neighbourhoods

Twitterville Notebook: BreakingPoint's Kyle Flaherty

A majority of the companies that Scoble and I profiled in Naked Conversations were Tech sector companies. There was little choice, since--other than an occasional blogging tailor, most of the activity was at companies like Sun Micro and Microsoft.

What a difference three years makes. Twittervilled is jammed with stories about companies like Rubbermaid, Molson Canada, Starbuck's Good Earth, terrorism, planes landing in cold rivers and citizen upheaval over lame TV ads. Other than the Twitter guys themselves, and Dell Computer, there just aren't a whole lot of tech companies covered in the book.

This is because social media has gone mainstream. A movement that began in the last recession with a bunch of laid-off, pissed-off Silicon Valley geeks now pervades so much of the internet's human interaction.

Yet, the tech sector is where it began, was nurtured and fomented and remains so very much a part of the story.

BreakingPoint Systems will probably be the most technical of the companies that will be covered in Twitterville. I chose it for a few reasons. First, it demonstrates that a relatively small business-to-business company can thrive using Twitter and social media, second because its customers are network engineers, a group that seems collectively proud of a reputation for being tough and demanding customers. Third, the story came to me via Bryan Person, who has a great track record for recommending good stories to me. So when he suggests something I pay top attention based on his track record, which is how it works in Twitterville. Fourth, Kyle Flaherty, Bryan and I are all ex-Bostonians who still root for the Boston Red Sox. That makes us all members of the same Global Neighborhood in Twitterville.

BreakingPoint Systems designs and develops engineering testing equipment for firewalls and application serveers that ensure companies can operate securely at the speed of the internet. Headquartered in Austin, the company has customers all over the world, including Juniper Networks, Enterasys, NetQoS, Stonesoft, to name just a few.

Flaherty is  director of marketing for BreakingPoint Systems. He got into Twitter in December 2006, making him among the first 20,000 users out of about five million today. Here's what he told me:

Q1.  What social media tools does Breaking Point use besides Twitter? How, when and why did Breaking Point start using Twitter? How does Twitter interact with the other social media tools?

I'm a huge believer in listening before engaging. Pam O'Neal, VP of Marketing and I both started at  in April 2008 and immediately put together a communications plan that was heavy on social media and community engagement. The very first thing we did was build a set of tools that monitored conversations across a wide spectrum of social networks including Twitter and for a few weeks we were in a 'listen-only' mode. It became readily apparent that Twitter was going to be an important network for us

Our blog is at the heart of our community activity. People go there to get in-depth information about our product, code tips, security hack information and more. Twitter is now an important part of our blogging program. We get ideas from followers or use it to keep up with industry news. It helps us attach the blog to our other social media activities. The other key parts of our social communications program are LinkedIn and FriendFeed. We use Twitter to not only cross-promote these community areas, but in many instances, Twitter's API allows us to connect to these tools and seamlessly communicate information or news to all of our social media groups at once.

At first, Twitter was a way for BreakingPoint to talk directly to network engineers about their pain points, commiserate a bit with them and offer up some bit of helpful information. Now in our 9th month on Twitter it has become a critical tool for us in terms of community engagement, industry research, customer feature requests, competitive positioning and lead generation. Ultimately I believe this is because we listened intently to the conversation first and got involved on the topics others were discussing, not simply another means for a company to push out press releases.

Q2. You mentioned that you had a lead come in on Twitter while you were making an instructional video on how BreakingPoint uses a URL-shortening application. Was that just a coincidence?

On my personal blog I share a lot of the tools and strategy that we use for BreakingPoint, particularly how folks can easily, and cost-effectively, prove some measure of ROI of their social media activities.

One day, I was screencasting a video on how to use BudURL, web analytics and Twitter. It was intended to  to demonstrate the impact of a white paper launched on our blog. I got a bit lucky because as I was taking the viewer through posting the blog, talking about it on Twitter and then watching the click-through in analytics, an email alert appeared on the bottom of my screen showing that I had gotten an email alert of a new lead arriving. I immediately looked at the information from the lead and showed how the IP addresses matched the one that had originally come in through Twitter. I was hoping this would happen and since it happens increasinglyy, I figured it would, but I did get lucky that it happened that quickly on camera!

Q3. How many leads would you say Twitter has generated for BreakingPoint?  Are they leads you would not otherwise have acquired?

So far, we can point directly to a few dozen inbound leads having originated from Twitter and as they move along the sales cycle I fully anticipate sharing more in-depth information in terms of lead quality. The leads arriving through Twitter are from companies that would most likely have become leads at some point through other activities. I do believe, however, that we are reaching people more quickly and with more impact because they are already in a conversations with us on Twitter, know so much about our product, and perhaps most important, our company culture.

Q4. Are you the primary Tweeter for both your personal blog, EngageinPR and BreakingPoint Labs? How do you decide what to post where? Does that ever get confusing or complicated?

I am the primary Tweeter for BreakingPoint, but we have a full team of folks helping.  I start every morning scanning our Twitter searches for folks who have started conversations about topics of interest, mentioned us overnight or are looking for some help. The early morning Tweets from @BreakingPoint are typically filled with news information or replies/DMs to folks. As the day goes on however it becomes a bit more interactive and Pam O'Neal and I are constantly sharing information that we can get out on Twitter.

Our ace in the hole--as it should be for any B2B Twitter--are our subject matter experts. BreakingPoint Labs is not only the name of our blog, but our team of researchers working at BreakingPoint who are consistently coming up with new features for our products.  We are lucky, because this group not only provides us with amazing content on our blog, but they have embraced Twitter at the same time. The beauty of this process is that we have a corporate Twitter brand that allows us to talk directly to our community, but we add to that with all of these independent thinkers who help provide a unique perspective.

I think, all individuals who also manage a corporate Twitter strategy get confused at times, I certainly do. Between monitoring my personal Twitter conversations, the BreakingPoint feed and all of my colleagues, it is a wonder I don't "@" or "DM" the wrong people all the time. Fortunately, I've only tweeted incorrectly once when I told my personal Twitter community about 10 Gigabit testing, not surprisingly I didn't hear from anyone.

Q5 Talk to me about Twitter as a community tool. What is the value of that commnity to Breaking Point? What is the value of Breaking Point to that community?

Any business revolves around it's community, not simply it's customers.

On Twitter we get to talk with journalists, analysts, partners, prospects, customers and even competitors. Has there ever been that sort of instant focus group available for B2B marketers? When I look through the folks that are following us and I realize the company they keep I'm always amazed that more B2B companies haven't figured this out yet.

The community of people we now have on Twitter has become extremely important for us, not simply as potential business leads because that cannot be the reason to get involved, but more as a sounding board and an early alert tool to the latest industry news and needs. It takes the form of a person live Tweeting a BreakingPoint product demo in Paris, hearing about the latest security vulnerabilities, reading about what people think of our competitors products or simply sharing the latest blog posts with each other.  Using Twitter BreakingPoint gains an additional level of insight into our business, but in this case it is from an outside and independent perspective; something companies never before could obtain so readily AND be able to respond to so efficiently.

When I look through our Twitter feed and the conversations that we've had, our value is in bringing folks highly-useful information about network equipment testing and security testing, but never relying solely on our own content. We make a concerted effort to share different viewpoints and promote the ideas of others...if it is of interest to us while reading, we will share it with our community. I know we are providing value to our community when I see folks retweeting the links we are sharing and posting up pictures of the posters that we sent along.

Q6. Would you say Twitter is better as a lead generator or as a community engagement tool?

Certainly a community engagement tool. Twitter should not be looked at as a B2B lead generation tool, much the same as public relations shouldn't be looked at as a B2B lead generation tool...but if you do it correctly the leads WILL come in through those activities. All good marketers know how to listen first, engage second, promote third and sell fourth. Twitter allows you to do the first three, but only in order and puts the fourth in the hands of the follower to decide when they want to be sold to (and become a lead).

Q7. The conventional wisdom is that Twitter is more useful for Business-to-customers than B2B. What advantages do you see for it in B2B?

