Social Media Spin

Brian Solis from PR 2.0 has pub­lished a com­pre­hen­sive list of Twit­ter tools for com­mu­nity man­agers and com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­als. Busi­nesses imple­ment­ing a social media strat­egy will find a wealth of value from this list of tools, and by using them in a way that cre­ates trans­parency and authenticity.

One rea­son I haven’t spent a lot of time on this blog writ­ing about social media tools is because the old habits of mar­ket­ing die hard with regard to using tools. SEO/​SEM seems to have lulled mar­keters into lazi­ness with all of the auto­mated tools that merely require setup and mon­i­tor­ing. Twit­ter — and all social media, to be sure — requires actual engage­ment with the users of the media. That requires authen­ticty, trans­parency, and not hid­ing behind an orga­ni­za­tional brand. In the past, I’ve found the most effec­tive way of help­ing busi­nesses under­stand how Social Media is dif­fer­ent was to train them on the cul­ture of Social Media and to incor­po­rate that cul­ture into their orga­ni­za­tional com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Now that many busi­nesses are start­ing to under­stand this con­cept of trans­parency and open com­mu­ni­ca­tion, more and more busi­nesses are intel­li­gently using the tools avail­able for social media to improve their cus­tomer com­mu­ni­ca­tions. So, I list these tools with the caveat that effec­tive use of them by orga­ni­za­tions require a real under­stand­ing of the Twit­ter cul­ture of openness.

How to best use this list of Twit­ter tools:

• Develop a Twit­ter strat­egy with the help of a Social Media consultant
• Tie your Twit­ter strat­egy into a larger Social Media strategy
• Choose the tools which uniquely fit into your com­mu­ni­ca­tions strategy
• Always keep a spirit of trans­parency and 2-​​way com­mu­ni­ca­tion fore­most, as some of the tools can cre­ate broad­cast type mes­sages which annoy and alien­ate many social media users