I wasn't going to write a post about the YouTube video by Canadian musician, Dave Carroll: United Breaks Guitars. It seemed that everything that could be said about this world wide rave has already been said. But I think the latest news angle on this story is in how United Airlines has failed to respond to this social media tidal wave.

For those of you who may not have heard about this viral phenomenon, Carroll and his band, Sons of Maxwell, were traveling to Nebraska and had a stop over at Chicago O'Hare. While on the tarmac, they witnessed United ground crew throwing guitars on the ground. Carroll tried to bring the matter to the attention of three United employees who couldn't be bothered.

Later he discovered that his $3500 Taylor guitar was damaged, but when he tried to get United to pay for repairs, he was given the run around for nine months and then finally told that the airline would not compensate him for the damage. They did not even offer him the old standby of travel vouchers.

So Carroll wrote a song about his plight and posted a video on YouTube. Even though he posted on the day of Michael Jackson's memorial service, it has now received almost 3 million hits and tens of thousands of comments both favoring Carroll and rebuking United.

Clearly this has been a public relations disaster for United, but what I find particularly telling is how the company has failed to mitigate its black eye with a suitable social media response.

Many bloggers have written about the video and almost all of their posts have received dozens of comments. These comments represent the tip of the iceberg because many of these people have shared their own airline horror stories. This means that for every blog post and every news article about this story, there are many passengers who have faced the same sort of contempt from airlines.

Yet even though United has now been forcibly shown the power of ordinary people in the age of social media, it has to date only posted a single "tweet" on Twitter to address this nightmare.

One of the bedrock principles of public relations is that bad news must be responded to. If the response requires humility and contriteness, so be it. If it requires admissions of error, it is better to bite the bullet than to allow a vacuum.

The airline has not posted any mention of the video on its own website, nor has it responded by posting a humble, contrite video on YouTube. It has posted a paltry number of responses through traditional public relations channels, claiming "Mr. Carroll’s experience 'an anomaly, not the norm,'" but has not used Twitter (other than the single response mentioned earlier), no blog articles, no videos, no nothing.

There are several lessons to be learned from this situation:

1. Every customer now has the power to embarrass a large company and bring it to its knees. Anyone with an internet connection can expose your dirty laundry.
   
2. Customer service is more important than ever. Companies can no longer just give it lip service while at the same time failing to empower customer service reps to solve problems, or by shipping their jobs to India.
   
3. Customer service reps still tend to be the lowest paid / most overworked employees in most organizations, even though they hold a company's future in their hands.
   
4. Customer service reps' job performance are measured by things like the number of calls handled, and "talk time," which put pressure on them to get callers off the phone quickly, rather than to solve their problems.
   
5. Top executives have not set up direct lines of communications so they can be attuned to what customer feedback comes into their companies. (I argue that every CEO should have a PERSONAL blog, and that blogging should be a Non-Delegateable duty).
   
6. Fix problems quickly.
   
7. More than ever, complaints are opportunities, not aggravations to be swept under the rug. The real test of a quality company is not that problems never happen, but that when they happen they get dealt with.

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I am officially a dedicated fan of Joe Pulizzi, co-author of the ingenious book, Get Content - Get Clients.

Earlier this month he wrote a thoughtful blog post called, "The Decline of Advertising and the Rise of Content Spending" about how more companies anticipate reducing their advertising expenditures in favor of creating content.

It stands to reason that content will be at the heart of what smart companies will be doing. Buyers are less tolerant of being sold to and are more self assured in their abilities to seek out information about what they want to buy.

Easily 80% of us now go online to gather information before making a large purchase. Moreover, many of us actively set up roadblocks for traditional marketing tactics such as TiVo to skip over commercials on TV or caller ID to screen our telephone calls. Add to that our brains' inherant ability to filter out messages that seem unimportant to us (How many billboards did you drive by today? And how many of them did you notice?).

It is no wonder then why companies are backing away from traditional advertising. It simply no longer gets the results it once did. It now costs more and more dollars to attract fewer and fewer customers with advertising.

But content - meaning information that solves problems, answers questions, helps us to accomplish what we want to accomplish or get to where we want to go - does get our attention. And content will, if done right, get better results than advertising.