Throughout my career in communications and marketing I've worked in B2B  technology and a few times I tried to go over and work on the B2C side of thing only to be turned away because "you just wouldn't understand how it works". It seems like there is this same mentality happening with Twitter and B2B and to be quite frank I think it ridiculous.

B2B companies should be the first folks diving into Twitter, they are spending enough time and money paying for industry research and surveys to figure out what their customers want when they could be just entering the conversation directly with these folks. B2B has got to realize that blogs, Twitter and social networks are not simply another repository to dump your white paper or data sheets, they are where you will get your ideas for your next white paper, hear what people hate about your data sheet and as a side benefit a few feature requests they want to see in the next rev.

B2B may mean "business to business", but on each ends of those businesses are people who are buying, people who are using and people who are influencing decisions. Depending on your business Twitter may just have a few dozen of those folks hanging around, but who cares, numbers are the least important part of getting directly involved with your community.

Q8. What has BreakingPoint Systems achieved with Twitter that it might not otherwise have accomplished?

BreakingPoint is a fast-growing technology start-up in a niche industry competing against two archaic public companies for market share, Twitter gives us an enormous leg up in getting folks to first pay attention to what we have going on, but secondly rally behind us and our drive to alter the test equipment market. Twitter has allowed our company to be better recognized, get involved in conversations with enormous companies that we may have had a difficult time attracting and hone our own business to responds more quickly to the needs of our present and future users.  Tactically however we also have used Twitter to name our monthly email news letter, get input on our testing poster, tell us what colors they liked on our website...we have a built-in focus & fan group that is ready to help as long as we keep up our end of the bargain.

Q9. What advice do you have for B2B companies considering using Twitter?

Listen first. Listen second. Engage third. Don't set up that Twitter account because you heard it was the next hot thing or it was mentioned during your favorite sitcom, do it because you've listened to the conversation and found that you have a voice that could contribute. Now when I say contribute I do not mean just Twitter yoru news releases and blog posts, Twitter is not a newswire and this is the biggest mistake I see B2B companies making on Twitter.

As you start to engage with the community on Twitter sit down and write down your strategy. This should include a mission statement of what your ultimate goal is, the topics you will discuss and how you will conduct yourself on Twitter each day. Stick to that plan!

Get others in the company involved, either with the main Twitter account or their own. The more the merrier, but make sure they also know your plan!

Don't just follow back anyone that follows you, be discerning in who you are following, build a solid core of folks who can help you build your business. Currently BreakingPoint follows less folks than we have following us, that is not a bad thing.

Create a Twitter background that gels with your corporate brand and website, make it an extension of your brand experience.

After you have successfully listened and engaged, I then recommend to folks to start building in some solid measuring tools so that you can start determining the impact Twitter is having on your business. Again this is not the primary goal, but if you are doing it correctly you are going to see leads and eventually business come in from Twitter, best to be able to track that and report it up the ladder.

Q10 Additional comments?

I'm really excited about what Twitter is going to do for B2B companies, particulary technology start-ups, in 2009. With a difficult economic environment it is paramount that all businesses find the most cost-effective and impactful communications techniques and Twitter can give any B2B start-up a competitive advantage.

Twitterville Notebook:Gourmet Gastronomer's Danny Gabriner

The entire story of Gourmet Gastronomer, as of this writing spans about about six weeks. I am using it in the Twitterville chapter on  small business because it displays how Twitter can help somebody turn a personal passion into an actual business.

Such is the case--or will be the case--of Danny Gabriner, 23, whose day job is working as an analyst for CNET in San Francisco. But his heart belongs to a very large community known as "Foodies." He loves cooking, eating and sharing food.

TastyBuds, Danny's personal blog was his food outlet on Dec 10, he announced he would start messing around with Twitter to see where it would take him and then made first actual Twitter post on Dec. 16 as Gastronomer. This would lead to his new, more professional food blog, Gourmet Gastronomer.

With every intention of turning Gastronomer "into a real business" Gabriner explained that Gastronomer "has morphed rapidly, and continues to grow and change almost daily." But it got started on Twitter as Gabriner started using search tools to find people who shared his interest, or building a Global Neighborhood as I call it.

He started with Twitter Search  where he typed in such obscure terms as "bechemel" and "soffrito", two gourmet sauces, to find "people who were really into food.  After I had around 10 or so of these people, I was able to see who they were talking to, and expand my community further," he told me.

It was a start. Next he started exploring Tweetworks, a Twitter adjunct that lets you find groups on a multitude of subjects. There, he started finding a few dozen foodies at a time and he started following them on Twitter.   Twubble and Mr. Tweet, two site designed to let you find new people on Twitter by shared interests. The lists of Twitterville Groupies started growing faster.

Soon Gabriner had a few hundred followers, all sharing his interest in food and cooking. He had built a Global Neighborhood. Now, when he wanted to talk about food, there were people who cared what he had to say and who could contribute new insight and information into the conversation. This all took a few weeks.

Next, Gabiner, used to Twitter to invite other foodies as guest bloggers to his Gourmet Gastronomer site. He received six enthusiastic responses.This small group of food enthusiasts decided to take the project yet another step forward.

We decided that there would be a Macaroni and Cheese-Off, where everyone would post a picture and article about their recipe, and then there would be a giant vote. I once again asked on Twitter if anyone wanted to participate, and we ended up with 10 contestants. During our Mac and Cheese-Off my blog traffic skyrocketed to several thousand hits per day--up from a few dozen.

Gabriner had learned of the virtues of using Twitter and a blog in conjunction. One is very fast but constrained to shallow content. The other is longer and deeper, but does not draw traffic as easily. In a short time, each of these projects had elevated Gabriner to a noted online food enthusiast. But there's just so much you can accomplish online talking about food and looking at pictures.

Gabriner decided it was time to expand Gourmet Gastronomer into a real-life experience in the tangible world.  He produced a giant party in the San Francisco area where he lives. "I smoked a ton of food (ribs, salmon, beef shoulder). We cooked a lot of pizzas, and I sent everyone home with Tupperware full of food."

He is already planning events that combine the different activities. For example, there will be a "Soup Off," along the lines of the Mac and Cheese-off, promoted on Twitter, hosted on the blog, but this time,  there will be a party where the Gastronomers will cook up batches of the three winning soups for a live tasting and final vote.

"I have already locked in so many people from Twitter who want to participate that I have had to limit it to 20 entrants," he told me.

Gourmet Gastronomer is now a thriving Global Neighborhood. Grabiner has signed up abut 15 people to contribute to his blog in various categories. All of the tangible activities are now in San Francisco, a recognized hub for food enthusiasts. You can see how a business model is forming. You can see how the activities in one city could be held in food hubs throughout the world. Through Twitter, the young entrepreneur recently signed up someone with a PhD in Food Sciences, who teaches at Italy'sL'Universita di Science Gastronomiche, who happens to frequently visit San Francisco.

Twitterville Notebook : United Linen's Scott Townsend

The opening story in my business-to-business chapter will be  about IBM and how over 1000 of its 370,000 or its employees in about 150 countries are tweeting to get closer with customers and each other. The story that will follow it is the case of @UnitedLinen, a regional professional uniform and linen laundry service located in Bartlesville Okla., a town located northeast of Tulsa, not far from the Arkansas, Missouri and Kansas borders. It's population is less than one-tenth the number of IBM's employees.

United Linen was founded during tougher times than these. Gerald Saddoris started in back in 1936, during the Great Depression when Oklahoma was extremely hard hit. He and his wife started taking in laundry from neighbors to get by.  Today United Linen is owned and operated by Mat Saddoris, grandnephew to the founder. They have about 140 employees and clean about 15 million pounds of napkins, tablecloths, uniforms and even welcome mats each year. Many of the senior team members started at entry level jobs. The bookkeeper began press shorts. Scott Townsend, the marketing director interview here, began as a route driver.

The company blog is filled with little nuggets such as, if you laid all the napkins the company launders in a single day end-to-end, they would stretch for 24 miles. There are videos on how to fold table napkins into swans, crowns and lilies.

What I think makes this interview not just interest, but valuable is this. If a little regional professional laundry service can benefit from using Twitter, than a great number of companies who do not quite see it, are likely to get there.

