Charlie asked me to take a break from the “wordy” posts I’ve been doing and write “something that any monkey can understand” (his words, not mine). So, let’s give it a shot! 
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal contained an article about how Twitter is revolutionizing the traditional job search:
For employers, Twitter—where users post updates, or “tweets,” of no more than 140 characters—offers one more way to find and attract candidates, and a cheaper alternative to big online job boards. It also helps companies target social-media-savvy job hunters and convey an innovative image. For job seekers, Twitter offers the chance to interact one-on-one with companies’ recruiters and can be more convenient than job boards.
No doubt Twitter is a great way to engage with recruiters and potential employers, but how do you find what you’re looking for AND keep track of it? That’s where ChatterBox comes in:
- Create a ChatterBox focused on the job search terms and/or job feed handles you’re interested in
- Customize your Categories to distinguish different types of roles or specific areas of expertise
- Customize your Status to reflect where you are in the process (initial response, sent resume, etc)
- Create as many similar ChatterBoxes as you’d like
There you have it- a quick, easy way to manage your Twitter-based job search and know exactly what you’ve responded to.
How’d I do, Charlie?
Posted by: Chad Northrup | September 9, 2009 | | categories: Social Media, Using ChatterBox | tags: careers, Charlie, ChatterBox, engage, job, job search, listen, monkey, recruiters, recruiting, respond, resume, Social Media, Twitter, Wall Street Journal, wsj
My previous post described how every company can benefit from using ChatterBox. Today’s post will focus on a specific type of company: the Public Relations (PR) firm.
Before we begin, let’s quickly review what ChatterBox is all about. A ChatterBox is a shared team workspace built around a Twitter search. The Twitter search itself can be a simple list of terms and users, or it can use advanced search operators. Once you have Tweets coming into your ChatterBox, you can:
- Categorize them
- Tag them
- Prioritize them
- Assign them to other users who have access to the ChatterBox
- Respond to them via the Twitter handle of your choosing
- Extract what’s happening in the ChatterBox via RSS
You can create as many ChatterBoxes as you want, and you can share them with whomever you want. The Tweets that get pulled into a ChatterBox are searchable and accessible for as long as you’d like them to be.
When we began sharing our ChatterBox concept with folks outside of the company, we noticed a consistent pattern of people predicting that PR firms would love the app. These predictions were based on a couple of key features:
- Each ChatterBox is its own universe that can be shared with a unique set of users. This fits perfectly with a PR firm that’s assigning a distinct set of users to listen and engage on behalf of clients.
- A ChatterBox can be shared with anyone. All you need to provide is an e-mail address. We don’t mandate that the person you’re sharing with must be part of your company or your e-mail domain. This is what makes sharing with clients, partners, and service providers possible.
Let’s get one thing settled before I continue- I am not a PR professional or an expert on what makes a good PR firm. Most of the information I know about the industry comes from blogs (PerkettPRsuasion.com is a favorite of mine) and Twitter. But part of the inspiration for ChatterBox came from this Jeremiah Owyang post in the fall of last year. While commenting on what PR firms can do to enhance existing functions, Jeremiah writes:
Be a filter for clients: There’s a tremendous amount of noise now being created, creating an opportunity for PR folks to filter, sort, and prioritize what matters. You’ll need both access and understanding of brand monitoring tools as well as the ability to see patterns in the noise.
ChatterBox certainly enables the filtering that Jeremiah mentions. As an added benefit PR professionals can manage multiple clients through a single interface, ensuring that the proper internal AND external users are able to participate.
Let’s use the example of Roger, a PR professional who is assigned to listen and engage on behalf of 3 companies:
- MufflerStop, an auto service center
- Ready2Wear, a women’s apparel designer
- WarningTrack, a sports bar chain
Roger works with a team of 3 other Account Managers to services these 3 clients. He’s able to easily listen, engage, and collaborate on behalf of these clients through ChatterBox. Here’s an example of how easy it is to set this up:
ChatterBox #1: MufflerStop
- Roger creates a ChatterBox focused on generic mentions of the word “muffler” and his client, MufflerStop. He configures Category values of ‘Positive’, ‘Neutral’, and ‘Negative’ for sentiment analysis, and ‘Opportunity’ for any chances to promote his client.
- He sets Respond From to ‘Users can only respond from a Twitter account of my choosing’ and enters the credentials for MufflerStop’s Twitter handle.
- He invites fellow Account Manager Sara to participate in the ChatterBox. He also invites Charles, who is MufflerStop’s Community Manager.
After the save, Roger has created a workspace that provides full visibility to his client.
ChatterBox #2: Ready2Wear
- Roger creates a ChatterBox focused on what’s happening in the women’s apparel space. His client is brand new, so their approach is to learn by listening and engage with people who show a passion for their space and their company. He enters search terms like ‘handbag’, ‘purse’, and of course their name ‘Ready2Wear’.
- He sets Respond From to ‘Users can respond from any Twitter account’ since Ready2Wear prefers to respond from multiple handles depending on the topic area.
