Do Fortune 100 companies need a Twitter-vention?

When Weber Shandwick surveyed Fortune 100 companies they found that almost three-quarters (73%) had registered at least one Twitter account. Great, I hear you exclaim.

But, over three-quarters of those accounts (76%) "did not post tweets very often", according to Weber Shandwick's study (.pdf) and more than half (52%) were not "actively engaged". In Twitter terms those accounts were probably too unreliable and un-engaging to pack any social media punch.

To create a true atmosphere of engagement and interaction on Twitter, Weber Shandwick suggests companies take the following five steps to begin with:

1. Listen to conversations

2. Participate in conversations.

3. Update frequently with valuable information.

4. Reply to people who talk about issues that are important to your company.

5. Retweet relevant conversations.

Companies using Twitter need to keep in mind that faceless, corporate tweets excite no-one. Instead, corporate-speak needs to be replaced with natural language, tweeters need a personality that befits the brand and the conversation should be just that - a dialogue - and not the monotonous drone of announcements that over half of companies churn out.

Tags: Fortune 100, social marketing, social media, Twitter