1. In so many ways, United Linen is an old-fashioned, family-owned Heartlands business. How, when and why did you choose to use social media?

There is one word that comes to mind when trying to answer your question: “relationships.” Among the many qualities I can point to that have served us well through the last 73 years, developing strong relationships with our customer is one of our strongest attributes.  We see social media as a great way to supplement the relationships our customer service reps [CSRs] already enjoy.

We started looking at social media tools several years ago.  Once we decided that we wanted to enhance the relationships our CSRs had with their customers, then we started looking for ways to do that.  We started listening to podcasts, watching videos, sitting in on webinars and reading marketing books. Along the way, we kept hearing the message about old marketing practices being a monologue and new marketing practices being a dialog.  I have to hand it to our President/Owner of United Linen Mat Saddoris and Catherine Smith, VP of Sales/Service/Marketing for allowing the company to explore all the new possibilities in marketing, try new things and make some mistakes.

One of the first things we did was explore Twitter to post the scores of the local baseball team we sponsored. But our cellphone provider did not support the short code necessary to post Twitter messages. So that didn’t work-- but the idea stayed with us.

Next, we started looking at blogging and created the one you see today.

We also looked at social networking sites such as LinkedIn, MySpace and Facebook. Ultimately we started with Facebook because it fit our personality and the numbers pointed to the demographics we wanted to reach.We also developed a Youtube channel and a Viddler account because of the “show and tell” aspect.

We also realized it was important for us to start using and protecting our brand name before someone else grabbed it. . I know of an instance where local business was locked out of using their name in Facebook or MySpace because someone else had started a “fan” page using the business’s name. [NOTE: There are worse cases. In Twitterville, I'll discuss Mayo Clinic whose name was poached on MySpace and the logo tweaked to show someone being executed in an electric chair]

Another reason we looked at social media was, we realized what helped us reach our customers today, will not necessarily be what helps us reach our customers--and our customers reach us--tomorrow.  OK, so we’ve been in business for 73 years.  The question we need to ask ourselves is where will we be in another 73 years?  We have to keep up-to-date with our marketing efforts to stay relevant in our marketplace.

2. Has your thinking about Twitter changed or evolved since you first started using it? How so?

When I first heard about Twitter two years ago, I thought it sounded cool from a geeky perspective, but couldn’t imagine how we could use it. Who cared what we were doing?!  Then the idea for sending baseball scores came up and we started to see how we might be able to use this microblogging tool to the benefit or our customers and our community.  We’ve gone from thinking “Why should we Twitter?” to “What should we Twitter?”

3. How do you coordinate your blog with your Twitter account? How is Twitter different in your experience from the blog? What other social media platforms do you use or have considered using?

 We try to use one in conjunction with the other. What I’ll usually do is write a post and then send a tweet about the blog post or something about it that I hope the reader will find interesting.   I read somewhere that Twitter is like a fast moving stream of information that flows by.  I see a blog as a something much slower and deeper.

4. Has Twitter changed United Linen? How so?

Twitter has helped United Linen gain tremendous exposure.  Because of Twitter, we have made some great contacts and have followers from all over the country.

Twitter has helped change United Linen because of the people we follow.  There have been countless times I’ve read a tweet pointing to article or blog post that I’ll then go read and learn from.  And because of that, Twitter, I guess you could say, has helped shape the way we market to our customers because of what we have learned from other marketers posting on Twitter.  Twitter is a great educational tool.  If you want to learn more about marketing, start following some marketing professionals.  If you want to learn more about stay-at-home moms, start following them…you get my point.

5. United Linen is privately held, but it posts its monthly P&L for employees to see and this of course means it gets around. What was the thinking behind doing that? Do you think United Linen's culture of transparency had something to do with blogging and Twittering? 

We work at being transparent. That’s one of our core values. And so it just seemed natural that we let our employees know what’s going on from a corporate and bottom-line perspective. They work hard to improve the P+L every day so why not let them see what the score is.  And you are right, the desire to be transparent and authentic helped us decide to start a blog and send out tweets to our customer, followers and fans. Using social media is a way to increase the opportunity for a conversation to take place between us and our customers and fans.

Twitter and all the other tools we use help United Linen be more proactive. For example, with the most recent ice storm, because of the channels we have to our customers, we were able to:

• Be transparent. We let customers known that there would be a problem with getting to them  with their deliveries and that there would be delays due to the hazardous road conditions.
•  Be proactive. We put a plan in place to reach our customers as soon and as safely as possible.     Then we posted what that plan looked like through our website, our blog and our Facebook page. We tweeted the delivery updates and we called and/or left messages for all of our customers.

This is a great example of using all the social media and networking tools in concert with each other to affect a positive customer experience.

7. How is tweeting for a regional businesses services company different than a global company, or a consumer sales organization?

A global consumer sales organization can have customers anywhere in the world. Then you have a regional business such as United Linen where our geographic footprint is defined by a specific service area.  

In our case, we serve all the major markets in Oklahoma, NW Arkansas and SE Kansas.  Although Twitter is far-reaching, we started using it so we could get a feel on how to use it and develop an understanding of its potential. Now we are working on letting our customer base know we are on Twitter, that we have a Facebook page and that we have a blog, etc.  Over the next year I see more and more opportunities for us to hear from our customers through these various channels as well as our customers finding out about our products and services through Twitter and other social media outlets.

8. What advice do you have for a B2B company considering Twitter?

 Start off nice and easy, but start.  Just a couple of suggestions:

• Start following some people on Twitter based on your profession or area of business.  Follow other B2B Twitterers.

• Read an article on using Twitter. There are numerous articles so just Google the topic and you’ll find plenty.

• Contribute to the education of others.  Don’t just lurk or limit your posts to your “sale of the day”.
• Once comfortable, integrate Twitter into your marketing strategy.

9. Can you tell me a great story that happened at r because of @United Linen? 

Two  great stories…one is of a guy, Joseph Zuccaro of the Marketing Consigliere blog.  We had been using Twitter for some time and one day he calls me up and tells me he appointed United Linen as the B2B Twitterer of the Year through his blog.  That was crazy, but fun.  We were just doing what any other self-respecting B2B twitterer would be doing, but he felt compelled to choose us. He did tell me not to expect any cash or prizes.  I kidded him and told him I was expecting an interview on Good Morning America.

The other story is this interview.  If it wasn’t for Twitter, we probably would never have had the chance to be a part of a cool project like Twitterville.  I’m not even sure how you found us, but one day I’m getting a tweet from Shel Israel asking us if we would be willing to talk about our experiences with Twitter from a B2B standpoint.  It was at that moment that I was shaking my head and thinking “WOW!  Shel Israel of Naked Conversations, wants to include us in this major, major topic.  That’s blowing my mind, man!!”  That’s a great story.

10. Additional comments?

 

Twitter is a great way for companies to listen to their customers.  It’s not just about sending a tweet to your customers to let them know what you are doing.  It’s also about increasing your ability to hear what your customers are already saying and giving them another opportunity to tell you what’s going on with your products and service.

Twitterville Notebook: CrowdSPRING's Ross Kimbarovsky

   [Crowdspring's Twittering co-founders Ross Kimbarovsky & Mike Samson. File photo]

CrowdSPRING (the company uses all those CAPS), is an online, Chicago-based global marketplace for creative content buyers and sellers. It's founders  use Twitter extensively to find participants.  Crowdspring (I hate all those caps) will be included in either my Business-to-Business chapter or my Small Business chapter. It is one of several companies that fits snugly into either.

The following are my notes from conversations with Ross Kimbarovsky, company co-founder"

Founded in May 2008, it works quite simply. A potential buyer signs up and announces it is looking for a  logo, website, marketing materials or some other creative content on the CrowdSpring website. The buyer can stipulate deadlines and what they are willing to pay for it. Then a global talent pool of more than 12,000 people in over 140 countries can choose to bid for the work--not with a written proposal but with sample artwork.

The average project gets more than 70 samples for each buyer to review. "Buyers can then review, sort, rate, provide feedback and collaborate with them until both sides are satisfied," Kimbarovsky explained. The back-and-fourth dialog can be as public or private as the buyer wishes it to be. Once the deal is set, Crowdspring handles the necessary paperwork. When it's a done deal, Crowdspring tags a 15% surcharge onto what the buyer pays.

