And you are on a giant conference call. Goofy analogy, I know, but the paradigm shift has begun, and there’s a key ingredient in your digital marketing mix that will make you more successful with the new technology.

“Everybody” Knows Twitter These Days

According to a June 16 article in the San Fransisco Chronicle*, the micro-blogging social network boasts nearly 106 million users and as awareness of Twitter across America has grown from 5% in 2008 to 87% in 2010, so too has the acceptance of Twitter as a legitimate and reliable mode of communication.

With Twitter, connections are made, meetings are planned and products are promoted. Networks of industry professionals and consumers debate the latest topics and interlink their conversation with hashtags, like #hashtagsAreNeat. The concept that Twitter is solely for documenting your day through 140- character blurps has long expired.

What does this mean for business?

Your company may or may not be on Twitter yet (and there’s a whole other conversation to have about being a brand on Twitter) but I’m here to ask: are you conducting business via Twitter? If you own a business, are you allowing your employees to conduct business via Twitter? If not, you should.

This is especially true for client-facing individuals on a company’s staff who are charged with duties such as sales, account service, public relations or customer support. Of course, no company should boldly go into the social media frontier without a plan and a set of guidelines. For the quick and dirty, check out our blog about social media policy for the workplace. If you need a little more friendly advice, give us a call.

The short of it is, your employees should be on Twitter because it’s one of the fastest growing, 21st Century means for building relationships.

Take Me For Example

My name is Jared—I’m the new Digital Brand Manager at Greteman Group. A few months ago, I sent a tweet (a message via Twitter) to another person who worked here at the agency, to let them know I was interested in working for them. When a position became open a couple months later, I received a tweet from him asking me if I’d like an interview. After a couple of interviews, I was hired.

Greteman Group found the talent they needed. I got the job of my internet-nerd dreams. Transaction complete—one in which Twitter played a critical role. Other methods of communication could have easily turned out to be less effective, what with phone trees and cluttered inboxes.

Here’s the key:

Beyond my résumé and qualifications, Twitter made it easy for Greteman Group and me to develop a little relationship before our employment interaction. In the past, I would “tweet” about the latest social media topics itching my brain, and solicit comment from the experts here at the agency. Needless to say, we got along, and when it came time for them to make the hire (and for me to score the gig) it was just a matter of building on our established rapport.

Use Twitter Like It’s a Telephone

I understand that Twitter may have yet to be a standard in your industry. For some businesses, it could be a long time before it makes sense to substitute tweets for telephone in a significant way. In that case, you may want to think about the opportunity to lead your industry in customer interaction via Twitter. Give the conversational, instantaneous culture of Twitter a chance—you may be pleasantly surprised by the results.

* http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2010/06/16/businessinsider-twitter-grows-up-and-gets-serious-2010-6.DTL

GG digital brand manager Todd Ramsey recently provided a “Twitter 101″ to a crowd of area marketing professionals. Todd – known as @toddblog to his fellow Tweeps – focused on the business aspects of this microblogging tool. He highlighted five practical ways for personal and corporate brands to take advantage of Twitter: promotion, information, feedback, support and connection.

Jen Gore (@jennyjuniper) and I (@crashley) provided a tweet-by-tweet of the event. You can find the links Todd used in his presentation here and photos of the event here.

If you’re part of a group or organization looking to learn more about Twitter or just social media in general, Todd and Jen would love to share their knowledge. Just click here for information about their presentation.

Wichita was graced by an Internet celebrity last Thursday night. Paul Smith, better known as the “TwitchHiker,” spent a couple of hours hanging out with some folks at a tweetup held in his honor.

Smith is on a mission to travel the world in 30 days all on the gifts and good graces of kindred Twitter spirits. These newfound friends are paying for his flights and Greyhound tickets, giving him rides and putting him up overnight in their homes. He started 12 days ago in Newcastle, England. Last Friday morning, he was on his way to Austin, Texas for SXSW.

Smith is doing all of this for charity: water. Simply by asking the Twitter-world to donate, he’s already surpassed his goal to raise more than $4,000.

We understand peoples’ skepticism with Twitter. The idea of proclaiming to the world what you’re doing does sound a little ludicrous. But examples like TwitchHiker highlight the power of this simple site. (For more on Twitter, be sure to come to Thursday’s WAMA luncheon. It’s all about how, despite the challenges, brands are benefiting from Twitter. And yes, this is a shameless plug for a presentation I’m giving.)

For more on Smith, be sure to check out his website, where you can follow his journey and contribute to the cause. Also, be sure to check out the news story from KAKE – you might even catch a glimpse of yours truly.

We are a plugged-in people, constantly bombarded by friend requests, photo tags, status updates and links to videos of funny babies and pets. At Greteman Group, we not only embrace the media and technology that make these bombardments possible, we harness them for our clients. We also welcome the power of individuals to leverage and enhance their personal brands through these tools.