- He invites his colleague Sam as well as two members of Ready2Wear’s customer care staff to participate.
After the save, Roger also sends an RSS feed for assigned items from the ChatterBox to Ready2Wear’s CEO Jennifer, who is an avid fan of Google Reader. This way Jennifer is able to keep track of interactions with the click of a button.
ChatterBox #3: WarningTrack
- WarningTrack is primarily interested in tracking the Twitter promotions they run. To start, Roger creates a ChatterBox with a single search term (’WarningTrack’). In the future they intend to take advantage of Twitter’s location-based search to engage with sports fans in the areas where they have restaurant locations.
- He sets Respond From so that all responses will originate from the WarningTrack Twitter handle.
- He invites his colleague Sherry to participate. WarningTrack’s community team prefers to monitor progress via RSS feed readers on their iPhones.
Using ChatterBox, Roger & Sherry will be able to tag and track the success of the promotions and contests they’ve recommended to WarningTrack.
That’s all there is to it! In just a few minutes time, Roger has:
- Created collaborative workspaces for 3 clients
- Simplified client management by sharing access to the ChatterBoxes with only those colleagues who are responsible for the accounts
- Given his clients access to monitor progress through either of 2 channels: direct participation or RSS
- Minimized the chance of overlap when multiple people are listening and engaging from a single Twitter handle
I’d be interested to hear from PR folks about the use case I just described. Are there additional feature you’d like to see that are specific to your industry? Please leave a comment or reach out to me with your ideas on Twitter!
Posted by: Chad Northrup | August 27, 2009 | | categories: Using ChatterBox | tags: archive, categorize, ChatterBox, Collaboration, engage, iPhone, Jeremiah Owyang, listen, location, monitor, PerkettPR, pr, public relations, reputation, search, sentiment, Social Media, tag, tweet, Twitter, workspace
In my previous post I promised to describe some ways that companies and individuals can benefit from using ChatterBox. Today I’m going to write about a common scenario that I call “The Every Company”. Your business falls into this category if it:
- Sells stuff (products, services, etc)
- Competes against companies that sell similar stuff
- Is aware of relevant industry-specific OR company-specific mentions being made on Twitter. (this is important- even if your company isn’t heavily discussed on Twitter, chances are there’s still discussion going on about your industry)
You probably just read through those bullets and are saying to yourself, “well, that is every company.” And so therein lies the truth and simplicity of the title of this entry.
By now I’m sure you’ve read all about social media and why you need to pay attention. Anyone can initiate a Twitter Search and see the latest conversations on any topic. Michael Jackson, the Red Sox, alligators, you name it. Twitter Search can provide information, opportunities and feedback for folks from many different backgrounds. However, there are limits to what Twitter search can do for you:
- Due to the sheer volume of tweets that accumulates on Twitter, the scope of the information you’re searching is limited to the previous 7 days. The good news is that the Tweets you’d like to rescind are harder to find 1 week after the fact; the bad news is this limits you from finding and preserving all that useful information that can benefit your business.
- Once you’ve narrowed your Twitter search, what can you do with the information besides read it? There is no capability to categorize, tag, or otherwise take action on specific items that matter to you.
- In the increasingly common scenario where there is shared responsibility for listening and responding to Tweets about your company, products, services, etc., it is challenging (if not impossible) to ensure that you don’t trip on other folks who are doing the same. This tracking becomes even more important when responses are coming from a single Twitter handle.
So how can ChatterBox help you extend the power of a Twitter search? You can read about it in more detail here, but to give a quick summary:
- Once you conduct your searches through ChatterBox, they live within the app. The Tweets you choose to archive will be searchable days, weeks, or even months after the fact. The 7-day search limit no longer applies!
- ChatterBox allows you to categorize, prioritize, assign, tag, and apply status to Tweets so that you’ll always know why each one is valuable to you, and which ones require follow-up action.
- Each ChatterBox you create is its own world, a collaborative team space for Twitter! Shared responsibilities for listening and engaging are natural because ChatterBox lets you know where each item stands. You can even specify a common Twitter handle from which all the responses for a given ChatterBox will originate. Tripping over fellow team members becomes a distant memory.
Now that you know some of the ways ChatterBox can help you bring more value to search, you might be wondering how to make this happen. Here are a few ChatterBox ideas to create your first ChatterBoxes:
ChatterBox #1 – Your Stuff
- Create this ChatterBox using the name(s) of your company, products & services as search terms
- Adjust the Categories and other metadata values as you see fit. For example- you might want to stick with the sentiment analysis (Postive or Negative) approach that comes by default, OR you might opt to change these values to be more support-oriented (Question, Problem, Complaint, etc.)
- Determine if you’d like responses from this ChatterBox to originate from a single Twitter handle (your company’s handle), or you may allow users to respond from any handle they have access to.
- Share this ChatterBox with anyone you would like to listen and engage on your company’s behalf. This can include folks from outside agencies such as a PR firm, as we do not restrict who you can share each ChatterBox with.
