Following is the chronology of a recent experience I had with Blog Talk Radio effectively utilizing Twitter with me to resolve a customer service issue. It’s a great example of how Twitter can be used for damage control, reputation management, and customer service.

A few weeks ago I was attempting to listen to a broadcast on BlogTalkRadio.com. Shortly after the broadcast began, I started hearing audio from another source. It was an ad, or commercial of some sort. It didn’t cross my mind that it was coming from the Blog Talk Radio page but after nearly a minute of trying to locate the source of the audio in another browser window, I discovered it was indeed coming from the Blog Talk Radio page.

This makes no sense, I thought. Why would they be running audio ads on a page that was broadcasting an audio program?

After having no success shutting off the ad, and thus incapable of enjoying the radio broadcast, I turned to Twitter to share my shock, not even thinking about soliciting a response from BTR.

About an hour later, I received a response (below), clearly indicating that the BTR folk are on top of their Twitter game. In the response they asked me to send my phone number so they could call me.

Notice they requested that I “DM” them my number. “DM” in the Twitterverse stands for Direct Message, which is a way for people on Twitter to communicate messages not visible to anyone but you and the recipients. For them to suggest this shows not only that they have a good handle on Twitter technology , but also a consideration for my privacy.

Shortly after I sent them my number I received a call. The lady who called explained that they were receiving reports of the same problem from other users and that there appears to be a glitch in the advertising software which manages the ads that run on the site. The woman talking with me said she was documenting reports of occurrences so they could troubleshoot and resolve the issue. It was a friendly conversation that put my mind at ease knowing that the experience was a glitch and not by design. Like I said earlier, I was shocked to be hearing audio in an ad while listening to an audio broadcast.

In the end, Blog Talk Radio saved a customer. Not so much because I now know the audio ad was not supposed to exist, but because of how they handled it. The experience demonstrated to me a mindful awareness to modern technology and a capacity to resolve issues with it.

There are probably numerous cases like this because many companies are learning, sometimes the hard way, that you must have a game plan for your business with Twitter. Even if your business is not using Twitter for marketing or networking purposes, you want to make sure you have proper alerts in place to monitor Twitter activity in case anyone in the Twitterverse mentions your company in a negative or even a positive light.

For assistance with how you can protect your business on Twitter, complete the form below to request a free consultation where we can discuss your situation and individual business needs and guide you through setting up some simple measures.

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a.) Twitter users are actively discussing products and services
b.) Twitter is growing rapidly and driving consumer awareness

Because of this, B2C and B2B marketers continue to incorporate Twitter into their digital marketing strategies and as a marketing tool you want to maximize its potential. But in its simplest form Twitter, which is a lot like SMS text-messaging from your mobile phone, can be limited and time-consuming.

So what are some ways to better leverage the power of Twitter?

One option is with the use of lists. Twitter lists is a feature that enables you to create lists under your account and add other Twitter users to them. By doing this, you essentially create filtered views of messages being published to Twitter which helps you keep a watchful eye on people important to you, be it personally or professionally.

In March we explored ways to utilize the software TweetDeck to manage multiple accounts on Twitter. Our guess presenter for this session was Ryan Taft of Catalyst Marketers who is back with us this week to show us how to create and manage lists on Twitter. In this live web cast, Taft will be covering:

• What is a twitter list?
• Examples of Twitter Lists
• How to create a Twitter List
• How to use a Twitter List

To attend this webinar you must be registered with the AC List Builder series which you can do by clicking button below. By registering you will receive an email notification from GoToWebinar reminding you of each webinar within that series. If you are not able to or are not interested in attending a specific webinar within that series then there is no obligation to attend. You can disregard the notification.

Likewise if you have an interest in attending webinars from another series we run then you can register with those from the training page too. By subscribing to our website then we can notify you of our upcoming events and webinars plus we can share information like this that you can utilize on your own time.