Some of the buyers are well known in the social media community. Author, investor and entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki held a  t-shirt design competition for his new Alltop company and Charlene Li, co-author of Groundswell, [and author of Twitterville's Foreword] paid a mere $400 for the design of her new Altimeter consulting firm logo.

Big brands are also coming in to Crowdspring. A few them include, Epic Records, who contracted a designer for a Judas Priest album design.  Spreadshirt, the custom t-shirt company and ConAgra Foods which used Crowdspring for a private project where competitors never got to see the design.

Kimbarovsky told me that Twitter is at the very core of Crowdspring's marketing strategy, helping the company find both buyers and sellers. Kimbarovsky, co-founder Mike Samson are both active on Twitter as are other employees. Many of their very first customers came to them through Twitter. This was fortunate because the two started with a zero budget for marketing. Instead, they invested their own time on Twitter. Through Twitter, they have met and interacted with thousands of people and from those thousands have picked up several hundred customers.

 Speed is also a factor. "Within minutes of a Twitter mention, we see immediate results - both in terms of followers on Twitter and, many times, users on the Crowdspring site," Kimbarovsky said. He also likes  what Twitter does to brand perception.

"Twitter has helped us expand our brand and prove ourselves as a progressive company who adopts new ideas, new communication methods and is on the forefront of the online world.  In other words, it would be a brand failure for us NOT to be on Twitter.  How can you claim that you're blazing a trail for a new online world and then sit on the sidelines? We've also been able to appear much larger, much more organized and much more impressive than we truly are (unfortunately) by beating the big guys to the punch - being faster, more nimble and more active."

" Twitter is also the fastest, best and most accurate direct response marketing vehicle that I've ever found.  You're welcome to buy a mailing list of small businesses who said they were interested in buying small business services 3 months ago, print some postcards and mail them.  Or, you can put your ear to the ground and listen as hundreds of people a day tweet 'boy, I could sure use a logo for my new business'.  It doesn't get any better than that, " he concluded.

Twitterville Notebook: IBM's Adam C. Christensen

This is my second interview this year on this blog with IBM, a company that continues to impress me with how the company uses social media. Much more than as a marketing conduit, IBM uses social media including Twitter as a communications tool that lets its 380,000 employees located in 150 countries to communicate with each other.

The huge and diverse workforce has a few characteristics that seem ideally suited for Twitter. First, just picture how many mobile workers there are, people away from their office who need to keep in touch at any time and from myriad locations. Whatever number you used, add to it the fact that the company has 120,000 telecommuters.

The company puts a lot of thinking and energy into into how to keep these mobile and telecommuting workers in touch, collaborating and productive. A couple of days ago they announced that in the middle of the worst recession in decades that it exceeded analyst projections for the fourth quarter of 2008. They must be doing something right.

In my last interview with the company, IBMer George Faulkner described some groundbreaking ways the company uses podcasting to keep the company team members in touch. This time around, I turned to Adam Christensen, who is manager of social media communications at the company's Armonk, NY world headquarters.

Here are my notes and quotes from our conversation:

IBM has approximately 1000 employees who identify themselves in Twitterville as IBMers. Mostly they talk to each other and to other members of the company ecosystem.

Twitter developed organically and runs across departments, locations and job functions. There was no topdown mandate. One employee started and influenced another and so on. There are, of course, evangelists who influence a lots of coworkers.

While the company never embarked on an official Twitter strategy,  the result is consistent with IBM's long term strategy for social media: to take a smaller centralized corporate presence in lieu of enabling all employees to engage on their own as part of their jobs in the platforms of their choice.

"Our assumption," Christensen said, "is that the employee will be a much better representation of the company than a couple of guys sitting in corporate. Our business is vast, so to represent the diversity of topics we touch and subject experts we have, we are best served getting average employees to be active in public conversations."

"We aren't interested in creating a few rock stars to be the face of IBM. Our social computing guidelines are very specifically designed to encourage and enable everyone to be active and open. This is true on all platforms, and certainly so on Twitter."

Christensen pointed out that because IBM is not a consumer products enterprise, IBM doesn't even think about using Twitter for sales or customer support. For them, it has become "a very effective ad hoc communications platform. As employees have collected a network around them of fellow IBM colleagues they trust, they've built trust into a system that doesn't exist in traditional hierarchal communications systems."

IBM news spreads faster and more effectively within the company via Twitter than on the company's intranet or blogs. "Those traditional networks still encompass vastly more people, so I don't want to minimize the value of those platforms, but Twitter spreads the news faster, more credibly and more conversationally than other media. It's also created a greater sense of community among IBMers active publicly."

But a second, and in Christensen's view more important Twitter benefit for IBM is that the tool "gets employees smarter. At its core, IBM is comprised of people who are paid to be experts. The ability for them to learn from colleagues inside and outside the company has potentially massive positive implications."

Twitter, he told me, removes the boundaries that have traditionally inhibited knowledge transfer.

"Because of the inherent equality in Twitter's two-way relationship structure and its low threshold for participation, it is the best platform for developing relationships with smart people wherever they are, at whatever company and at whatever level they operate," he explained.

On Twitter, IBMers can build relationships with people from whom they want to learn. They can also contribute what they each know to the collective conversation and by so doing, demonstrate a little thought leadership.

Christensen added a touch of Thomas Friedman to our conversation, observing that Twitter helps the company feel smaller and flatter to the employees who have connected to each other via Twitter.

I also asked him about rumors I had heard about a behind-the-firewall Twitter clone--built by a couple of company hackers in their spare time. A mentioned that I had heard Twitter CEO Ev Williams say he didn't see much use for Twitter behind the firewall.

" I think twitter is mistaken. Our Twitter-like tool bolts on to our instant messaging client, and includes Firefox and LotusNotes plugins.  With that, comes some security and the ability to verify that users are currently employed," allowing them to speak more candidly than they might in public."

In fact, it sounded like the private tool they had created made come closer to a tool called Yammer than Twitter.

I will be writing this up for Twitterville in the next day or two, so please tell me what parts of the IBM story most impress you. This one is going to be a little hard to compress, or so it seems to me.

Twitterville Notebook: Next 3 Chapters

I've been laying out the next chapters for the book, covering business-to-business, small-to-medium business and individuals. For the most part, they will complete the business examples. The following are the companies and people I am considering for inclusion. About half have no idea that I've been looking at the and may decline for one reason or another. Others just may not pan out to be interesting or useful enough for the book.

If you have suggested some content for these chapters, and do not see it, please ping me again. I may have overlooked it. But at this point I am looking for companies and people that have done something either remarkable or add useful practice or incite for business readers.

The next few days would be a great time to suggest new content. I hope to start writing Ch. 6 this week end.

Here's the outline:

Ch. 7 Business to Business Tweeters

• IBM
• United Linen
• SoDexHo Careers
• Pitney Bowes
• Orange Business Services
• Breaking Point Technologies

Ch. 8 Small Business. Long Reach

• The Twitter Plumber (@stoncray)
• Seesmic
• Stocktwits
• Crowdspring
• Home Repair Guy

Ch 9 One Person. Big World

• Laura Fitton
• Jim Long
• Chris Brogan
• Jeremiah Owyang

Please let me know what you think of my choices. Please advise me on who to add. BTW, over 60 percent of Twitterville's content comes from recommendations I have received from people on Twitter. If you are one of them, I will include you in the book's acknoledgements.

Twitterville Notebook: TOC of 1st Third

I need to dust off the introduction and then I am finally done with revisions to the first third of Twitterville. It took me a few days longer than I had expected. Some of it was rewriting my own work, revising some writing that needed it, filling in holes that my publisher had pointed out. But the biggest delays were caused by plugging in fast-breaking news such as the Henry Ford Medical live surgery and the Hudson River landing of US Airways Flight #1549. I also lost almost a half day to the Obama inauguration. I think that will only be a paragraph in the book, but I could not know that without watching several hours of the event while following it at the #inaug09 hashtag where most Twitter coverage was posted.

