Developing a Twitter Workflow

I’ve been noticing a common thread running through many of the conversations I am having with clients and colleagues regarding Twitter.

Despite all the great content available online regarding Twitter do’s and don’ts, there still seems to be a significant amount of confusion (across my network) about “what to do on twitter.” People seem to be struggling with the actual day-to-day tasks that pull together all the best practices.

This post is designed to highlight Twitter workflow and aims to help you organize and plan your own “twitter routine”.

Workflow Components

A Twitter workflow consists of four main activities:

Discovery – Gathering information to analyze or share. Examples include:

• Subscribing to blogs in order to share useful content with your followers.
• Conducting keyword searches to monitor relevant conversations i.e. brand, industry, competitor.
• Searching for new people to follow for education, prospecting and/or follower acquisition.

Implementation – Tactical execution of Twitter activities. Examples include:

• Scheduling and publishing tweets
• Responding to @mentions and DMs
• RT other peoples content

Management – Planning and organizing information flow. Examples include:

• Set up Twitter lists
• Use a Twitter dashboard i.e. Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, etc. to filter streams
• Publish a monthly Twitter editorial calendar

Measurement – Analyzing Twitter metrics to inform decision making. Examples include:

• Use dashboard analytics or third party tools like Bitly to measure audience activity

Twitter Workflow Example

The example below is based on my own Twitter workflow. It’s driven by four channel objectives: sharing information, building awareness, making connections and marketing my services.

This workflow is not set in stone and will vary from user to user depending on your objectives.

Do this make sense? How do you organize your presence on Twitter? What are your thoughts on the time investment required in the example above? The comments are yours.