Why Product Managers Must Emulate Twitter — Presentation Transcript

from Rule 13: Emulate Twitter

42 Rules of Product Marketing

1. Why Product Managers MUST Emulate Twitter! March 24, 2012 Presentation

Cindy F. Solomon , CPM/CPMM cindy@prodmgmttalk.com @cindyfsolomon

Founder, Global Product Management Talk http://www.prodmgmttalk.com @prodmgmttalk

2. Cindy F. Solomon

• Founded The Global Product Management Talk

• Pioneering Socratic format for Twitter Chats to cultivate globalknowledge communities

• Over 15 years experience in product management and productmarketing management of web, services and software at SiliconValley companies including Apple, Vadem, NetObjects andstartups. Previously with Fortune 500s including AmericanExpress and Radio Shack.• AIPMM Certified Product Manager & Certified ProductMarketing Manager

• Serial entrepreneur, consultant, facilitator, and early adopter

Cindy F. Solomon , CPM/CPMM cindy@prodmgmttalk.com @cindyfsolomon Founder, Global Product Management Talk http://www.prodmgmttalk.com @prodmgmttalk 2

3. Global Product Management Talk

For Product Managers that don’t get a chance to leave their desk and participate in Product Talks in person, we’ve brought Product Talks to you.

The Global Product Management Talk

Follow @ProdMgmtTalk http://www.blogtalkradio.com/prodmgmttalk

Join in using hashtag #ProdMgmtTalk weekly at Twebevent or Tweetchat

Global Product Management Talk is a weekly mini-product camp Socratic discussion (on Twitter) of pre-posted questions with live audio of thought leader and co-hosts commenting (on Blogtalkradio).

Cindy F. Solomon , CPM/CPMM cindy@prodmgmttalk.com @cindyfsolomonFounder, Global Product Management Talk http://www.prodmgmttalk.com @prodmgmttalk 3

4. WHAT DO YOU WANT?

The product marketing manager serves as the conduit of relevant information for internal and external stakeholders. In an Agile world, product marketers must master the most efficient means available to engage in real time product/market conversations. Twitter is today’s tool.

5. Jonathan Zittrain said… “The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what make it so powerful.”

Jonathan Zittrain, Harvard Law professor, Internet Expert, Author

6. BE CONCISE

Develop and share content that is precise, short, laser focused, intentional, informative and interesting.

7. Solomon says…

A tweet is limited to 140 characters.

Be terse.

Develop and share content that is precise, short, laser focused, intentional, informative and interesting.

8. BE OPEN

Twitter is public and archived on the web.

Be open to discovering the value of the product from others’ perspectives.

9. Dick Costello, Twitter CEO, says…

"Pay careful attention to the things that people do with your technology/service/product, because some of them may have discovered a powerful use for it that has completely evaded you."

@dickc

10. BE CROSS-PLATFORM

Twitter works across all platforms, operating systems and devices. Tweets are viewable from Twitter website, mobile apps, SMS/text messages, Facebook and LinkedIn status updates.

Product positioning and messaging should be:

Integrated across all media to guarantee consistency and trustworthiness,
Optimized to take advantage of the strengths of each platform, and
Targeted to emphasize the unique value for each audience.

11. BE SCALABLE

The ability of a system/network/process to grow quickly and/or gracefully accommodate and facilitate spikes in growth.

Create content that easily grows and extends reach:

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and glossaries.
Include key words optimized for search engines.

Incentivize audience to add content:

Forums for customer support and discussions,
Forms for customer supplied testimonials and case studies,
Wikis and blogs.

Crowdsource and bundle content for on-demand reading:

Create product related hashtags for twitter chats,
Capture audience tweets into transcripts.

TWITTER STRATEGIES TO EMULATE

12. Listen & Monitor

Search Twitter for product related terms, issues and events.
Create and follow networks of your target audience and market space.
Identify thought leaders, prominent bloggers and competitors to follow and analyze their behavior and connections.
Use Twitter lists to categorize tweeters.

13. Create & Broadcast

Tweet valuable information worth re-tweeting at optimal times to promote product lines, provide incentives, rewards, invitations, and share industry news.
Format tweets: “Please retweet: [article name] [by @author] [shortened URL] [optional comment] [#hashtag]”
Employ URL shorteners to save space, such as bit.ly or tinyurl.com
Attach #hashtags of keywords to increase likelihood of tweet being indexed by Twitter search

14. “Please Retweet: [article name] [by @author] [shortened URL] [optional comment] [#hashtag]”.

15. Analyze & Track

Identify tweeting behavior patterns and determine metrics:
Study how timing and headlines affect retweets,
Label “Favorites” to save highlights and testimonials,
Monitor “Follower count” to measure distribution power,
Track number of “@Replies” to measure community engagement,
Utilize URL shorteners that provide additional data.

16. Engage & Dialogue

Develop trust:
Be human, consistent, relevant, and unique.
Be generous, attentive and positive with information and feedback.
Ask questions, agree, or challenge politely to trigger and extend specific conversations.
Acknowledge and reply (@twittername) back when people tweet you.
Retweet (RT) valuable information worth sharing and thank people for retweeting.
Use Direct Message (@DM) to private message a follower. DMs won’t be listed in public twitter stream.
Host, sponsor & participate in regular Twitter Chats to extend community vibrancy, increase followers and deepen relationships.

17. Thank you!

Join weekly on Global Product Management Talk

http://www.CindyFSolomon.com

@cindyfsolomon @prodmgmttalk

Cindy@prodmgmttalk.com

Please connect with me! http://www.linkedin.com/in/cfsolomon via cfsolomon@gmail.com

Presentation sponsored by The Association of International Product Marketing and Management (AIPMM)

http://www.aipmm.com