The Twitterville story keeps getting bigger and this is a danger to a book author. This is not like a blog or even working for a weekly magazine. Every day some news breaks on Twitter and I have to decide if that new is sufficiently enduring to be interesting in September when the book comes out and for a couple of years after.

In any case, the first five chapters have been expanded to seven. The order they appear in the book is also likely to change. For my sake, the following is an outline of the content as it appears in the book. I am listing major entries only.

Ch.1 How Twitter Started   

• Duh. This chapter is pretty much about Twitter.

Ch 2. Showtime.

• Tells the story of South by SouthWest 07 and how Twitter exploded because of what happened there.

Ch. 3 Dell's Parallel Tracks

• This chapter follows the evolution of @delloutlet and other retail efforts. It is also examines the early thinking and strategy of Richard Binhammer and Lionel Menchaca. All three were interviewed for the chapter. 4.

Ch. 4 The high cost of cutting support

• Omaha Steaks
• Comcast
• Jet Blue
• Southwest
• VirginAmerica
• Stuck on a Portland tarmac
• Skidding off a Denver runway
• Landing in the Hudson River
• U-Haul's Flat Tire

Ch. 5 Customers in Control

• Motrin Moms
• Pepsi Suicide ads
• Ford fan site
• GM Volt rumors

Ch. 6  Global Brands. Local Service

• See it Now--Edward R. Murrow
• Zappos
• HR Block
• Rubbermaid
• Molson Brewery
• Sutter Eden Medical Center
• Henry Ford Medical

Ch 7. Who wants to talk with a Coke Bottle?

• Starbucks
• Whole Foods Market
• Burger King
• Evernote
• Mayo Clinic

When I list it this way, it really doesn't seem like a whole lot. Heh. Try doing it one word at a time. Later today, I'll start outlining the next three chapters and will post what I have and what I'm looking for.

It will feel good to start moving forward again.

Twitterville Notebook: The first live-tweeted surgery

[Dr. James Peabody (seated), and) Dr. Raj Laungani, live tweeting during cancer surgery, Henry Ford Hospital,Detroit. Photo courtesy of Henry Ford Health Services]

My friend Tom Stitt, who has become my go-to guy for information on social media and the medical industry sent me a note that alerted me to the fact that Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit was about to perform the first live-tweeted surgery. And it wasn't some minor procedure, but a robotic procedure to remove a cancer.

He put me in touch with Bill Ferris, manger in the Henry Ford Medical web services department, who explained that the procedure would be performed in Detroit and the Tweeting would be directed at 450 medical professionals attending a robotic surgery conference at the Hotel Bellagio in Las Vegas.

As a Twitter enthusiast, this was extremely exciting. Once again, history was being made as I was writing the book. In fact, for the surgical team involved, Twitter was just a simply attempt to remotely communicate more effectively than previously. It turned out to be just one small step for medical education. Next time, online video will be added.

Still, it shows how Twitter is becoming part of every day solutions to a great number of different professions. It also demonstrates that those who argue social media has no place in the medical profession really should stop talking and start paying attention.

The following are my interview notes with Bill, who was in the operating room during the surgery and tweeted answers to some of the nontechnical questions. Dr. Laungani and Dr. Peabody did most of the live tweeting of the procedure @HenryFordNews . You can see the surgical tweetstream by going to Twitter Search and typing in #TWOR , the hashtag that they used.

1. What social media tools does Henry Ford Medical Center use? How did it get to Twitter to begin with?

Henry Ford Health System uses Twitter, YouTube and podcasting. We currently have one provider blog , which is authored by a certified nurse midwife. It is in conjunction with a patient support group that she leads on the same topic on the topic of menopause. We are working on an additional blog.

I registered our Twitter account in 2007, but it wasn't until fall of 2008 when we started to use it. After I personally had some favorable experiences with companies on Twitter, it was something that I thought we should do at Henry Ford as well. Up until the surgery the bulk of our tweets were news releases posted through Twitterfeed. The remainder were links to upcoming classes and events or to stories done by others that reference Henry Ford.


2. What was the thinking that got Henry Ford Medical to live tweet a surgery?

I don't recall exactly, but I think it came from a couple brainstorming sessions. One was on new ways to use social media beyond distributing releases and announcements and the other was how to promote the International Robotics Urology Symposium [IRUS]. Somehow it came together.



3. What are the medical training implications of live tweeting surgery and/or other medical procedures?

I'm largely unqualified to answer this question without a background in medical training. But the fact that it does allow for interactivity, as well as an archive for future review would both seem to be important components. Twitter isn't the only way to achieve this, but it is a way. I think it's safe to say that we learned from this experience that you need to have a visual component as well and it would have been enhanced had all followers had access to the video stream.

In terms of education though, it doesn't have to be limited to medical training. There is also a patient education component to this. While a lay person wouldn't necessarily understand all medical jargon, it would provide a roadmap of the surgery which I would view as helpful if I or a loved one were having the procedure. It would also give a non-medical person 140-character access to an expert and a view into the operating room.


4. How was the patient selected? What concerns did he have?

The case/procedure/patient were selected first because of the educational value it would provide to conference participants. The Twittering of the surgery came later.


5. What legal concerns were there? What regulatory issues did you have to consider?

We had received clearance to broadcast the surgery already, so there weren't additional concerns. The procedure itself was already being made public, plus there was no patient identification. Honestly, I was in the in same room during the procedure and I couldn't tell you anything about the patient except that he was male.


6. There is a "conventional wisdom" that medical and related organizations should avoid social media. How would you respond them?

I would disagree. Medical and related organizations have some of the same goals as all organizations. Things like recruitment and brand building to name two, aren't industry specific at all.

Where it gets fuzzy is how far do you extend a conversation with a patient, or a potential patient? Because a person's health is so intimate, you don't want to go barging in. At the same time, and I'm speaking as a person here and not a hospital employee, in trying and frightening times I'd want to feel like I had any sort of additional connection to my doctor or hospital that I could. A tool like Twitter can provide another touch point. The trick is to find the right balance and give patients a way to connect with the organization without being intrusive. I'm not sure where that balance point is or the best way to achieve it.

And then there are the other issues related to privacy, legal, billing and others. But I think that these areas can be handled with policies and procedures.

7. What device was used to tweet in surgery? How was it kept sterile?

We used a laptop with Tweetdeck installed on it. It was outside the sterile field. With it being a robotic surgery, Dr. Khurshid A. Guru, the primary surgeon, was at the controls of the robot instead of standing over the patient. Also, the area for the surgery is being displayed in 3-D on large monitors so those assisting (robotic surgery involves a large team) can see what is happening. This made it possible for the surgeons twittering to have a good view and be able to accurately describe what was happening, and do it from a safe distance.

8. What's your vision for the future of Twitter--and social media--in surgery, medical training or related fields?

That's a pretty broad question. As it relates to medical training, I think we need to study a little more to see how formal it can become. Can you offer study credits for following a procedure on Twitter, and what would that entail? Where are the limits to what can effectively be taught with this sort of method? And can Twitter or other social media offer things that current methods can't?

I do think there is considerable opportunity when it comes to research. Not only for collaboration amongst researchers, but even in finding patients for clinical trials.

Finally, from a traditional marketing and PR perspective, budgets for provider marketing are generally pretty limited. Social media does provide a relatively low cost option for spreading your message and reaching out to patients and doctors.

Twitterville Notebook: One-third through 1st draft

It was an intense week for writing. I completed the first drafts for Chapter 4:"Global Firms. Local Touch and Chapter" 5: "Branded Tweeters: Who wants to Chat with a Coke Bottle?" They are both meaty chapters of more than 6000 words each, bringing my total of first draft to about 25,000 word or one-third of the total book.

The next week will be mostly focused on revisions to the Introduction and Chapters 1-3. The Intro really needs a massive rework. Next time I write a book, I think I'll save that part for last. It will be easier to tell  readers what the book is about after I really know. Twitter news keeps breaking and that keeps changing the book. Perhaps the biggest challenge is to figure out what will still be relevant.

I'm now looking for story suggestions for the next three chapters:

Chapter 6 Talking to your EcoSystem.