While advertising may be in decline, Joe points out two areas that are expected to grow: Use of Social Media as a marketing strategy and Search Engine Optimization to help visitors find your information.

Regarding the first option, I can't possibly put it better than Joe: "Social media doesn't work without relevant, valuable and consistent content."

Social media without quality content is like making a telephone call and having nothing to say once you get the other person on the line.

SEO of course is also driven by content. This is what Google and the other search engines pick up to determine if your site fits the needs of a searcher's query.

What many companies have not yet figured out, according to Joe, is how much content actually costs and how to measure the results of content marketing.

There seems to be a very unrealistic expectation that creating content can be had on the cheap. I can personally attest to this based on when I wrote web content. My prospective clients ALWAYS displayed sticker shock when I quoted my fees, even though I was far from expensive. There seemed to be the assumption that content creation was a matter of waving a magic wand or something.

Then too was the issue of actually measuring how much content added to the bottom line. Here, Joe provides some really good ways to establish sound metrics.

The real lesson here is that content marketing is a strategy replacing an older strategy. It requires a whole new re-thinking of the business model.

Content marketing will be successful IF it is useful information and focuses not on the company, but on the buyer. Do you REALLY know what your buyers want and need? Do you know what problems they must solve? Do you know what pain they are experiencing that you can remove?

Without this information, your content is destined to fail. I am always struck by how much of most marketing messages are simply bragging about the lowest levels of expectiations. Home builders brag that they build "quality" homes. Shouldn't quality be a given? Shouldn't that be the least that a builder delivers? Isn't that like saying "We meet your minimum expectations."

Or my personal favorite is a local (Dallas - Fort Worth) law firm that brags that they are the litigation firm to choose when "The results really matter." Uh, ... if I have to go to court, doesn't that assume the results really matter?

It is precisely this kind of fluff that is the cause of the decline in the effectiveness of advertising. This is why 80% of us go online before making a significant purchase. We all go through an "information-gathering" stage at some point in our buying process.

And marketers who understand this will be the ones who succeed with content marketing. Those who don't will see no better results than they are getting from their advertising.

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Need more ideas to give your marketing efforts a shot in the arm? Here are some ideas to get your marketing efforts moving forward:

1. Develop "free samples" of your service. Usually the best samples are written or recorded information. Write a tip sheet or a short list of frequently asked questions (FAQs). Record a speech you give to a local organization. Record a short 2-3 minute video of yourself standing in front of a whiteboard talking about three or four bullet points of interest.



2. Improve your existing advertising by writing ten new headlines for your newspaper or Yellow Page ads. Test these new headlines against your existing headlines in small classified ads. Measure the results and let the winner be the headline the next time you run a larger ad in the Yellow Pages or newspaper.



3. Host a wine tasting or open house in your place of business. Invite several potential clients and prepare a short talk on a topic of interest to them. Use the tip sheets or free samples you prepared above to give to each attendee.



4. Request testimonials from your best clients. Better yet, put these testimonials on video and load to your website and/or YouTube.



5. Volunteer yourself and your employees to assist in a charitable cause. For example, your team could man the phones at the next public radio or television membership drive or help other organizations with fund raising.



6. Join a new group. Select organizations that allow you to get involved and meet potential clients or networking contacts. Many a financial planner, CPA or lawyer has built a practice by volunteering for United Way as a fundraiser.



7. Find non-competing businesses that serve the same client base as you. Approach these businesses about forming alliances and sharing referrals. Cross promote each other on your websites or other platforms.
   
   
   
8. Sponsor a talk and invite a visiting expert on a topic of interest to your potential clients. Send out invitations and press releases to alert the media.



9. Get in touch with ex-clients who no longer do business with you. Find out how you can help them and get their suggestions about how to improve your services.



10. Sponsor a children"s club or sports team.



11. Give an award for the "Best of ___." Use this award as a way to attract publicity.



12. Create a profile of your ideal client. Then determine what groups these ideal clients are members of or what specialized publications they read. It is often easier to market to groups than it is to individuals. Find content in the form of information that solves problems, is interesting or helps achieve goals and use this content to attract these ideal clients.



