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You’ve heard the hype surrounding Twitter; you are probably questioning whether you should have your Chamber get involved, and how it will turn into opportunities for you Chamber? In this article I explore how Twitter can help grow a Chamber’s reach.
Opening Your Community To Non-Members
Twitter is open and public. By developing a presence on Twitter and linking back to content created and published on a Chamber’s or member’s website, Chambers have the opportunity to demonstrate the value of joining the chamber in a public online setting.
10 Tips For Using Twitter At A Chamber Of Commerce
Create a FAQ Twitter page. On the chamber website, give resources on how to set up a twitter account to your chamber members. The Twitter in plain English video gives a great primer on Twitter, one that explains the reasons for seemingly banal tweets.
1) Engage your community. It’s not all about you, but the community. Follow people’s content, reply to them directly, and retweet their tweets. Set up a search on search.twitter.com for your chamber brand keywords and local community to find new people on Twitter to engage in your local area.
2) Support novices. Let your members know that your staff or chamber volunteers will help them through the early steps of becoming proficient on Twitter.
3) Clients for mobile & desktop. Give members client options for Twitter. Business people today use a variety of devices to connect with the web; Twitter has opened up their programming interface and encouraged thousands of 3rd party programmers to develop Twitter clients. There’s a long list of Twitter clients, here’s a few:
- PC – Twirl & Tweetdeck.
- Blackberry – Tweetberry.
- iPhone – Tweetie.
4) Pick a short #hashtag. Use search.twitter.com to pinpoint discussions for your chamber meetings. When writing about a topic or event on twitter, people use a unique #hashtag to make it easier to locate the discussion on Twitterville. Select a short hashtag for your chamber and publicize it to your members.
For example the West Point Chamber of Commerce in Nebraska might pick #wpne, #WESTpc, #westpoint, #nielson, #chamber, #WPchamber, #WPCC, #WPchamber, or #NE .
When writing about your event or chamber conversation on Twitter include the hashtag in your tweets, and encourage your members to do the same. By using search.twitter.com it will be easy for people to find the thread of the discussion. Those people reading your chamber’s tweets will join in on the conversation and start following your #hashtag discussion.
5) Broadcast tweets at chamber meetings. Set up a projection screen in meetings, and publish related tweets on the projection screen for members to follow.
Encourage twitter participation. Liven up chamber meetings by asking members to tweet questions and comments. Read out any questions for presenters published on twitter during the meeting.
6) Find event Twitter ambassadors. For big chamber events recruit 3-4 chamber volunteers who will tweet about the event. Ask the Twitter event ambassadors, to bring their laptops, and include your chamber #hashtag on every tweet.
7) Start a twitter chat meeting. Set up a twitter only chat meeting with chamber members. Set a time, theme and/or find a presenter for the chat sessions. Promote the chat session with a blog post, and once the event has passed republish a round-up of the Twitter chat session in another blog post.
Interview speakers. During twitter chat sessions interview speakers using 140 characters. You can ask the speaker to publish a few blog posts on the topics they intend to discuss for more background information. If your chamber is a little off the main highway, a Twitter speaker interview can be a way to bring additional great speakers to your chamber members who would not normally be able to present to your members .
9) Select topics that matter to your members. West Point, Nebraska recently built the Nielson Center, a multi-million dollar conference center, yet the town only has hotel beds for 129 people. To grow West Point will have to attract hoteliers to area, West Point might host a Twitter session on the topic, “how to attract more hotels to West Point, NE.” The chamber would invite hoteliers from outside the area to the discussion as speakers, or economic development officers of similar towns who have succeeded in attracting more hoteliers to their area. The purpose of the event would be to develop ideas and a plan, yet the discussion itself may increase the number of opportunities.
10) Promote your members on Twitter. Ask members to promote 140 character updates about their latest news, suggest to members they include a link back to their website or blog.
Introduce new members on Twitter. When a new member joins the chamber, interview them for the chamber blog, and Tweet about the good news.
Advanced Strategies For Chamber Twitter
Set up a joint live and Twitter virtual event with other chambers of commerce. Here the goal would be to bring new ideas to both chambers, and foster economic growth.
Curt Moss runs an agency devoted to all things interactive and Chambers of Commerce. Check out these additional articles on how chambers can use Twitter.
Quality More Ways Chambers Are Using Twitter
Use Twitter to welcome and promote your members
Twitter Tools for Chambers of Commerce
Twitter tips for Chambers
