The last thing you want when you’re marketing your business on Twitter is someone poaching your company or brand name. It happens enough to where some users may not be sure if they are talking to the ‘real’ company / person or an impersonator. Of course, there are also some great stories of people who assume that there’s no way they are talking to the ‘real’ person only to find out that they are!

Fortunately, Twitter recently introduced a ‘Verified Account’ feature to help resolve the problem.
http://twitter.com/help/verified

It won’t completely solve the problem, but it’s a step in the right direction and demonstrates that Twitter recognizes the importance. If users can’t trust that they are talking to the genuine person or company based on the user name, they’ll find another way to connect.Verify yours! We’re heading there now…

Press:Here, a weekly technology show airing on the Silicon Valley’s NBC affiliate, discussed the future of Twitter with their co-founder. Sarah Lacy, Jon Fortt. and Scott McGrew question Dorsey about the future of Twitter, what it will (and won’t do) to make money, and what makes Twitter unique.

Nothing specific to marketing, but Dorcey’s differentiation between ‘search’ and ‘discovery’ is one of several points that marketers will find interesting in the interview. How can you take advantage of the real-time discovery capabilities of Twitter for your business? Market research? Customer support? Lead generation?

Anyone that doesn’t at least understand that Twitter has become a disruptive marketing tool should immediately stop reading this, start with some earlier posts and the articles they recommend.

Disruptive technologies, by definition, change the way people do things. In most cases, our the way we use these technologies evolves as we learn more about them and what we want to get out of them.

When we got our first Tivo, at first we only recorded a few shows. We’d watch them and delete them then wait for something else to be recorded. Then we realized that it would be great if there was always something to watch so we added more shows to record and let Tivo record its own ‘suggestions’. At first, we were overwhelmed. We were so used to watching and deleting shows that we felt like we couldn’t keep up anymore. It took a little while before we were ‘okay’ with not watching EVERYTHING that was on Tivo. Now, 8 years later, it’s totally natural.

The pattern evolves over time and varies depending on the individual and the benefit that they are hoping to get out of the technology.

So what does this have to do with Twitter? We’re only starting to see what’s possible. Even the early adopters are still evolving their usage of Twitter. The big question that came up recently in this New York Times article is whether or not it’s acceptable to use a ghostwriter for celebrity or corporate tweets.

Keeping a constant stream of tweets flowing to the followers of a brand (whether you’re a celebrity or a corporation) is crucial. Go dark for too long and you’ll never realize the full potential of Twitter. If you can’t do it yourself, a ghostwriter is definitely better than sporadic tweets. However, you’ve got two choices – either you have to be up-front and fess-up that the tweets are coming from multiple writers, or, you have to be darn sure that the ghostwriter is accurately representing your brand. Maybe you can’t write every tweet, but you or someone on your marketing or PR team should review them before they go out.

Keeping a constant flow of tweets is key and requires a separate post. We’ll get that up asap. Enjoy the Times article.

Chief Marketer just posted an article by Charles Hull of Archrival claiming “Social Media’s Only Rule: Don’t be Boring.”

Maybe it was linkbait. Sure hope so because anyone that truly believe that could get seriously burned.

While it does make sense to use social networking as a way to add a personal element and depth to business relationships, we’ve seen that saying exactly what’s on your mind can have serious consequences.

Take Mr. Hull’s article with a big grain of salt and add common sense. Try not to be boring, but definitely don’t say anything that you might regret. Always assume that the world is watching.