Connie Bensen

Listening is an integral part of monitoring the conversations. As a community manager I’m not only actively listening but also noticing how other companies are listening & participating. It’s exciting to to see more corporations using Twitter! How do I know that they are? Well, upon mention of a product or company within minutes the brand or a representative is following me.

As a customer this means that I have direct contact with the company. It’s very powerful! And the personal touch means a lot to me.

Who are actively using Twitter?

• @MarketingProfs,@BulldogSolut (Bulldog marketing), @evernote
• people representing indeed.com, radian6 and many more!

The other part of this is monitoring what people are saying on Twitter about your brand. I use tweetscan.com in the same way that I have GoogleAlerts set up: a daily report on @cbenson, @cbensen, acdsee and ‘community manager’

@jowyang recently listed a number of helpful Twitter app’s.

And if you’re wondering what Twitter is – Lee LeFever of CommonCraft has a video on it:

If you’re not on Twitter yet, sign up & follow me @cbensen

Connect with me on Facebook (link under my photo on left – works for Twitter too!) & I’ll be glad to help you with Twitter.

*update* 2 more corporations found me today: @HRBlock & @carnivalcruises

And I shouldn’t have forgotten my friends at @batchblue & also @perkettpr

*update* here’s an excellent article on why Companies Should Use Twitter

Twitter is a bird of many colors. I’ve seen it used in many creative ways:

• Job vacancies are posted that I doubt ever hit traditional boards
• requests for sightseeing & restaurant recommendations
• tweet-ups (people meet at a certain place when attending an event)

Recently I had won an iPhone. AT&T doesn’t offer service in my area so I blogged about it & posted a link on Twitter. My readers came up with a number of ideas & offered empathy. It seems that the iTouch better suited my needs . I really didn’t want to test AT&T to see if they would notice an out of range account & disconnect me.

I called Apple & they were willing to return it, but the credit would go to the original purchaser which was the Wetpaint Wiki company. Then they would have had to order a new one & it just seemed like an unfair hassle for them. Apple had free shipping on Friday, so I posted my Twitter ad.

need an iPhone? at $299? I won one, I can’t get service & an iTouch is better – Apple has free shipping today… DM me if you’re interested

In 5 minutes I had 2 responses. In an hour the third one came in that actually purchased it. We used Paypal to transfer the funds. Ebay has taught me how easy Paypal is to use.

My iPhone has a home where it can be used for more than a paperweight! YAY! And my iTouch will be delivered by Friday. (I won’t be home so it’ll be a week before I can play with my new toy.). My sister-in-law is taking delivery.

What creative ways do you see Twitter being used?

My introduction of Utterz at my other blog www.DigiScrapInfo.com

Community Strategist Live

Connie Interviews Community Experts

I saw Chris Brogan testing Utterz just before PodCamp 2 in Boston. Then I read Jeremiah’s instructions & thought – ok, I can do this!

Well with that kind of peer pressure…(can you feel the magnet of social media pulling me in?) I saw the note about the MicroMedia Meetup?! Now I don’t do any MicroMedia other than Twitter, so I had to get with it & quick! So you get TWO Utterz! In them I reveal secrets. And now you know the rest of the story! *grin*

I added a new category for this – micromedia. My friend, Jeremiah O, coined the term. And I must say that hearing a person’s voice adds a new dimension to the blogging experience.

(Hey sister Heidi, you’re pretty good at those videos, but what do you think of this,eh?!)