This is the second of The Twitter Business Love Series in which we are exploring multiple ways to use Twitter for business. On Monday, I kicked us off by talking about The 90/10 Rule of Twitter Tweets. Today we outline another formula from one of my social media friends and expert, Eve Orsburn. She has recently published two books on social media. Her latest release, The Social Media Business Equation, has a chapter that discusses her four part formula for using social media effectively. (Great book, go buy it.)
Her “Social Media Equation,” a phrase she has both coined and trademarked, recommends you inform 20%, entertain 20%, interact 40%, and convert to business 20%. This equals a Positive ROI if done seriously, consistently and energetically. For our discussion, we will extrapolate from her formula to apply them to business Twitter (her formula works on all pieces of social media too).
Informing – 20% “The very first step when communicating through social media is to inform. As enjoyable as the internet is, very few of us sit down at our desks with a focused plan to waste a few hours surfing online. Typically, we sit down and get onto the internet to learn something, fix something, scratch some itch or fill some need.” It is important to stay on topic and inform your potential clients or prospect through education and expected information about your industry, product, or services.
Entertaining – 20% “Social media affords your organization a very large audience and if informing is how you get people there, entertaining is how you keep people there. How do you entertain them? With things like anecdotes, obscure facts, engaging statistics, little-known histories, funny videos and shocking photos. The goal here is to provide amusement, the same way you might at a cocktail party.” There are lots of places to get information, we usually listen to those who entertain as well as inform us.
Interacting – 40% “The most important thing to remember about social media is that it is simply communication using new technology. The ability to interact and communicate is the only thing differentiating social media from all other types of media that came before it. Imagine being able to conduct an online focus group every day, all day. Imagine an open customer service line 24/7 at every cubicle, and you’ll get just a glimpse of what social media can be if you treat it like communication and not just another broadcast blast.” This is a really good point that is often overlooked amongst business professionals, it is not a one side conversation. Interact!
Converting to Business – 20% “If you get into social media and you do a great job with interacting and talking to people but you never ask to convert to business, you get nowhere. A full 80% of the time I want you to GIVE. You give by informing, entertaining and interacting with your social media. But 20% of the time, I want you to TAKE by asking for what you need. What you need could be any number of things. It can be that your organization is looking for a new employee, business partner or investor. Maybe you need to collect information on a certain subject or to get people to participate in one of your company’s events. Maybe you want customers to read your blog. Maybe you have a need for a product or service and you want to know who you should buy from. And yes, converting to business may even mean asking people to buy your stuff. It is okay to ask people to buy your stuff some of the time. After all, you are giving them valuable information, entertainment and interacting with them 80% of the time.” Enough said.
What other formulas have you used to balance your Twitter? What frequency Twitter methods do you utilizes to “convert to business”?
Fred Campos is Chief of Marketing at FunCitySocialMedia.com. Like this post? Make sure you subscribe to our blog!
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