This is a business-to-business chapter. I have a few leads here including IBM, @UnitedLinen and Orange the EU phone stores. I am not so certain that this is a big category for Twitter, but would love to get a few more strong stories.

Chapter 7 Local Shops. Global Reach

This is a chapter covering small businesses and startups. I have a few already, but have ample room for more. I'm looking for businesses who are doing interesting or innovative things that other small business can learn from. I'm particularly interested in companies whose customer base have dramatically changed geographically because of Twitter as well.

Chapter 8 The Power of Personal Brand

 This chapter will cover individuals whose twittering have brought them to prominence. The can be individuals, like Laura Fitton, part of large organizations such as Jeremiah Owyang or perhaps part of both like Jim Long.  There are a lot of people who fit into this chapter, so I'm looking for diverse stories that are useful and interesting. I'd love to hear about people who live outside of North America for this chapter as well.

Please keep those cards and letters coming in. This blog and Twitter have given me over half the leads that have gone into Twitterville so far and I very greatly appreciate your help. You can tweet me, email me, or just leave a Comment here.



 



 

Twitterville Notebook: Evernote's Andrew Sinkov

Evernote is one of the startups that I think will not only endure but prevail in these troubling times, either as a standalone company or as a popular feature in a larger company. It is a Web 2.0 service that lets you send a clip of anything you find while surfing from iPhone or computer to an Evernote-hosted space where you can organize and tag text, audio or video clips. I should be using it to write Twitterville.

I've chosen Evernote to be the fifth and final company to be profiled in Chapter 5: "Who wants to chat with a Coke bottle," in part because they are succeeding in Twitter while ignoring my viewpoint that Twitter is most wisely used as a tool of conversation rather than a new channel to broadcast marketing and PR messages.

The Evernote Twitter account has almost 8500 followers and several people enthusiastically recommended I include it because users find it useful. So I went to Andrew Sinkov, Evernote's lead marketer and principal Tweeter to get his perspective. Here's his side of the story:

1.  How has the recession impacted your business?

The recession has not had any significant impact on our user growth or premium service uptake. In response to the economic downturn, we have reigned in a lot of our spending both operationally and on marketing campaigns. We want to ensure that we are spending our resources as wisely as possible. 

2. What social media programs are you using? How does your use of Twitter connect with the other social media platforms?

In addition to Twitter, we have a corporate blog, a Facebook fan page, a Tumblr blog, YouTube video page, a FriendFeed, accounts with Pownce and Plurk and a LinkedIn group.

Of these, our Twitter feed is updated with the greatest frequency, and it is our Twitter feed that most often directs people to our pages on other social sites. 

3. What do you find unique for Evernote about Twitter?

Twitter’s design coupled with the myriad ways of receiving updates make it a powerful broadcasting tool. Whenever we have something newsworthy to announce, a useful tip about our products, or an interesting article, we share it directly with our followers in an incredibly personal way, akin to receiving an IM message from your close friend.

Much has been written about the ambient awareness that Twitter creates. We think of each message as adding a layer of knowledge about Evernote. A person may only glance at our update, but it reinforces our existence and our utility.

5. Is Twitter something you just use, or is it part of your strategy? Please explain?

Twitter is a key part of our community and communications strategy. No message is ever sent haphazardly – each message has a value and a purpose. Oftentimes, we tweet links to our blog posts, videos, or relevant articles. In each of these cases, we use short URLs that are trackable. Also, we try to tweet only during hours and days when the greatest number of users will be online. Even though Twitter, like RSS, is asynchronous, we find that the majority of clicks occur immediately upon receiving an update and then trail off over the following 12 hours. So, we always aim to maximize that initial burst.

6. What has Twitter achieved for you?

Twitter has played an instrumental role in establishing our brand. For a small company, we were able to reach our users, connect with them on a very personal level, and provide them with useful content. In addition, Twitter has helped to augment our PR efforts. On a number of occasions, we have had our first interactions with journalists through direct messages. Those DMs then turn into briefings and conversations, which, in turn, become blog posts and articles. Many journalists have a somewhat negative view of traditional PR, for those individuals, receiving a message directly from the company is preferred.

Twitter has also become a useful support tool, both for identifying and solving problems.

7. Why did you choose to just make the Twitter account "Evernote?" Why not show there's a real person behind the Twitter account?

Evernote is a place for users to store and retrieve memories, ideas, and, generally, things of personal importance. In order to build confidence in our new service, we focused on consistent branding and messaging that was always solid and trustworthy. We had the software and infrastructure in place and needed to couple that with a strong identity.

Early on, we chose to use Twitter only for broadcasting. We would not reply publicly to messages, nor would we comment on things unrelated to our product. If successful, we felt that this approach would help build a positive relationship with our brand. In our view, this could only be done effectively by tying the corporate brand to the Twitter account. If we had tied it to a person, then there would be a natural tendency towards conversation, and our feeling was that the signal to noise ratio would become unfavorable.

In addition, our identity is very inclusive. It does not feel age or gender-specific, which helps us attract a wider, more diverse audience. A number of our employees have personal Twitter accounts, which they use for more direct interaction and conversation with users.

8. Do you have any good stories about something that happened on the Evernote Twitter account?
One of the great aspects of Twitter, is that it allows us a glimpse into how users are using our product. To our surprise, we’ve learned that people use Evernote as part of their religious lives. Some save sermons in Evernote, others use it for research as part of their divinity studies. The most unexpected tweet came from an individual who recorded his sins in Evernote so that he could remember them for confession.


9. Additional comments?
Two suggestions and one warning:

1) Tracking: There are many Twitter tools out there. Some are useful, but most are not. I recommend that anyone starting out with Twitter become familiar with tools that provide some tracking and insight.

2) Be consistent: It is very easy to have a schizophrenic personality on Twitter. There are tons of options, but I feel that it’s important to choose a voice and stick with it, especially when tying your corporate brand to the account.

3) When tracking tweets by keyword using services like search.twitter.com, it's easy to forget that these are completely disconnected conversations. For the most part, those that are mentioning your brand are simply broadcasting their thoughts of that moment in time. Similar to the cocktail party syndrome, you are simply hearing your name mentioning over the din of a crowd without much context to act upon.

My Twitterville Evolution

Over the past couple of months the number of people following me on Twitter has more than doubled. This may be because I am writing a book about Twitter. It may be because of reference bots such as Mr. Tweet or it may be because my focus seems to have drifted away from its historic center of Silicon Valley.

While it cannot help but boost my ego just a tad, it is also humbling in many ways to realize so many people may be listening to what I have to say. For better or worse, I have lost a certain edginess in my tone. I've also lost a certain intimacy because I am speaking to so many people I have never met, who are coming from so many diverse cultures.

Perhaps, I am posting this so that I can better understand what is going on during this period of growth and change I am writing it here and sharing it with you. My observations:

• My focus has left Silicon Valley. I began in social media with a strong tech-business perspective. My leading passion remains social media, and my immersion is overwhelmingly in Twitter. But social media is no longer very much of a tech issue as I see it. It seems to me that as Twitter brings ground level conversations to me from Pakistan, India, China, Israel and Arab countries, my interest in the bugs of a product named Zune or the WiFi on a bus headed to a Las Vegas Trade show just aren't that interesting anymore.
• Twitterville is traveling faster than I can write it. When I outline the book back in August, I did not think my research would bring me to ground-level views of terrorism and war. Nor did I realize at the outset, the fundamental change to democratic elections in the world. The story is getting bigger faster than I can write it--and if I don't watch out, it can become a never-ending ever expanding thing.
• At the heart of the matter, I am a journalist, but a new kind of journalist. Over the past few years I have anguished over my conflicting roles of consultant, speaker and writer. I am a writer first and foremost.
• As a new kind of journalist I want to give my readers a balanced point of view. But I want my readers to know where I am coming from. Then they can weigh all the facts on a given point and decide for themselves. But I will not be shilled. An example is my recent abundant coverage on Israel-Gaza. I side with Israel in a complex situation. I will write about this issue and about #Mumbai in Twitterville. I will invite Al Jazeera to be interviewed as well as the Israel Consulate who representative who held a news conference. But my story is not the war. It's Twitter role in the conversation about the war. That may prove difficult for me, but that is my role as I define it.
• I will not allow my place in Twitterville to be used to distribute hatred of "them." I don't care who "them" is. In the past few weeks, I've heard cries to kill or destroy Pakistanis, Israelis, Muslims and Arabs. I abhor all of that. I will not allow the new popularity of my Twitterville account to be abused by hate mongers and will be quick to blocks such people, perhaps without even a warning.
• I have a short fuse for personal insults and I do not intend to lengthen it. My Twitter account is my place and I want to have enjoyable, enlightening conversations. You are welcome to come and tell me you think I'm wrong, to barrage me with fact that refute my position. I'm likely to retweet them so others can consider your view. But if you come to tell me I'm absurd without reason or to shut up because you don't think I know what I'm talking about, I am more than likely going to block you.

