First, you have to request the Salesforce integration functionality under Settings > Manage Twitter Accounts, 3rd Party Integration and Scheduler and then click Modify for an account.  After the Salesforce Tweet to Lead has been enabled (you will receive a confirmation email), simply plug your Salesforce Org ID into TweetFunnel in the same area.

After the functionality is enabled, you will see the “S” button on the right hand side of tweets within TweetFunnel.  Here’s a mention from someone who may be interested in our application:

After the “S” is clicked, a light window pops up.  You’ll see that TweetFunnel has autofilled as much information as possible from the lead:

After doing some quick research based on the fact that @TheHive is referenced, a user can make some updates within the light window. Mike’s company name, URL and his position were added and the address was fixed up:

After clicking the Submit Tweet-to-Lead button, a new Lead is created in Salesforce.com and the appropriate rep receives an email notification, if notifications are set up within Salesforce.

The rep may need to do some additional research, since Twitter does not provide all contact information.   ZoomInfo PowerSellSF is an excellent tool for filling in the blanks.  Here’s a link to a demo.

If your company is not currently a Salesforce.com customer, you can sign up for a 30 day trial.

1. Use Cotags, so users can follow who’s tweeting. Cotags are the little signatures that you’ve likely seen at the end of tweets. They look like this ^NG.
2. Assign each user a topic upon which to focus. This prevents duplicate tweets and also keeps the stream varied. To encourage and inspire your team, create a list of example tweets.
3. Make sure customer inquiries are handled promptly. If you don’t have hundreds of inquiries it’s easiest to assign a given task to one person or set up an on-duty schedule. This ensures continuity and prevents multiple replies to the same inquiry. If you have a lot of inquiries, set up a way to decipher who will handle which tweet. For instance, one person could review tweets from people with handles starting with A-M and another takes the N-Z.
4. Have a gatekeeper, if necessary. Not everyone is familiar with Twitter, its protocols or its etiquette. Also, it’s possible that you might want to be able to edit or review tweets by some or all of your employees.

• Tweet promotions that are Twitter only. This will give you a measurable response and could increase your followers. Example: “Twitter only deal! Free shipping with code TWSHIP.”
• Use hashtags in your promotional tweets to extend their reach. Some of the most popular deal-related tags are: #blackfriday, #coupon, #savings and #deal.
• If you’re a brick and mortar retailer or restaurant, use one of these tools to find tweeters in your area and follow them. Make sure to be posting content that would grab their attention. Example: “Free appetizer with any entrée today at our 2nd and Main Street location!”
• Run a Twitter contest. For some tips, see our previous post on this topic.

Here’s to a happy and profitable holiday tweeting season!

• 48% of Twitter users who saw a brand’s name mentioned on the site would go on to use a search engine to investigate further
• 34% have used a search engine to find information on a product/service/brand after seeing an advertisement on a social networking site
• 30% have learned about a new product, service or brand from a social networking site
• 32% said messages about printable coupons on social sites resonate with them
• 28% said messages about sales or special deal notifications resonate with them

If your company is ready to put your brand on Twitter or if you just want to take it to the next level, you may want to check out how the most mentioned brands on Twitter are managing their profiles.  You can find them here.  You may also want to ask yourself some strategic questions before taking the leap.  Social media expert, Jeremiah Owyang outlines some important questions here.

• Listen first.  Before your new recruits post their first tweet, have them spend some time reading the tweets you’ve posted in the past and the tweets of those you follow.  This will give new tweeters an idea of the tone that people use on Twitter and should reinforce that it’s not all pointless jabber or self-promotion.
• Know the basics.  Make sure they understand RTs, @replies, common courtesies, etc.  Check out our Twitter primer, do’s and don’ts.
• Search.  Teaching Twitter newbies to search is like dropping off a kid in a candy store.  Encourage them to search for things that interest them as well as things that pertain to your brand.  This will heighten their appreciation for Twitter and give them ideas on how and what to tweet.

Keeping the Training Wheels on for New Twitter Users

If you’re not quite ready to let your new tweeters out on their own, TweetFunnel can take some of the stress off.  Different user roles let you choose who can contribute tweets to the “funnel” (for review) and who can publish directly to Twitter.   This easily lets your new tweeters contribute tweets, but gives you the option to approve and/or edit them first.