13. Find an online discussion group. www.boardtracker.com is a search engine that specializes in discussion groups. Just read the conversations as they go back and forth for a while (this is called "lurking"). Then, after you have a feel for the personalities involved and the group's protocol, start adding your own input.
    


14. Develop a "needs assessment" that you can use in new client interviews.



15. Do a client survey to uncover your strengths and weaknesses. Make it clear that you are seeking honest and open comments and are looking for ways to improve.



16. Become more active in your local Chamber of Commerce and other organizations that open up networking opportunities.



17. Create a list of reference books and CDs you can recommend.



18. Create a 21 word description of your business that clearly tells what you do, who you do this for, and what makes you distinctive. This is your "elevator speech" that can be used on your marketing materials, press releases and given to someone who introduces you at public speaking opportunities.



19. Find barter organizations or set up barter relationships on your own. Not only can you reduce the cost of goods and services your business needs, you will gain new clients.



20. Buy season tickets to a local sports team. If you take clients or give tickets to people you do business with, they will be tax deductible and fun as well.

Get busy today and build a fire under your business. Do something, get out there and watch your business grow.

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I just read a really great article in Marketing Profs Daily Fix called, A Brand's Largest Social Media Obstacle, by Samir Balwani, in which he makes the bold statement that the biggest thing holding most brands from truly engaging in social media is ... the brand itself.

Some of the reasons Balwani gives for why brands get in their own way when they try to plunge into social media are:

• Just jumping into social media because that is what competitors are doing,
  
• Cultures that strangle innovation and risk taking (social media marketing is ALL ABOUT RISK TAKING - it is a complete break from the old way of doing business),
  
• Failure to allocate resources to the effort (especially failing to devote the time and people to do the work),
  
• Resistance to humanizing itself (give your CEO a blog, let her listen to feedback, engage in real conversations with real people in the real world),
  
• Failure to understand the company's own customers (Too often companies assume they already know the people who buy from them),
  

Jumping into social media requires that a brand, and the company, make some fundamental changes from the top down. The company must willingly become more transparent and be willing to engage in two-way conversations with the marketplace.

Wal-Mart, famous for its repeated failures in its social media experiments, is an example of a company that will not listen to outside criticism. When its Facebook campaign became full of conversations about its use of foreign sweatshops to make its products, the company just shut the site down.

Yes, their page was hijacked by those who objected to these practices, but the folks from Bentonville demonstrated all the candor and openness of Dick Chaney when asked about water boarding.

Dell is an example of the opposite mindset. Dell has made real efforts to listen (and improve) its quality standards based on the feedback it has received via social media. And its brand has benefitted accordingly.

Another Wal-Mart example: According to Tara Hunt, in her book The Whuffie Factor, Wal-Mart's first adventure into social media went like this:

Its first attempt in 2006 was a blog supposedly run by independent customers who were traveling across America. The blog characters, it was discovered, were faked and the content written by a public relations firm.

The backlash to the deception was severe, and Wal-Mart quickly pulled the blog off the internet.

But not content with learning a valuable lesson about the need for transparency when venturing into this new world, Wal-Mart again tried to use deception on social media. It created a site for kids called "The Hub," which one commentator said "had all the makings of a politician wearing a backwards baseball cap in a bid to win the youth vote."

But the worst thing Wal-Mart did was that it AGAIN tried to get away with creating false characters:

The company apparently tried propagating the site with fake profiles of hip kids wearing Wal-Mart gear. The dead giveaway was that the kids were talking about their Wal-Mart clothes in their profiles.

So how should a company use social media to promote its brand? Here are 7 ideas:

1. Create TRUE case studies and feature stories about satisfied customers. When you get positive feedback, interview that person and either create a video or text story to post online.
   
   
2. Showcase TRUE examples of your employees as heroes. When you learn that an employee has gone the extra mile to help a customer, USE THAT STORY and get the maximum exposure from it. Let customers see the human faces behind your company's brand.
   
   
3. Educate customers with practical, "news you can use" content.
   
   
4. Do good. Use social media to talk about any charitable causes your company or employees are involved in.
   
   One company learned that an average customer was about to lose her house to foreclosure due to a family illness and raised money to help this single individual. This is the kind of story social media was made for.
   