Like I said, I may have written this one, to clarify my thinking in my own mind, but I am curious to hear what you think.

.

Twitterville Notebook: Brad Nelson, the Starbucks Tweeter

       [Brad Nelson, the Starbucks principal Tweeter. photo from his file]

Over the past 11 days, I have exchanged 31 emails with Brad Nelson, the principal tweeter for the @starbucks logo Twitter account. I got to know a little about him. For example, he has a good. slightly edgy sense of humor. He's plays trumpet/keyboard for a Seattle-based indie rock group called The Preons . He's designing the site I just linked you to, and it's not finished. he tweets for the band as well. His personal Twitter account is @halfnelson. I found him transparent and open. He convinced me that he has a passion for Starbucks and a love for Twitter, but all things considered, he's probably prefer to be a rock star.

I tell you all this, because Brad does a great job of arguing the case for being a nameless, faceless voice behind the Starbucks logo. Yet, it seems to me that by seeing his face above, and hearing a few details about the person, you might prefer to know Brad, the Starbucks guy more than you might just want to see the Starbucks icon and hear his voice without actually seeing or knowing him.

Please read this through and tell me what you think either here or over in Twitterville. I'm about to write the chapter and your views may impact what I write.


1. You started as counter staff in a Seattle Starbucks. How, when and why did you become the principal Starbucks Tweeter?

I started as a "barista" (espresso drink making expert) when I was in high school and moved to the Starbucks Support Center (headquarters) four years ago to work on the music business. In the summer of 2008, I started working on MyStarbucksIdea.com, helping with the technology upgrades. I started researching what other brands were doing with corporate blogging tools.  I noticed a lot of brands were getting into many different social media networks and not just brands interested in business, but government and political brands as well.

Starbucks is really a lifestyle brand, and is very personal to people; it just makes sense for Starbucks to be a part of the conversational world of Twitter. We started with the @mystarbucksidea account, because it was our first real social media tool, and grew to the @starbucks account. Both are still active, but the @starbucks account has grown to be very popular in a short period of time. Howard Schultz (Starbucks ceo) has been talking about the human connection at Starbucks for years; how Starbucks is more about people than it is about coffee. Twitter, lends itself so easily to a casual and conversational tone-- much like what you'd find in a Starbucks -- and it is a natural and obvious way for a brand to participate in the conversation. We found that oftentimes people were already talking about us, so it was easy to join in the conversation. I've been with the company for 10 years, so I've gotten to know the company from both the store level and from the Support Center. This knowledge has made it really easy to be the main tweeter for @starbucks.

2. Who decided that you would tweet as @starbucks and not as  @bradnelson?

I don't think that you can underestimate the importance of an easy to find URL or account name. Starbucks would not have built up one of the largest Twitter accounts growing by 160 per day if we had made the account @bradnelson. There's just no way, especially since most people don't know me. 

The thing about peoples' relationship with Starbucks is that they don't think of it as a big company they don't know, they tend to think of it as their coffee shop, the place they hang out in their neighborhood, the people they know who work there.

So @starbucks probably means something to them, when @bradnelson doesn't. Since Day 1 on Twitter, it's been important that I join in the conversation, and not just offer press releases, and product announcements. So, yes, the account is Starbucks' account and I am the representative in the community. One of my favorite parts of working as a barista was the opportunity on a daily basis to converse with customers. You got to know the regulars, not just their name and drink, but they almost became friends. This feels the same; I'm kind of the barista on Twitter... without the coffee of course. We still haven't figured that out.

3. What advantages does Starbucks see to you remaining anonymous?

I've never seen myself as being anonymous on the account. I've always written in my own voice, told people who I was, and told them small parts about myself. The thing is, people don't follow @starbucks to hear about me, despite what my mother might say. I'm there to help people with questions about their drinks, their wi-fi accounts, let them know about new beverages or promotions that are coming up. On election day 2008 we gave away a free cup of coffee to everyone that asked. Twitter was an essential component of getting the word out. We did some calculations and found that Starbucks was mentioned in the Twittersphere every 8 seconds that day, and we saw a tremendous amount of people join us in the stores to celebrate our right to vote and of course to enjoy some free coffee.

I've always been concerned with two things on Twitter; getting good content to share with people and responding to customers' questions and complaints. The important part to me was for the account to come from one voice, be human, be consistent, and be humble; whether my name is in the bio or my picture on the page seems secondary. Perhaps I'm wrong, but personally I don't think that's the point. If you have good content, a good personality, you tell people who you are, and you answer questions promptly, in my opinion, you're doing it well.

4. How do you respond when a tweeter asks you who you are? How often does that happen? Don't you think people prefer to speak to real people than to advertising icons?

When someone asks me who I am, I have always been forthcoming with who I am and what group I work in. I've tried to balance the content between being equally informative, relevant, conversational, and fun. Of course people prefer to speak to real people, and I've always been a real person on the site.

Many times I've had to inform people within the company that this isn't a channel for advertising and that they can't just send me 140 characters to post. It needs to come from my voice, and it can't appear too slick. I know that we will get called out because people are smarter than that and I think they deserve better than that. Our followers didn't sign up because they want advertisements; they signed up because they care about Starbucks and want to know what we're up to.

5. Let's move on. Do you think the Starbucks Twitter account has changed the relationship between Starbucks and the people who interact with it on Twitter?

Absolutely. By making ourselves available, we can quickly respond to questions from our customers, and also let them know what's going on in our stores. One of the great things about Twitter, is that it is passive. If someone isn't interested in talking about us or hearing from us, they don't need to follow our tweets. It's not a billboard, a TV ad, or even a pop up ad. I like that a lot, and it makes me feel like I don't need to pitch people. They've already decided that they are interested in our brand enough to hear from us daily.

Twitter isn't the only social network that businesses should be in, either. People spend a lot of time on social networks these days, and you need to open yourself up to engage with your customer wherever they are. You can't expect to build a website anymore and expect for individuals to come to you to learn about your products. But you can talk to them about yourself, and Twitter makes that really easy and fun.

6. Can you give me a great story about something that has happened on the Twitter account?

Probably the most fun I've had was when we launched the Starbucks Gold Card. I was able to get about 20 cards to giveaway to customers on the Twitter account. I wanted to do something a little different, so I had a haiku contest. Within an hour, I'd received over 200. The volume of responses was a bit absurd.

7. How has Tweeting for Starbucks changed you? How do you think it has changed Starbucks, if at all.

Tweeting for Starbucks has been a very valuable way for me to keep my ear to the ground. I'm a part of the online team, and we're one of the few departments to have contact with just about every department in the building. That makes it easy to share feedback, ask questions, and get our story out. In 2008, Starbucks discovered some important lessons through building the MyStarbucksIdea community. If you engage with your customer base and have a conversation with them, you get the opportunity to get incredible ideas and feedback from your customers and share your point of view. Sometimes you open yourself up for criticism, and that might make you a little uncomfortable in the short term. In the long term, it's in the company's best interest to hear where customers are frustrated so you can do something about it.

I really give a lot of credit to the director and VP of our online strategy group, Alex Wheeler and Chris Bruzzo. They gave me space and realized the importance of using Twitter. They also evangelized what we were doing around the company.  I can see how some big companies could become afraid of engaging on Twitter. It's becoming evident that being conversational and transparent is how companies are going to succeed.

