You are ready to use Twitter when…

1. You understand that Twitter is not a social-media strategy. It’s a tactic, a tool, not a strategy. It works if you already have an online following who’ll view your Tweets as a way to interact with your company or brand on a human level.

2. You are not required to have every tweet approved by legal. Twitter is a social network where conversation is fast and interconnected. If you have to wait a day, or even a few hours for your 140 character Tweet to gain legal approval, Twitter is the wrong platform for you.

3. Your intended audience is interested… even passionate about following you. Followers are earned on Twitter. Be interesting, make only every 10th tweet about you, and you’ll gain and keep a following. If all your tweets are a one-way street, if plan to use Twitter for nothing but broadcasting headlines or deals, don’t bother.

4. The president of your company tells you to do it on her behalf. Remember, authenticity and transparency is key. It’s fine if someone besides your CEO tweets for your company, as long as you say that’s what you’re doing.

5. You are ready to respond when people directly tweet at you. Twitter is the new water cooler. You don’t start a conversation and the refuse to respond to those who have engaged you. If you talked non-stop and refused to listen to others at the water cooler people gathered there, would be happy when you left. Ditto for Twitter.

6. You know that Tweeting as XYZ Corp. and using the company logo as your avatar is not a good idea. Identify the person or people tweeting for your company or don’t tweet. The days of hiding behind the faceless corporation are over.

7. You understand that this is not a contest with Ashton Kutcher to attract the most followers. Quality engagement with your audience, no matter its size, trumps quantity.

8. You are ready to speak without filters. You not concerned about protecting your updates. If people have to ask permission to see what you’re posting on Twitter, you’re defeating the purpose, which is conversation.

9. You know that you’ll need to consider new social-media tracking tools to monitor your corporate reputation and influence on Twitter. As of this writing Google Analytics doesn’t give you all you will want to know. But on October 21, 2009 Twitter announced a partnership with Google to work toward having a Google tracking solution in place soon.

10. You have the time and budget commitment to get in and stay for an extended period. By this I mean you are prepared to listen first. Monitor what’s being said about your brand, your industry, your product. Only then join the conversation and become part of the community. Build trust and your occasional marketing messages will be accepted or, at least tolerated because you also add value to the community.

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