For example, if your new tweeters don’t quite understand the proper use of hashtags yet, you can add tags to their tweets before posting them to Twitter.  You can check for typos, make sure they aren’t spilling confidential info or just help them write more efficient tweets.  Then, once they get the hang of it, you can take the training wheels off and let them post directly.

What’s a URL Shortener?

With a Twitter’s limit of 140 characters, every letter, space and punctuation point counts.  That’s why a link that is 100 characters all by itself just won’t do.  Luckily, many companies have taken this issue seriously and developed sites that shorten links down to around 20 characters.  Just paste in your link to one of these sites, hit shorten and voila — a Twitter friendly link.  And to make life even easier, most Twitter applications, including TweetFunnel, have integrated link shorteners so you can do everything in one place.

How do I Track Clicks on my Links?

It’s easy—just use a link shortening service with tracking capabilities.  Our two favorites are Bit.ly and BudURL.   You can shorten and track URLs directly from these sites, or you can use them in conjunction with other applications.

Below is a sample of Bit.ly tracking.  You can see the total number of clicks on your link, the number of clicks from other people’s links to the same page, when people clicked, and below the chart it even lists all the tweets containing that URL.

Example of Bit.ly Statistics

If you’re using TweetFunnel, follow these easy steps to automatically shorten and track your URLs:

• Sign up for a Bit.ly account here or a BudURL account here.
• Then in TweetFunnel, click on “Settings” in the upper right and then on “Manage Twitter Accounts, Credentials and Scheduler.”
• Then click on “Not Added” in the “Track Bit.ly URLs” or “Track BudURLs” column.
• Enter your Bit.ly or your BudURL username and API Key.  Your stats from links posted via TweetFunnel will display within your Bit.ly or your BudUrl account.

Hashtags are predefined markers that you add to your tweets.  They let people easily follow a certain subject by searching for that hashtag.  Using a hashtag is like participating in a public chat room.

The most common ways to use hashtags are for events or topics.  For instance, a Twitter conference will create a hashtag for itself, say #140tc, and everyone tweeting about that conference will use that tag in their tweets.  That way people can interact as to what’s going on.

When used for a topic, hashtags are less of a conversation and more of a way to categorize information.  For instance, if you are part of a travel company, you could use the hashtag #travel in a lot of your tweets.  You could also participate in memes like #traveltuesday.  That way, someone looking for travel information can simply search that hashtag.

Putting Hashtags to Work for You

So how should you use hashtags?  It depends.

• Events: Do you attend a lot of industry events?  If so, you should live-tweet those events to give people who can’t attend a window to what’s happening, and to position yourself as an industry leader in-the-know.
• Topics: There is a hashtag for almost anything.  Think about keywords for your industry (CRM, food, nonprofit, leadership) and use this site to see if a hashtag already exists.  If it does, start adding it to your tweets and save a search for it so that you can see what other people are saying.  Retweet some of the folks that are talking about your topic and get a conversation going.
• Mix it up!  Don’t always use the same hashtag in your tweets.  Find a few different ones that make sense and intersperse them.  Also, don’t make your posts long and hard to RT by adding too many hashtags.  Also, every post doesn’t have to be tagged.

According to this article in the New York Times:

• Just 11 percent of Twitter users are aged 12 to 17, according to comScore.
• Almost everyone under 35 uses social networks, but the growth of these networks over the last year has come from older adults, according to a report from Forrester Research issued Tuesday. Use of social networking by people aged 35 to 54 grew 60 percent in the last year.

I particularly agree with this statement from the article, “For Twitter’s future, young people’s ambivalence could be a good thing. Teenagers may be more comfortable using new technologies, but they are also notoriously fickle. Although they drove the growth of Friendster and MySpace, they then moved on from those sites to Facebook.”

The focus on adults may finally give B2B marketers a social network to call their own.  Some may say that this focus already exists with LinkedIn.  I agree that LinkedIn is a truly professionally oriented site, but most see it as a tool for connecting and job hunting, not a place to expound the benefits of business systems.  Twitter gives B2B marketers a tool and an audience that is appropriate for them.

The Whuffie Factor from missrogue on Vimeo.

5 Key Principles to building whuffie:

1. Turn the bullhorn around
2. Become part of the community you serve
3. Create amazing customer experiences
4. Embrace the chaos
5. Find your higher purpose

What’s your business doing to build your social capital?