   Or use your social media site to raise money for a good cause or charity.
   
   
5. Show your quality control standards. If you jump through hoops to produce a great product or deliver superior customer service, record a video of your process.
   
   Check out this article about how a beer company highlighted its quality control standards in its advertising.
   
   
6. Listen to customers. Social media is a two-way conversation. Your customers will give you great ideas and feedback if you will listen.
   
   
7. Drive traffic to your content. Once you create good content, make sure it gets noticed with social media. Attach links to blog articles, tweets, and Facebook updates.
   

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I just re-read a great article by J.T. O’Donnell called, Brand or Be Branded (Are YOU Willing to Risk What Shows on the Top Fold?) in which she uses a case study of a college graduate who was unable to get a single job interview after months of trying.

After looking over both her resume and her cover letter, which O'Donnell deemed could be improved but were not so problematic that they were responsible for her stalled job search, the real problem turned out to be her web presence:

So, I decided to complete an Internet search on her – just as 4 out of 5 hiring managers do today. I put in her name and the school she graduated from. What popped up in the results shed some light. The #1 item in the results was her Facebook picture. It was a blurry photo of her in a sweatshirt and her eyes were closed. Okay, so it was nothing terrible, but it also wasn’t a powerful first impression.

And besides, what followed was much worse…

You see, her Facebook photo also happened to be the ONLY thing that popped up about her. Nothing related to school, nothing related to volunteering, nothing related to her field of study…absolutely nothing. In fact, the next 10 entries thereafter were for someone with the same name but different middle initial who currently writes a very open and direct blog about an alternative lifestyle subject.

So there you are, not only had this young graduate not bothered to put information about herself online, her own brand was being co-mingled with that of a person with the same name whose personal brand was somewhat questionable.

The solution is to add and create online content. Again quoting from the article:

Any person, at any age, at any time in their career can build a strong online career identity. The reality is you only need 5-6 good things to come up in a search so the top fold (the uppermost portion of the computer screen that shows the top search results) is filled with positive items about you.

O'Donnell then goes on to provide 4 very good tips for creating content that will flesh out one's online brand.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I am convinced that everyone who is serious about building a personal brand needs to make use of four tools: blogging, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

As I have previously written in my article, 38 Rules For Creating a Personal Branding Blog, a blog is almost a given for job seekers or people who need to become recognized experts in their fields.

That said, I realize as a practical matter that not everyone has the time or inclination to create their own blogs. One of O'Donnell's ideas provides a neat end around for having one's own blog. Her suggestion is posting frequent comments on blogs owned by others.

Thoughtful and insightful comments on blogs will gain an internet presence that in some cases may be used in place of one's own blog.

This still requires an active participation in the blogosphere. Find some worthwhile blogs that focus on topics you are both interested in and that will further your own brand.

However, this is only a substitute for having your own blog.

Imagine if this young graduate had written a blog on her field of interest for several months. It might still not raise her Google visiability significantly, but the link to this blog would have made a great addition to her resume.

A prospective employer would almost invariably look up the blog and find several articles that demonstrate her interest and understanding of her field. Can you imagine how that would have impacted her job search?

But what if you have something absolutely negative about your online profile?

Tara Hunt writes about such an example in her book, The Whuffie Factor. This is an all-too-common example of a young lady who foolishly allowed her boyfriend (and soon to be ex boyfriend) to come into possession of an erotic video of herself.

I almost don't need to finish this story because you already know that the ex posted her video online and it quickly became the very first thing to be found when someone conducted an online search for her. Talk about personal branding poison.

Getting such a video removed from the web is almost impossible. As soon as it is removed from one location, it is bound to pop up in three others. For most people this would be career poison.

Fortunately this young lady, although obviously foolish in her love life was pretty savy when it came to the internet. Her response was to create lots and lots of postive web content to overwhelm the negative video.

Before too long, the video was almost impossible to find online because of all the other information she posted about herself. Her strategy was that if she couldn't remove the video, she would just bury it.

So back to blogs. I firmly believe the day will come in which a blog will replace the old fashioned resume. It is the only true way to build a dominating personal brand online that will feature all your best ideas and insights. It is a place to show the world your expertise and get employers and clients knocking on your door. (Yes, I get several head hunter calls a week as result of this blog, and one day I might accept if the offer is good enough).