8. Additional comments?

If you think about it, the coffee shop throughout time has been a place where people gather to discuss ideas or meet friends. You could make an argument that the roots of social networking and Twitter come from this same place. Societies inherently need a place to talk. As a business, we just want to make ourselves available, if someone has questions, concerns, or just wants to say hi, we're there. Starbucks is, and has always been a company focused on people.

We didn't know how it would turn out when we started it. At times it was completely overwhelming, but it was always fun and interesting, and I felt like I was helping people. It just makes sense for us to be there. I think, judging from the response we've seen in just a few months, that our customers want us there too. I couldn't be more excited to see where it goes in the future.

Twitterville Notebook: Beth Mansfield, Carl's Jr.

     [Beth Mansfield, the human behind the CarlsJr Tweets. Photo from her file.]

Below is a shortened version of my interview with Beth Mansfield, public relations manager for CKE Restaurants, parent company for Carl's Jr. She is the person tweeting behind the nameless icon who will be covered in Twitterville Ch.5, "Who wants to chat with a Coke bottle?" I mistakenly thought that Beth worked for an external PR firm, which she corrected in her answers. Beth seems to be using Twitter as an extension of the Carl's Jr. marketing plan, rather than a new tool of conversation. She explains how that can still let the @carlsjr account follow more people than actually follow her, or should I say it?

1. You Tweet at two accounts: @CarlsJr and @BethMansfield. You are pretty transparent that you are the Carl's Jr tweeter, but you also often talk about Carl's Jr on your personal account. How do you decide what to post where?

I try to keep the @CarlsJr Twitter feed about the brand--tweeting product news and store openings, having fun and interacting with fans of the brand. On my personal account @bethmansfield, I’m not working for “the man” and can be free to post things that might not be of interest for @CarlsJr followers.

For instance, I like to participate in #journchat Monday evenings and I do that as a PR pro, not for my employer. It’s sort of like the wall between editorial and advertising in a newspaper. My bio says I'm a “Food industry PR pro,” not a PR pro for Carl’s Jr. and CKE Restaurants. When I cross-post, it’s just because I think folks following my Twitter stream might be interested if they aren’t following the brand’s stream, or because it made me laugh. But sometimes, I must admit, I just forget which account I’m logged into.

2. Why not just do an @CarlsJr account, that makes clear you are the person doing the tweeting? What do you think would be lost or gained by the change?

The Carl’s Jr. brand is known for being a bit edgy. I define it as a West-coast swagger. We are a regional chain that makes big restaurant-quality burgers. We have a history of edginess in our advertising: remember the Paris Hilton ad?  Our target demographic is the ubiquitous 18-34 year-old male we call “young, hungry guys.” I think tweeting as the Carl’s Jr. brand keeps the conversation fun, youthful and hopefully edgier than it would be if I was tweeting as a 42-year old wife, mother & PR pro. I am not a young, hungry guy, but I aspire to tweet like one. And if I ever want to hand off the @CarlsJr account to someone else or have another team member join in, it can be seamless.

The Zappos team is the gold-standard for transparent Twitter strategy, and I would love to have several staffers involved across multiple departments like they do. But until that happens, our current Twitter strategy is very effective.

3. What was the strategic thinking that got Carl's Jr to use an outside PR consultant as its official Tweeter. What do you think are the upsides and downsides to that?

I am inside the corporate walls, not a consultant. I’m the PR manager for CKE Restaurants, Inc., parent company of the Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s chains. I handle CKE’s corporate PR, as well as the Carl’s Jr. brand, while my counterpart at Hardee’s, Jenna Petroff, handles Hardee’s PR & tweets as @Hardees.

I would be very hesitant to give up social media control to an outside consultant. Jenna and I have a good feel for the “tone” of our brands and are able to use humor as needed, or handle customer service issues on the fly. I wouldn’t want to have to have someone outside the company having to check in to see if it’s okay to respond to folks. We are able to just go ahead and do it ourselves.

However, I do credit our PR agency, Weber Shandwick, and their staffs in LA and St. Louis for giving us the push into social media. As I started to explore social media in depth, I saw how PR was transforming from traditional media relations with the mindset of “I have a targeted media list and only do outreach to that group,” to a broader platform of listening and interacting with not just the media, but the general public, customers, fans and even the occasional detractor.

4. You follow more people on Carl's Jr then follow you. How do you select who to follow?

I follow almost anyone who Tweets about Carl’s Jr. If I see a tweet as innocuous as “Headed to Carl’s Jr. for a guac bacon burger” or “Listening to Rufus Wainwright inside Carl’s Jr. LOL,” I follow them, regardless of their Twitter Grade or number of followers. My attitude is the more the merrier.

I’m still relatively new to social media scene and am far from being an expert yet, but I’ve found that if @CarlsJr begins to follow reporters, bloggers, newspaper feeds, etc. for a geographic region — say Seattle or Houston — and we have a new Carl’s Jr. opening there or a regional promotion, it helps carry the message further than a press release alone. We have an announcement next week that involves expansion plans in some new and existing Carl’s Jr. markets, so this week I started following media,  bloggers, and social media folks in those specific areas. Also, if a reporter is on Twitter, he or she usually has a lot of other reporters as “friends,” which makes it worthwhile to dig around their followers & friends lists to find the business, lifestyle and food reporters.

5. Do you think it would help or hurt Carl's Jr, if you discussed a wider variety of topics on the account--or do you think that would dilute message?

I’m not looking to have the Carl’s Jr. Twitter stream as the be-all and end-all in entertainment or news, I’m just trying to expose the brand to a wider audience through social media. I like to put on my metaphorical Happy Star hat and start tweeting about burgers, our current promotion or responding to folks. Movie reviews, politics, dating advice? That wouldn’t be keeping with our message: Carl’s Jr. is THE place to go for big, delicious burgers. Well, on second thought, the dating advice would be kind of funny coming from @CarlsJr.

6. What has Carl's Jr gained or learned from Twitter?

From a marketing standpoint, we’ve learned that social media works. There are lots of folks who might never go to our websites to to send a compliment or complaint using our online form, but they are very quick to do so on Twitter. Someone needs to be listening and responding and for now it's me. The immediacy of Twitter is something that I would have never been able to comprehend five years ago, or even a year ago. The Motrin Moms dust-up was an eye-opener for a lot of executives that Twitter wasn’t just an anomaly or something on your “to-do” list but was, in fact, an important spoke in the marketing wheel for brands.

And from a personal standpoint, I really like the camaraderie that exists on Twitter. There are actual relationships and conversations happening among marketing and PR pros, between PR pros and the media, and even between like-minded and not-so-like-minded folks who are interesting or just make me laugh. Twitter is a community.

7. Can you give me a great story that happened on Twitter?

Just yesterday, I started following some Texas-based media members and bloggers because we'll be opening in their areas. One of my new follows was @RichardMarini, the assistant features editor at the San Antonio Express-News. He mused via a tweet onwhy @CarlsJr would follow him. I followed up with an intro and gave him my personal account as well. Today, he posted, “So, @bethmansfield, can you 'splain the whole misplaced possessive thing in the name Carl's Jr?”
My response, “ Founder Carl Karcher opened a hot dog stand, then Carl's Drive-In BBQ, then Carl's Jr., a smaller version of his restaurant.” He thanked me and I made a new professional contact, shared information and brought the Carl’s Jr. brand into his sphere of influence.  It was quick, fun and hopefully effective. We’ll see next week if the News-Express picks up our story…

8. Additional comments?

Public relations is an evolving field in which practitioners must adapt to succeed and social media “strategy” is still something so fluid it changes weekly. Today, I send a press release out on the wire using Business Wire, also send it in the body of an email to targeted media & bloggers using my work email account, post it on PitchEngine.com as a social media release, post on our company Web site, Tweet about it, cross post to Facebook and if it involves a commercial, post it to YouTube.

I never thought I would embrace social media this way, but it sort of just jumped right out and hugged me first, so I had to start interacting! I have always said that PR is about relationships. Relationships are the key whether you are dealing with Ad Age, The Wall Street Journal or a small-town alt weekly. But now those relationship can be accelerated through social media.