ChatterBox #2 – Your Competitor(s)
- This ChatterBox should be a place to listen in on what others are saying about your competitors’ products & services. If your competitors’ have a particularly high volume of tweets, then you may opt to create separate ChatterBoxes for each competitor.
- For Categories & metadata values, think about what you want to do with this information once you collect it. If you plan to be a passive listener then your approach might be different than someone who wants to actively lure competitors’ customers over to their product or service.
- Share the ChatterBox with the appropriate audience. This ChatterBox might be better suited for team members who have a vested interest in understanding competitive offerings and developing strategies to counter them.
ChatterBox #3 – Industry Voices
- Make this ChatterBox the home for people who like to talk about your industry and other relevant topics. You might be surprised at how many Forrester analysts are active on Twitter! You can use Advanced Search to define a list of Twitter accounts you want to listen to, and you can combine this with certain keywords to further narrow the search. This way you won’t have to hear what people having for lunch that day
.
- Set up your Categories and other metadata values so that you can track trends and intelligently contribute to these conversations. Sometimes these analysts will be looking for products & solutions to solve a particular problem. A recent ChatterBox blog post was a direct response to a challenge issued by Forrester Analyst Jeremiah Owyang.
- Share this ChatterBox with members of your team (internal or 3rd parties such as PR firms) who are responsible for engaging with these influential voices and staying on their radars.
ChatterBox #4 – Events
- Is your organization participating in an upcoming event such as a tradeshow, conference or TweetUp? Why not create a ChatterBox to listen and engage in the buzz leading up to the event. The current trend is to use hashtags for tweets that relate to a specific event, such as the TwtrCon series.
- Use your Categories and other metadata values to prepare for the event and interact with folks who will be there with you. Once you’re at the event, you’ll have an easy way to listen and engage with your fellow attendees.
- Share the ChatterBox with co-workers and 3rd parties who are responsible for promoting your company’s participation.
There you have it- 4 simple ChatterBox ideas that will help you get started! As always, we’re here to help. Please contact me directly if you have any questions (@chadnorthrup on Twitter), or feel free to pose them in the comment section below.
Posted by: Chad Northrup | August 19, 2009 | | categories: Using ChatterBox | tags: competitors, events, Jeremiah Owyang, pr, search, Twitter, use case
In 1997 I became a member of the professional services team for a CRM company called Onyx Software. At the time the CRM concept was just taking hold, and the idea of creating a “360 degree view” of customer relationships was something that interested companies in a variety of different fields. As Onyx acquired more customers within verticals such as High Tech, Healthcare, and Financial Services, common business rules and feature requests began to emerge within each industry. In an effort to create a new revenue stream while simultaneously reducing the time it took to deploy a new account, Onyx began combining these common business rules and features into named service packs (ex. the “High Tech Service Pack”) that it could sell as packaged solutions. The advantage of this approach was clear: make the product work in a customized way for the companies whose industries required it, but keep the core product generic enough that anyone could use and benefit from it.
When we put together the development plan for ChatterBox several months back, one of our immediate questions was “exactly how will this application be used??”. We didn’t doubt the value of collaborating around Twitter and other social networks, but we wanted to be sure we weren’t missing industry-specific features that were critical for growth. After discussing our options, we opted to take a generic approach with the ChatterBox feature set. This is not to say we can’t specialize down the road, but for now we’ve opted to provide features that we believe ALL users can benefit from and see where we end up.
The good news about this approach: ChatterBox maintains flexibility, and users are free to dream up any use cases they can imagine. We remain in feedback collection mode, looking to surface common issues & feature requests that we can use to improve the app.
The bad news: some users don’t know how to begin. 
With that in mind, we’re going to begin a series of blog posts for those who are interested in learning how to get started with ChatterBox. We’ll describe some possible ChatterBox setups for the following use cases:
- The Every Company – do you sell products & services? Do you compete against others who do the same? Do you listen to and engage with the analysts who cover your space?
- The PR Firm – do you manage social networking interactions on behalf of multiple clients? Do you collaborate with other team members, or maybe even the clients themselves?
- The Media Person/Power Blogger – are you always on the lookout for interesting topics to write about? Want to do some casual back-and-forth conversation before you pull your story together?
- The Celebrity – do you have more people interested in you than you could ever possibly keep up with? Want to engage with your fans on hot topics now and then to let them know the conversation is a 2-way street?
- The Job Seeker - do you want to keep track of what’s going on in your industry while interacting with the companies who might be your next employer? Are you interested in finding out which hiring agencies can help you? Do you need to keep track of these conversations in a central place?
For the potential ChatterBoxers who fall outside of these buckets, perhaps seeing what can be done for a different use case will stir up some ideas for what YOU can do! Keep your eyes open for more entries in the coming days and weeks. For those who are already part of the private beta, we’d love to hear about all the unique ways ChatterBox is helping people to engage and collaborate around social networks like Twitter.
-Chad
Posted by: Chad Northrup | August 10, 2009 | | categories: Using ChatterBox | tags: analysts, ChatterBox, competition, crm, jobs, media, pr, Twitter, use cases
