Translating Twitter Terms

Twitter seems to have spawned a whole new language, somewhere between text speak and auto-shortening, which can leave us all a bit perplexed at times! Here's a glossary of some of the key terms to help you make head or tail of it all.


Twitter helps people communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent, 140 character messages. Its like a mini blog.

Tweet

A tweet is a Twitter message (140 characters max.)

Tweep

A tweep is a person who uses Twitter. Every tweep has a username and a unique url eg http://www.twitter.com/activemdkate

Following

Following someone on Twitter means getting their updates in your personal timeline. If you follow Tina, you'll get her updates on your homepage when you log in, or on your phone if you've added an app. To start receiving messages from a person, visit their profile page and click "follow" or send a text message to Twitter with the words "follow username" from your phone. You'll get messages from the people you've followed as soon as they update, and you can stop following anyone at anytime. There is a general courtesy to follow people back who follow you, but you don't have to follow everyone who follows you and you can follow and un-follow who ever you want whenever you want.

Followers

Followers are people who receive other peoples' Twitter updates.

RT

RT is short for retweet, and indicates a re-posting of someone else's tweet. This is a key part of Twitter’s viral nature. RT isn't an official Twitter command or feature, but people add RT somewhere in a tweet to indicate that part of their tweet includes something they're re-posting from another person's tweet, sometimes with a comment of their own. It’s a bit like an endorsement or a recommendation and is an important way of “sharing the love” and making friends on Twitter.

@reply and :D direct messages

An @reply is a public message sent regardless of follow-ship that anyone can view. An @reply can be used to ensure that someone specific sees a tweet or to draw someone’s attention to a tweet or retweet of particular interest to them. A :D direct message can only be sent by someone you follow, and is a private message that only the author and recipient can view.

Examples

@activemdkate Enjoyed your tweet about Beckham and branding http://tinyurl.com/kqtu62

:Dactivemdkate What time shall we meet for lunch?

Favourites

The star * is a way for you to mark an update as favourite. People can view your favourites, and you theirs, by clicking on the Favourites link in the profile page.

# hashtags

Twitter hashtags like #followfriday help spread information on Twitter while also helping to organise it. The hashtag is a favourite tool of conferences and event organizers, but it’s also a way for Twitter users to organise themselves: if everyone agrees to append a certain hashtag to tweets about a topic, it becomes easier to find that topic in search, and more likely the topic will appear in Twitter’s Trending Topics. In some situations a hashtag can become part of a brand and may even feature in other marketing environments such as your website.
Lists

Twitter Lists are a relatively new feature which allow Twitter users to group together people they follow or are interested in hearing from under one simple heading. Twitter lists are integrated Twitter streams from a specified selection of users.

Follow Friday

#followfriday (#ff) is a “game” in which people suggest who to follow on Twitter. It helps everyone find interesting Twitter users. You list the users you recommend following and add “#followfriday” anywhere in the Tweet so others can find it. The “#” is very important – don’t forget it!
Example

#followfriday @mashable @adamostrow @sharonfeder @jbruin @adamhirsch @benparr @brett @tamar

#followfriday can be enhanced by giving just one name per tweet and then a brief explanation of why people should follow them

#followfriday @lambdafilms – great local video company and fun fellas too!


Interesting people to follow – Norfolk

@activemdkate
@lambdafilms
@elaine_maslin
@edpmary
@enjoynorwich
@sarajgreenfield
@chris_greenf
@norwich_broker
@brays_cottage
@Breckland
@BBCChrisgoreham
@LCDParkHouse
@redwingsHS
@lucieMD
@thewindowcoffee

Making sponsors feel special

I recently responded to a forum post from someone who was worried about losing her corporate sponsor. Its something that is absolutely critical within public relations activity, not least in the current economic climate where corporate cash is very hard to come by. The example related to a show-jumping rider and her sponsors who run a video company, specialising in stable CCTV but these principles can be applied in other scenarios too.

Here are a few thoughts from my experience of looking after both companies and riders public relations campaigns. You need to think carefully about embedding the sponsor into your business so that the two are inter-linked and therefore they feel more engaged and are much less likely to pull out. It should be quite easy as this sponsor is so closely related to the business. Its far more tricky if your sponsor is in another sector eg insurance!

For starters, the rider should be using their video service and it should be live on both rider and sponsor websites. The rider could also post clips from this free of charge to youtube and other video sharing sites. Have either party got a facebook page? They are free for businesses and you can then post links and video clips etc here promoting both sponsor and rider.

Pitching a news story/feature about using their video service within the rider’s business will also be much more interesting to papers and magazine editors than something overtly commercial like "I'm really grateful to my new sponsor...".

Mention them in your blog. This sounds much more natural and less sales-like so adds value for the sponsor if its in context eg "The stableview video captured Coryn doing something naughty/unusual/snoring etc..."

Send the sponsors a nice framed photo (or a canvas print is cheaper and more trendy) of your top horse with a caption like "Team X sponsored by Stableview" to display in their offices if applicable. Add a lock of the horse's hair to make it really unique.

Can you arrange any hospitality through any shows where you compete etc? If its smaller local events that don't have sponsors areas then consider doing a posh picnic by the lorry or invite them to stay over at a show for a real experience if they are quite practical people. All stuff that money can't really buy but that can make the sponsor feel really important and won't cost the rider a fortune either if you are smart about it.

Kate Elliott is Marketing Director of Active Marketing & Design Ltd which specialises in delivering practical marketing solutions for the rural sector. Kate is also a keen rider and regular contributor to leading equestrian magazines including Horse & Hound.

Examples of work we don't do!

I recently spoke at a networking event whilst feeling a little overwhelmed and frazzled with our current workload. As I sat and waited my turn to speak for 60 seconds I started to anxiously jot down my to do list for the day. This resulted in a slightly humorous pitch in which I detailed all of the things I hadn't done that week to give an illustration of the sort of work we are involved in. I finished the pitch by saying: "My name is Kate Elliott from Active Marketing and Design, but please for this week at least, we don't do marketing and design!" This presentation actually attracted a lot of interest in our work by default and a lot of people seemed to get a better understanding of what we do and started to trust us more.

I suppose its all part of the know - like - trust - buy idea. That is people need to first get to know you, then begin to like you and finally grow to trust you before they will buy from you.

So in a continuation of that theme here are some examples of the work we have done in the last few weeks:

Branding and Postcards for The Business Base












Design and produce spiral hats for Easton College to distribute at Royal Norfolk Show















And here are some of the things on the to do list:

PR plan for animal first aid products
Social media activity for healthy furniture store
Write text for a website of a repair company specialising in emergency vehicles
Design a poster in Polish about onions
Design packaging stickers for pest control products