Hey there!  I wrote this for our Dishcrawl Ambassadors and wanted to share the love with the rest of the world.

So, let’s get down to business.  Twitter.  To get started with Twitter, go ahead and go here.  It’s a blog post I wrote awhile ago, but will give you a general idea of how to setup a Twitter account, why you want to setup a Twitter account, and the nuancies of Twitter-speak.

Done?  Great.  Now for the good stuff.

Objectify Yourself

Everyone’s gotta have an objective!

Here is ours: Find people to engage with to create a presence in the market.  People I want to engage with are local foodies, papers, bloggers, restaurants, and the like.

Build Your Brand in 3 Simple Steps

The 3 steps in making sure you set yourself up properly are:

1. Find people

2. Manage people

3. Engage people.

Step 1: Find People

First thing you want to do on Twitter is find a good group of people to start listening to.

The best and most effective way to do this is to login to Twitter and use the search functionality.

Hunting Properly: Search

Let’s say I’m looking for foodies.  Check out the search column below.  I entered “foodie” in the search box.

As you can see above, a bunch of people talking about foodie comes up.  To drill deeper, click on the tweet, and a window will pop up on the side (as shown above).

Adding Easily: Follow

You can then click the the “name” of that Twitter person.  What should pop up is the profile (as shown below).  Now, you can figure out why this person is relevant, and click on the follow button.

Toki Underground is relevant because they are a ramen house!  I’d follow them.

Stalking Effectively: Add to List

The other missing piece of the equation- we know that not everyone is always talking about food, even if they are foodies and your audience.  So how on earth do you keep re-engaging the people you know are relevant?

Gasp! You can add them to a list to keep track!  Click on the little people icon and click on “add to list” (shown below).

Now you’re going to create a list.  I’d name it something relevant, like “Raleigh foodies” if you’re looking for foodies in Raleigh, NC.

Now, continue on searching interesting people.  If I’m trying to be specific about a location like Raleigh, NC, I would also search things like, “North Carolina foodie” “NC food” “NC foodie” “NC restaurant” “Checked in Raleigh” “Raleigh food” Raleigh foodie” etc.

Make sure to come up with a strong list of creative search terms and keep them handy for later.  Get creative.

For the first week, follow at least 50 people a day this way.

Remember: Search, Follow, Add to List.

Tweet these people too, of course, and follow guidelines in Step 3 below.

Step 2: Manage People

You should have about 350 people you are following now, and a lot of interesting people following you!

Now, to manage Twitter, I say install Tweetdeck on your Chrome browser.  It’s a plugin, and the best thing ever.

With Tweetdeck, now you can add lists from your Twitter account.  Additionally, you should set up at least 8 search columns with key search terms to see what people are talking about.  Setup an column for Dishcrawl and your specific Dishcrawl (DishcrawlPHL for example) so you can also see what people are talking to you!  Check out below.

Step 3: Engage People

Ah, the beauty of engaging your local community.

I love it!  This is one of my favourite things to do.  It’s so cool to watch y’all grow.  Joann @DishcrawlDC, for example, was stoked (as was I) when Thrillist (a publication) started following her!  Small wins like this make the day so much better.

For your first 2 weeks of Twitter, you should be tweeting at least 30 times every day.  Seriously.  It’s like showing up to a new playground.  You don’t want to play alone, you want people to get familiar with you!  Build your persona.

Now what to tweet.  Look through your new Twitter streams.

Find interesting things people are talking about.  You should already know these people are relevant because you followed them for a reason.

Now talk to them.  You can RT them, @ them, or tell them about Dishcrawl.  Remember- 30 tweets a day.  Then, you can do something like 10 tweets a day once you’ve established yourself.  But keep up with it.  Don’t lose your shine.

The people you are tweeting have something in common with you- they are in your city and they love food as much as you.

The conversation tone should be genuine, as if you’re talking to someone at a cocktail party.

You should not have the used car salesman vibe like the dude below.

Random Nuances of Twitter

You can always do a general tweet, of course.

Example of a general tweet: “Come join us in Raleigh on Jan 25th for our first Dishcrawl! http://dishcrawl.com/raleigh.”

What is an @? An @ is a way to ping someone.  So if I say “Hey @Thrillist, you should come to our first DC Dishcrawl! http://dishcrawl.com/dc.” With the @, Thrillist knows I’m directly talking to them and it will show up in their “mentions”.  The tweet will show up to all your followers, UNLIKE if you start a tweet with an @ (example: “@Thrillist, you should come to our first DC Dishcrawl! http://dishcrawl.com/dc.’) which specifically pings only the people following you AND Thrillist.  Not the best way to get your word out, but good if you want to mute your voice a little or just say thank you to someone.

RT (in quotations): I use this method exclusively.  I don’t really like the RT new functionality.  RT stands for retweet, btw.  Retweeting someone is simply echoing their thoughts and spreading it to your followers.  It’s appreciated, and engaging.  An example of how I RT is this: ” Great post. ” @Thrillist Best Burgers in the Bay Area www.link.com”.  See how I commented in the front, and then put the original tweet in quotations?

RT new: This is simple.  You just press a button and Twitter retweets the tweet to your followers.  Not my style.

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this little Twitter lesson.  I hope I included everything in full.  If you have questions, you can always email me at tracy (at) dishcrawl (dot) com.

Oh, and one last note before I sign off, when people follow you, check out who they are and follow them back!

Best of luck and success,

Tracy @ladyleet