Pharma Jobs of the Future: Professional Tweeters

By Todd LaRoche (@toddlaroche)

It seems like just yesterday that a tweet was the sound of a robins call. Today, tweeting is the voice of individuals and businesses part of the new lexicon of social media. According to a recent survey by Nielsen, Twitter.com reigns as the fastest-growing social media platform.

While tweeting doesnt replace traditional forms of communication, it does help people in sharing and spreading news and developments in their niche topics quite effectively. In response, a growing number of organizations are hiring social media experts or designating someone internally as a “Professional Tweeter.

One reason companies are creating the role of professional tweeter is because effectively participating in social networks takes a lot of work. In addition to promoting their Twitter profile, most businesses update their accounts regularly often several times a day. In this new job role, a designated individual is tasked to sieve through Twitter, check updates and feed back to the community. Having a designated correspondent helps customers, prospects, employees and others know who to contact. It also means there is one person who can delve deeper, devote more time and interact regularly.

Often, companies can find the best professional tweeter right within their business walls. If theres someone on staff who has a passion for posting and is up on the latest technology trends, it may make sense to designate them as the companys social media representative. When recruiting internally, its likely the person understands the company and its culture, the complaints and compliments shared by customers and, quite frankly, is invested in the success of the organization.

A professional tweeter can create tweets that reflect your professional voice and raise awareness of the company and its activities. Conducting a webcast? Tweeting can help increase registrations and event attendance. A professional tweeter can promote the availability of thought leadership such as a new white paper on the company website. During company earnings calls, professional tweeters can use the opportunity to showcase their subject matter expertise and tweet with key industry analysts and influencers. In addition to leading the charge for the companys Twitter participation, professional tweeters can enlist the support of co-workers to make sure theyre “retweeting company tweets to further extend the message.

While not every company has the capacity to hire a professional tweeter, there are several tools available to help internal tweeters tweet like a pro:

HootSuite is useful for managing multiple accounts and helps companies use the social web to launch marketing campaigns, identify and grow audience, and distribute targeted messages across multiple channels. It has search tabs that make it easy to monitor what is being said about a company or brand and enables users to save keywords for future searches. Teams can collaboratively schedule updates to Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, WordPress and other social networks via web, desktop or mobile platforms plus track campaign results and industry trends to rapidly adjust tactics.

Twaitter also allows users to schedule tweets and then broadcast them later when the time is right.

For businesses that want to share pictures from the trade show floor or company meeting or to highlight new products, etc., TwitPic is the most popular platform to share pictures. Simply log in with your Twitter user ID from your phone or the site and upload.

Applications such as TweetFunnel and CoTweet are designed for companies that want to have more than one person contribute to a Twitter stream. TweetFunnel enables users to stockpile and schedule tweets for future use and has a feature that allows for approval of posting prior to publishing.

With so much conversation happening on the social networks, its time for companies to proactively participate. How is social media managed at your organization?