Facebook and MySpace. Is there a college student alive who doesn't have a Facebook (or MySpace) page? Yet, some parents and educators still oppose these sites.

A better approach would be instead of discouraging Facebook or MySpace pages, parents and educators should instead educate students that,like blogs, these sites can be showcases of one's skills, interests and preparation to enter the work place.

YouTube videos can not only rocket a person to the top of search engines, they can be used to create a better personal brand. In addition to recording the latest skateboard face plant, students could also record themselves giving white board tutorials on various serious topics.

Imagine a student taking a difficult economics class posting a series of tutorial videos about topics covered in the course. Not only would these videos help other students as they study the same material, they would also be very impressive to future employers.

All this holds true for working professionals who must market their services and expertise. Prospective clients are just as, if not more, likely to look you up online before deciding to do business with you.

This makes it vital to create conent to post online. Blog articles (yes, again), videos, comments on other blogs, a LinkedIn page, a Facebook page, etc. are all ways to build a personal brand online.

Creating content is only limited by one's creativity. There are so many ways to flood the web - and therefore one's online brand - with positive information about your knowledge, ideas and abilities.

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I want to run with an idea I just encounted in a blog post by Newt Barrett called, What is Your Unique Buying Proposition?

First, thank you Newt for this really thought-provoking idea. My mind has been racing ever since I read it, taking off in a variety of directions and applications for your idea.

Here is what Barrett says about a Unique Buying Proposition (aka "UBP"):

I think it’s much better to focus on the buyer with a unique buying proposition as the basic foundation for your content marketing strategy. Your UBP is what will get your customers excited about doing business with you and your company....

A UBP is a first cousin to a USB. The difference is that a UBP is all about the buyer and what the buyer will gain from doing business with you. Thus, your buyers don’t care that you are the only maker of green widgets in the United States. They do care if your green widgets will enable them to double their sales or cut their manufacturing costs by 50%.

Whenever I begin writing some web copy for a client, I start with what I call an "I want list." This list is written from the point of view of the buyer, prospect, or client for which the material is intended.

I have discovered that by the time I have filled one or two pages with "I wants" or "I don't wants" written as if from the mind of the buyer, I am able to really get inside their heads. It's kind of like the experience a method actor has when getting deeply into a character. In a sense the actor "becomes" that person.

A unique selling proposition is an important for differentiating your product or service, but it is still created from the perspective of the seller.

A unique buying proposition comes from the buyer's perspective. It tells what the buyer wants, needs and must get solved.

This is an essential mindset when creating content.

So how do you create quality content from the buyer's perspective?

• Start with an "I want list." Include as many "I don't wants" as well so you can uncover the things about buying your product that really bug prospects.
  
  
• Create a parallel "Why List" to dig deeper into these wants and don't wants. Get a real handle on the emotional needs behind your buyers' wants.
  
  
• Take it out into the real world. If you stop at the above, you have merely conducted a focus group of one person (or one internal group of the people on your team). Interview, survey and observe real live buyers to see what they want or don't want.
  
  
• Create "buyer personas." Continually ask yourself and your team, "What would Joe want?" as if your target buyer were a single individual named Joe. Learn to think of your buyer as a person, not a compilation of market research data.
  
  
• Create content that addresses these needs, wants and "don't wants". The best selling tool in today's market place is free information. What information will help Joe solve his problems, relieve his pains, get him what he wants or help him avoid what he doesn't want?
  

I think I'm just scratching the surface here on this topic of "Unique Buying Propositions." My mind is churning with ideas I want to explore and ways I want to try it out.

Tell me your thoughts. What do you think of unique buying propositions?

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This week I read yet another article about Twitter by someone who doesn’t understand Twitter. The article talked about how Twitter has not lived up to its hype as the next business “must have” / “must do.”

One of the telling quotes from the article was:

Twitter is turning out to be like a huge party that everybody RSVP'd for and very few people showed up. You know that feeling you may have had in the back of your mind wondering how interesting it would really be to let everybody know about what you were doing every hour? You may have been right -- it's not interesting at all.

