Shepherd Your Flock on Twitter

In case you haven’t heard—and who hasn’t—there is a global conversation going on with or without you. But the question is, How much or little should you join in? Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Digg. So many possibilities and so many roads to travel.

A recent report on mediapost.com reviewed 100 brands and found the companies that were the least active on social media saw their sales drop 6%. To counteract this, Dell's now paying a 40-person team to run social media for the company.

The report sorted companies according to four categories, with "mavens" being the most aggressive brands in social media and "wallflowers" sitting on the sidelines. In between are "butterflies" (companies that are spread too thin across social properties) and "selectives" (those that excel by focusing on just a few channels).

The TweetSheep word cloud capture shows how our firm (MarketCues) is strategically followed by specific groups:

• Social media strategists (to get the latest news)

• Marketing experts (for connections/latest news/conversation)

• Entrepreneurs (for connections / conversations / to promote MarketCues.com)

• Orlando businesses (for local connections / conversations)

• Marketing (to exchange tips / latest trends, news)

A useful Website, TweetSheep (http://twittersheep.com/) provides an analysis of all of your Twitter followers’ (or your “flock’s”—hence, the sheep) profiles. Based on the keywords they use to describe themselves in their profiles, TweetSheep creates this "word cloud"...which I'm sure you've seen before. The bigger the word, the more emphasis or repetition across profiles; the smaller the word, the less often it comes up, etc. It's a good way to do a quick check and make sure you're attracting the right set of Twitter Followers.

For MarketCues, our TweetSheep word cloud emphasizes marketing. For your company, you can determine the emphasis that will create the conversations you desire.

Tom Wants to Hear Your Branding Issues:
If you are a printing company, or product/services company serving the industry, and would like to be considered for a feature in this blog, please contact Tom Marin for an interview.