At the same time, we recognize the challenges of the increasing competition for our time and attention created by this barrage of messages. To address these challenges, we have created the following guidelines for team members’ use of social media tools both in and out of the office.

*We’re adding the following policy to our official employee manual. We thought that many of you might be having similar discussions at your companies, and that posting our policy might help guide your conversations.

Overall Philosophy
While you are on company time, please refrain from online activities that don’t bring value to Greteman Group. Think of your personal time online in the same way you think of personal phone calls or emails.

Blogging
Microsoft has a bone-simple blogging policy. Be smart. We ask the same of you. Please be smart in your online activities. They reflect on both you and the agency. The ability to publish things that may never go away and can be forwarded endlessly, well, it gives us pause and we hope it does you, too.

We view personal websites and blogs as good things. We want you to avail yourselves of these media. We respect your online activity as a medium of self-expression. Please note, though, that confidentiality agreements prevent disclosure of all client and Greteman Group business. Readers may view you as a de facto spokesperson for our company.

While you are employed with Greteman Group, please observe the following blogging guidelines for your personal blogs:

1. Do not work on your personal blog during business hours. If you just have to scratch the itch to blog, write a post for the Greteman Group blog.
2. When posting to your personal blog, please make it clear to your readers that the views you express are yours alone and that they do not necessarily reflect the agency’s views. To help reduce the potential for confusion, we would appreciate it if you put the following notice – or something similar – in a reasonably prominent place on your site:
   The views expressed on this website/weblog are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
3. Respect the company’s confidentiality and proprietary information.
4. Ask your direct supervisor if you have any questions about what is appropriate to include in your blog.
5. Be respectful to the company, fellow team members, clients and competitors.
6. Understand and comply when the company asks that topics not be discussed for confidentiality or legal reasons.

Online Social Networking
Online social networks include sites like Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn (and many, many more).

There have been a number of questions regarding proper “etiquette” on these sites. While there are no official rules when it comes to the following, these are our recommendations:

• Use Facebook and MySpace (and similar sites) as your personal network. If you don’t want to friend coworkers, vendors or clients, don’t feel pressured to.
• Use LinkedIn as your professional network for adding work-related colleagues.
• If you are uncomfortable with adding a contact, don’t add him or her. These might include former employees, competitors or that random, slightly creepy guy you met at an organization’s mixer.

The following are guidelines we request you abide by while you are employed with Greteman Group:

1. Do not access your personal social network on company time.
2. In your LinkedIn privacy settings, block your connections from viewing your other connections. The setting should read: “Your connections are not allowed to view your connections list.” Sounds confusing, we know. Which is why we will show everyone how to do it at our next Oxygen Bar. If you’re still confused, just see a member of the iTeam for instructions.
3. Be smart about what you publish. Once you put something out there, it can be difficult to retract. Make sure your online brand doesn’t diminish or tarnish your offline brand.

Twitter
Twitter has become so prevalent that it has earned its own section in our guidelines. The biggest concern when it comes to Twitter is not the time it takes to tweet, but the time and focus you spend keeping up with the numerous conversations.

Please observe the following Twitter guidelines:

1. Do not let your Twitter posting interfere with your billable and company projects.
2. Moderate the use of your Twitter monitoring tools (Twhirl, Twitterific, TweetDeck, etc.) during working hours.
3. Part-time employees have no reason to use Twitter while at work. Therefore, they are not allowed to use Twitter – either posting or listening – during their time at work.

Social Video
Watching a quick video on YouTube can spark creativity and lighten a stressful day. We don’t want to ban YouTube, we just ask that you moderate the time you spend watching videos. And, obviously, don’t let them interfere with your billable time.

Blog Reading
Just like videos, blogs are invaluable sources of inspiration and information. Please refrain from reading personal or non-industry blogs during company time. And, again, don’t let blog reading interfere with billable time.

Online Shopping
Unless it is work-related, please refrain from online shopping during company time.

eMail Forwards
Jokes, urban legends and get-rich email forwards are the oldest form of Internet-based social media. When it comes to company email, we ask that you think twice before hitting send and be judicious with the number of items you forward. And, if you’re unsure whether a certain Nigerian prince really is being truthful about a promised fortune, a quick stop by Snopes.com might be in order.

If you have any questions about these guidelines or any matter related to your site that these guidelines do not address, please contact a member of the iTeam.

Location Based Social Networking
Wouldn’t it be great to know exactly where our competitors were, all the time? Just the same, we don’t want to clue in our competition on which potential (and current) clients we’re visiting and when. Please refrain from checking in with Foursquare, Gowalla and the like at our clients’ locations during business activity.

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If your company has developed a social media policy, share it in the comments. If you haven’t, share how you’re handling social media usage. We can all learn from each other.

*This post was updated on June 2010. Original post January 2009.