Sigh.

Okay here we go again. Twitter (and other social media platforms) really don’t work well when they are just duct-taped onto old school ways of doing business. But Twitter works quite well when used together with blogs as a means of social networking instead of social marketing.

Here’s an analogy. Social networking is like attending a party. You don’t want to be THAT GUY who goes around the room handing out business cards and trying to steer social conversations toward your business. Yet this is exactly how many businesses try market themselves with Twitter.

This does not mean that you cannot get business as a result of meeting people in social settings, but you have to go about it differently. You have to interact with people as people and not as targets.

Below is a list of 33 ways even larger organizations can use Twitter:

1. Drive Traffic to your company’s blog. Yes, you must have a blog. Twitter, with its 140 character limitation, only allows you to entice people with a brief headline. Then you must send them to a link for more information. A blog enables you to continue that conversation with your readers. It is where you can inform them, show value to them, draw them into a relationship with your company. And ultimately turn them into customers.
   
   
2. Get new content noticed. Whenever you create new content (whether on your blog or static website) tweet about it to attract visitors. Make sure your content is interesting and valuable and not merely self-serving. Link to videos, quality articles, or slideshows.
   
   
3. Twitter is the tip of the sword for publicity efforts. Many traditional journalists aren’t yet paying attention to Twitter. No problem, they are paying attention to bloggers and others who are online thought leaders. Twitter can get you noticed by these people, who will in turn be noticed by traditional media.
   
   
4. Broadcast your PR pieces. As a publicity tool, Twitter can get the word out about something new and can link to online news releases. More often than not, a release posted online is ignored. But what if your release actually contains some really interesting information and not mere fluff? How do you get it noticed? Tweet about it to get those online thought leaders to see it.
   
   
5. Get more mileage out of publicity. If a favorable article appears in small media market or obscure publication, how to get it seen all over country? With Twitter you can spotlight such an article and keep giving it exposure long after it’s news cycle has passed.
   
   
6. Find out immediately when your company or product is in news. if you don’t find out about a news piece right away, your opportunity to maximize exposure from it can be lost. Twitter enables you to find out about these favorable mentions early by having a pre-set keyword search in place.
   
   
7. Offset bad publicity. Get your side of the story out quickly. Because Twitter gives you an early warning whenever someone tweets about your company, you can rebut or present offsetting information about the bad stories before they gain traction.
   
   
8. Use Twitter to distribute white papers and case studies. The trouble with producing great informational pieces is that they have to be read by the right people to be effective. Twitter gives you a way to put them into the right hands.
   
   
9. Humanize your executives. The more your audience can relate to your top people as humans, the better.
   
   For example, Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks uses his blog and Twitter account to talk about his ideas and opinions. Cuban is loved by some and hated by others, but no one doubts that his humanity and passion. He puts himself out there gives his voice and views on a wide range of topics When he puts out a new blog post, he sends a tweet out about it as well to bring visitors to read it.
   
   
10. Humanize your company. Highlight individuals who work hard to create great products and deliver great service. Don't just claim that your company is different, show it.
    
    
11. Showcase customer service “heroes.” What happens in most companies when an employee delivers exceptional service for a customer? Usually they are given a pat on the back and an “attaboy.”
    
    Nothing will convince people that your company has a culture of caring for customers more than showcasing individual employees who go the extra mile for a customer. Not only does this build loyalty from outside the company, it also builds it from within.
    
    
12. Educate your prospects and customers. These days you just cannot go too far in educating people about how to use your products, how to avoid problems, how to solve problems once they occur, etc. Helpful information builds a bond between you and your audience.
    
    Create "news you can use" pieces full of tips, solutions and ideas, and then get them out to people via Twitter.
    
    
13. Highlight your high standards. It’s one thing to claim that you have high quality, it is another thing completely to show your quality control standards in practice. Do you have procedures that demonstrate your fanaticism for producing quality products or insuring great service? Show the world how your company goes the extra mile.
    
    
14. Use Twitter to do good. Support causes, talk about the needs these causes address and show how others can help. Use Twitter to create buzz about needs, issues and concerns you feel are being overlooked. If you know of certain people suffering dire plights, you can champion their cause as a corporate white knight.
    