Fortunately there are ways to make your Twitter efforts more efficient. One of these ways is with the use of TweetDeck.

TweetDeck is a browser for select social media networking sites allowing you to manage information on Twitter, facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. In fact with TweetDeck you can even manage multiplate Twitter accounts, plus any facebook pages to which you are an admin can be managed from TweetDeck too.

For example, we recently launched a new Twitter account for AutoBurst and are using to TweetDeck to manage it along with other Twitter accounts we have in addition to customer Twitter accounts.

This week we are holding a webinar dedicated to the use of TweetDeck and Twitter as part of our AC Social Webinar Series. Our guest presenter will be Ryan Taft from Catalyst Marketers who assists us in managing information on Twitter and facebook for some of our customers. Taft posted to his blog recently offering some extended uses of Twitter and TweetDeck in the post No time for Twitter? Use TweetDeck to save time, but you can benefit from this information first hand by attending this week’s Webinar at 11:30 am EST on Thursday April 1.

In this webinar Taft will be exploring the following topics:

• Quick Twitter for Business Intro
• TweetDeck Overview
• Download for computer & mobile phone
• Add Twitter account
• Add Facebook account
• TweetDeck helps maximize your time on Twitter
• TweetDeck helps show activity at a glance
• TweetDeck recap & summary

As with all our webinars we aim to make them useful and applicable in the real world, this way you can walk away with new skills that can be applied to your endeavours on the web right away.

To attend this webinar you must be registered with the AC Social Webinar series which you can do by clicking here or the button below. By registering you will receive an email notification from GoToWebinar reminding you of each webinar within that series. If you are not able to or are not interested in attending a specific webinar witin that series then there is no obligation to attend. You can disregard the notification.

Likewise if you have an interest in attending webinars from another series we run then you can register with those from the AC Webinar Series page too. Additionally, by becoming a fan of our facebook page or by subscribing to our website then we can notify you of our upcoming events and webinars plus we can share information like this that you can utlize on your own time.

“Please don’t feed TWITTER NOISE to your Buzz!”

This presents a problem you see. Twitter is hooked up to my Buzz. I could follow her, but unless I remove Twitter from making updates to Buzz, it is not likely we will become useful to one another.

The flip side to this is that I practically agree. Twitter does not need to be hooked up to Buzz. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. By the same token, I don’t think you want to have such a black and white position about it.

See, I agree with @lindalawrey in that by having Twitter automatically re-post to Buzz you run the risk of losing followers. But if Twitter is hooked up to Buzz, or if any of your sites for that matter, like your blog, say, are “hooked up”, then when you post to these places you must now consider the impact it could have with your Buzz followers.

Now let’s rewind for a moment. Think back to a time, say 100 years ago. Or maybe less than that. Think back to 50 years ago. Or wait maybe even less like 10 years ago. Could you 10 years ago make any sense out of what we are talking about here. Google? Buzz? Twitter? “Hooked up”. What is all this? How is this contributing to society? How is this contributing to mankind?

Anyway. This is getting way to serious. I’m really just bummed that someone won’t follow me because Twitter is hooked up to my Buzz. Darn you Linda Lawrey.

Earlier this week we posted a video about this to our blog which you may want to watch as well. It’s in the post labeled A Big Bang for SEO and Social Media.

For the webinar we will start by going through a slide show that was put together by Peter Caputa over at HubSpot. It’s a short slide show so we will also journey through his commentary of the subject on the HubSpot blog. All-in-all we expect our webinar to last about 20-30 minutes but we may open it up for discussion if there are not too many people attending.

To register for this webinar, click here (or the button below) for the AC List Builder series, fill in the required information and then expect to receive instructions for connecting to the webinar at 11:30 am EST on Thursday November 12. By registering you will automatically be included on all future AC List Builder/Social webinars (once a month) plus you will receive access to our webinars archive where you can watch and listen to past webinars at your leisure.