Twitter, robots and the need for clarity

With the number of online adults using Twitter growing, small businesses marketing strategies are increasingly likely to benefit from using the micro-blogging service, which can alert followers to all sorts of news, promotions and special deals.

In fact, a recent survey from Pew Internet shows that percentage of online adults using Twitter has grown by two percentage points by May 2011, from 13 percent to 15 percent. Furthermore, 8 percent of respondents said they visited the social network on a daily basis.

However, as many marketers have learned, Twitter can be a difficult marketing channel to conquer – it requires companies to have in-depth knowledge about what their consumers/followers are interested in as well as constant communication with them.

Companies team up with robots

Twitter can offer small businesses an unparalleled opportunity to stay connected to consumers’ lives. This possibility comes with certain obligation and expectations, though – especially if businesses want to find success with the social platform.

As one can imagine, Twitter can be quite time-consuming for companies. Most experts suggest marketers send out new tweets at least daily, and this doesn’t even include efforts for monitoring and responding.

With this problem in mind, many small businesses have turned to social media automation. TechCrunch identifies four types of social media performance tools: content publishing on a timer, social content optimization, proactive responses and"human-like" relationships.

"While the technologies are still emerging, expect to see optimization emerge in social and be refined," the website explains. "Many corporations will take advantage of these technologies for low level tasks (immediate response, guidance) and the most advanced will deploy these tools to engage, interact and build deeper relationships with their customers."

The technologies

"Content Publishing on a Timer": These types of technologies allow businesses to pre-load and schedule when content will be released. This frees owners from their computers and allows them to determine their tweets for the rest of the day or week. However, make sure to continue to check in with the site – a business never knows when customers are offering positive or negative feedback that should be handled.

"Social Content Optimization": Similar to search engine optimization, this strategy is about identifying key subjects and audiences, and developing content that will appeal to them at the right time and place, TechCrunch explains.

"Proactive Response": Many institutions are using this tactic to launch such services as live chat with customer service agents. Rather than calling into service centers, they can find help online. With businesses using Twitter handles for just this purpose.

"Human-like Relationships": This type of technology is still a bit farther in the future. "While on the distant horizon, artificial intelligence agents will simulate human behavior and be a guiding agent, conversationalist and act like a real world concierge, host and for some, even a friend," the website explains.
Technology is nothing without dynamic content
However, sophisticated technologies cannot make up for boring, unrelated, inappropriate or just plain bad content on Twitter. The microblogging site may only allow for short messages to be sent out, but that doesn’t mean anything can be posted.

Every tweet needs to have a purpose. It may be easy – especially for newcomers – to assume that any tweet is a good tweet, but that just isn’t true. Inc. magazine advises businesses to inform customers what their goals for the social media platform are, and what they hope to do with it.

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