I attended the Willamette Valley American Marketing Association luncheon today. The speaker was Martin Stoll [...]]]> It’s amazing how Twitter has captured everyone’s imagination. We are all still working out ways to use it without being overwhelmed, confused or distracted. Well, avoiding distraction may be a long shot– it seems to be at the core of Twitter.

I attended the Willamette Valley American Marketing Association luncheon today. The speaker was Martin Stoll from GoSeeTell.com. The title of the presentation was “Oregon’s Social Media Avalanche: How to Use it to Keep Your Brand on Top.” Martin was clearly knowledgable about all aspects of social media marketing, but the topic was 100% Twitter. From Martin’s perspective in Travel and Tourism marketing, Twitter has become a powerful and necessary marketing tool. He illustrated many ways consumers are sharing information related to air travel, destinations, restaurant recommendations. It is abundantly clear that Twitter provides opportunities to build a business presence and develop a brand.

Twitter is above all a peer to peer communication tool. So it stands to reason that companies want to be in on the conversation if customers are talking! By engaging in the conversation and responding in a helpful and positive way, your business can join the peer network as a valuable resource.

Twitter tips from the presentation:
If you make your company available on Twitter, be prepared to engage. Watch your twitter account, and respond to questions from your followers.

Check to see if your desired username or vanity url is still available at dozens of popular Social Networking and Social Bookmarking websites. Promote your brand consistently by registering a username that is still available on the majority of the most popular sites.
Use: checkusernames.com or namechk.com

Twitter as Local Resource:
Search for Twitter users in specific locations. Use the # known as a hash mark. (Who knew? I thought it was a pound sign). Like this: #portland to find twitter info related to Portland travel, sports, schools, neighborhoods etc.

Sign up in a local Twitter service. I just listed myself in LocalTweeps.
By mapping Twitter profiles and content to geography, Localtweeps encourages local connections and local information sharing. It will help you find local tweeps, get found locally and share geographic trends on Twitter.
Tweet your ZIP to @localtweeps and put yourself and your city on our Twitter influence map.