    
15. Raise money for charity. Going hand in hand with supporting causes, supporting good charities allows companies to bask in the light of their good deeds. Use Twitter to raise money by offering matching donations, or by publicizing a charity's work.
    
    
16. Keep your old content working. Old content need not die out or fade away. Twitter can drive traffic to even old content as long as it is still relevant.
    
    
17. Show how the sausage is made. Add value to your products by using Twitter to highlight pieces on your manufacturing process. Customers like to see the inner workings of how the things they buy and use are made. Not only would a video of your process build more brand loyalty, it also removes pricing barriers to premium products.
    
    
18. Preview launches and rollouts. Get pre-orders in advance of your product hitting the stores. Build excitement and anticipation for the product before it can be bought. Offer beta versions or advance copies to some key people on Twitter to help build buzz.
    
    
19. Create buzz for upcoming events. Twitter can help make sure an event is well attended and gains the maximum exposure.
    
    
20. Get television viewers. If a company executive will be appearing as a guest on a television show, use Twitter to let viewers know in advance. Afterwards, tweet about a video of that appearance.
    
    
21. Spotlight commercials. Let’s face it, your most creative and expensive commercials are probably going to be ignored. Use Twitter to make sure they get more attention than it otherwise might receive.
    
    Create a video of the commercial's production. Give some insights into how the spot was made, who made it, why the message was worded as it was. As a result, a few more people may stay and watch it instead of making a refrigerator run.
    
    
22. Listen. One of the little-known uses of Twitter is that you can learn so much by just listening to the stream of conversations going on. For more on this, check out my article, The Art of Listening on Twitter.
    
    
23. Create evangelists. Using Twitter’s keyword search you can find people who love your products. If you can turn them into “evangelists” (or as Seth Godin refers to them in his book, The Idea Virus, “sneezers”) they will tweet and blog about your company and product.
    
    But how can you reward these people without paying out money? How about giving them inside access to information before it is made public? Such as a review copy of a book before it is released, invite them to a sneak preview of a movie, invite them to take part in focus groups or come to company events.
    
    
24. Group evangelists. Sometimes you find your evangelists in groups. Create new groups around your interest area or encourage existing groups that have aligned interests. Find them on Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups and other places. Just search for groups that exist around your subject area.
    
    Give groups special attention with inside information or access. Invite them to events, ask them to be involved in focus groups.
    
    
25. Get more out of trade shows and conferences. When members of your team will be attending a conference, trade show or forum, tweet about it beforehand. Invite attendees to visit your company booth, attend breakout groups in which your people will be presenting, or just look them up as individuals going to the same event.
    
    
26. Market research. If you build a following of people likely to use your product, send out open-ended questions with a link to a site to leave their responses. Invite them to participate in focus groups and surveys.
    
    
27. Generate leads. Use Twitter to lead people to your opt in page and invite them to subscribe to your email newsletter. Reward them with some “bait piece” like a free ebook, video or report.
    
    
28. Ask what people want to talk about. Let them know you are willing to answer their questions about your company. This can be through your company blog or an online form. Be sure you actually follow up on these questions in a timely manner or word will get out that you don’t really care.
    
    
29. Create two way conversations with your customers. The above invitation to talk can lead to more than a one round exchange. These dialogues can wind up on Google. The people who respond will undoubtedly have a greater interest in your products than the rest of your market. Treat them well and show them respect.
    
    
30. Get testimonials. Inviting people to talk can lead to some very positive feedback which can be used as case studies or testimonials.
    
    
31. Innovative new uses for your products. Customers may find new uses for your product before you do. Think of baking soda. There must now be hundreds of uses that people have discovered. Use Twitter to share these new uses and applications to others.
    
    
32. Gain deeper understanding of your target market. Twitter can enable you to learn what makes your customers tick by getting inside their heads. Using keyword searches allows you to almost read their thoughts as they tweet about things that bug them or excite them. This is valuable intelligence if you use it.
    
    
33. Narrow your target market. Twitter allows you to define your niche with more exactitude. By listening, surveying and eliciting feedback with Twitter, you can learn far more than you could by other means.

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COPYRIGHT © 2009, Charles Brown
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