The Debate on Multiple Twitter Streams There's a constant debate about Twitter streams and how many you should have and what they should be used for.
Most people view Twitter as a personal mode of communication for their own engagement on a social level but these days Twitter has emerged as a very powerful marketing tool that can be used to research niches and leverage consumer interaction to impact on business to business relationships.
What is a Twitter Stream? A Twitter stream is a Twitter user's timeline.
Ordinarily people who use Twitter open up one stream in their own name but it is becoming more common practice to have one in your personal name and another in the name of your business or brand.
The reason for this is that tweeters don't like to see too many business tweets in a personal Twitter stream.
As Twitter evolves, business users are realising that with the segmentation of their customer base they need twitter streams that are pertinent to each segment eg: you talk to women about hobbies in a totally different manner in which you talk to men.
Twitter streams are defined by content and tone and it is best to adopt separate streams if you are tweeting to a variety of audiences.
A Good Example of Multiple Twitter Stream Usage Take for example a pharmaceutical company.
They are predominantly business to business but to help their business drive they will also need to determine consumer demand.
Should they then only have a single business Twitter stream? I'd be inclined to say no.
They have very different audiences and each one would need to be spoken to in a different way.
There are the doctors and pharmacists who use their products and sell them on and they'd want to know all about the product, the pricing, the efficacy, distribution and marketing thereof.
On the other side are the consumers who are the end users.
They'll want to know about the uses of the product that is about to be prescribed to them.
Does it work? Will I feel better? They want to hear stories about how other users felt about the product and if they recommend it.
The first audience, of doctors and pharmacists, will also want to know if the products are desired by the consumer that they are to recommend them to, so it makes sense for the manufacturer to listen in on the end user and engage with them to increase awareness and drive demand.
Thinking through Your Twitter Strategy The question then arises, if you have multiple product ranges do you have a twitter feed about each one eg: one that engages youth on skin issues, one that engages menopausal women, one that engages hair loss in men? Twitter is a fantastic research tool as well as a direct way of speaking to a niche market and, if you are business user, you need to think carefully about the audiences you are looking to engage with before you even think of Tweeting.
Business Tweeting requires a strategy and one that fits in with your overall social media marketing campaign.