While businesses are rushing to adopt Twitter, some fail to plan ahead. They just get the account, because it’s trendy and someone told them it works. And then they start wondering about a purpose, about whose responsibility it is, about what they should expect. When thinking about giving Twitter a try, think of what you want to get in return, who can do the task best and what you’re going to give that you’re not already giving on different channels.

So if you decide your support team should have a Twitter account to monitor issues reported by customers on Twitter because you want to make sure their problems are solved and they’re still happy with your product or service, I’d call that a good plan. It’s not the same thing as tweeting back a link to your knowledge base or saying the same thing the email reply asking for more info said, is it?  If your support guy playing with Twitter is nice, knowledgeable and doesn’t mind providing support for something that’s not really caused by your product/service, I call that brilliant

I also have an example: when I switched to GoDaddy, I ran into some issues and had to talk to the support team. I also sent out  tweet saying my travel blog is not working, but GoDaddy support was helping me with it. The tweetsupport of GoDaddy offered to help, even with Wordpress and database issues if I needed it. I didn’t, but knowing they were there for me for something that wasn’t their fault when they could have said it wasn’t a GoDaddy related issue made me love them forever.

In conclusion, Twitter i as good of a medium as any to broadcast. But actually connecting with people, listeining to them, understanding their problems and helping them solve those problems is the right way to go if you want to take your microblogging efforts to a higher level.

Guest post by Alin Ivenţa

The process of developing one’s communication skills must currently take into consideration a wide range of books, articles, conferences, tips and tricks etc., all of which are based on things written or discussed years ago.

As a retrospective insight, the ’80s have put the spotlight on “body language”, “powerful presentations”, overall “behavioral communication” for those demanding economic business growth. Then in the ’90s, we clearly saw a revolution in all that is visual: from graphic design to subliminal messages that get stuck in our minds.

Early ’00s came up to show the World Wide Web potential: ease of access to more information, different resources, new kinds of media and so on. Nevertheless, it was impossible to predict such a high expansion in such short time, as in 2009 we now have Wikipedia, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, blogs, newsletters, virals, tons of websites, gigabytes of information and don’t forget about Google which seems to be doing everything for you. Continue reading

I’m sure you’ve all heard quite a lot lately about VIPs joining the Twittersphere. I’m also sure a lot of you (out of curiosity or expecting to see something different) also started following some of said stars. It’s fun if you’re already on Twitter and you want something of a different flavor than your usual. But did any of you like what you saw? I for one read the articles, saw the profiles and drew my own conclusion.

Want to hear it? Then get closer! I’ll share a major secret with you. Stars and VIPs are the worst teachers you could ever get if you want to learn some valuable social media skills. And here’s why!

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What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

Our weekly roundup has been MIA for quite a while now. But we’re back with 5 great articles I stumbled across last week. I’ll make it short and sweet and as always invite you to add to the list!

A great way to learn is to find out what you should never ever do, no matter who does it and thinks it’s cool. Darren Rowse of Problogger came up with a top of the worlds’ 10 worst strategies to promote your blog.

When you send an invitation to a party, people expect to show up and join the fun. Not to first submit a form and then get a second approval to attend the party. Karen Swim perfectly explained how this situation applies to social media in general and Twitter in particular.

There are some words or phrases that we hear on a daily (or should I say hourly?) basis. We’re so used to them, that we sometime believe just hearing them is enough to know what they mean. Open source is one of those phrases. Before starting to use it and other related terms, read this list of definitions published by Seth Godin.

Readers’ attention is hard to get and even harder to mentain. We are in a rush, a little bored and sometimes lazy. So grab words, as explained by Alex Cristache of Blogsessive, are always a great way to make sure we read a piece you’ve wrote.

Bloggers are a growing force when it comes to PR and Marketing. That is why a lot of companies and agencies what them to cover their stories. But bad pitches are common, so here’s another article on how to pitch bloggers from the VallyPRBlog.

Hope you like this week’s articles! Till next week, feel free to share your own findings

Being the Twilight freak that I am, I had to find out a little more things about the books, their writer, the movies and the actors. Besides, after seeing the movie over 10 times and finishing all four books in about, well, 8 days, what else can a girl do?

This is how I ran into some interviews with Robert Pattinson (Edward Cullen). What really struck me was his story of being sent to a center to learn how to handle his image. As he was playing a vampire, they said he should put on his bad boy face. There are a few things disturbingly wrong with that statement: first, it shows signs of a disease you can see all over in the PR and marketing worlds: generalization.

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