1. Plan your corporate twitter strategy before taking the plunge. Be clear on your business objectives.

2. Assess your organization’s willingness to twitter. Is your corporate culture open to honest conversations? Are your employees ready to use various social media tools such as blogs and wikis? Is the organizational culture open and honest enough?

3. Focus on the people and not the technology. It’s the people who connect and bring communities alive. So, don’t overlook their preferences. Have a business purpose and brainstorm it with your group. At iridium Interactive, my core marketing and creative team is on a high everyday about exploring new dynamic social media tools for different client needs. We had our share of run-around of getting buried under so many apps. But, we made early mistakes and learned not to get carried away before rolling out any tools. We questioned asked ourselves, “Who will use it?” How can it support or generate useful conversations in the business? How can it give employees better access to leadership and make them more engaged? How can we measure the ROI?”

4. Surrender control and allow access to the employees as equal partners in the communication process. It’s no longer about the push but the pull. This cannot be a standalone tool restricted to only a few people in the organization.

5. Create an Internal Sandbox for your company to allow your employees work around and play with this social media tool. This encourages their acceptance.

6. Create a Twitter Policy before giving access make to clarify and moderate what the employees can say and can’t say. Setting up ground rules while planning the strategy.

7. Do not obsess with numbers from the beginning. Work on the purpose first, have a case and then determine the results. Measurement is key to success, but enter the sandbox first and feel the sand…..play with your Twitter  followers!

So, time to get on-board into Twitter along with your company and get ready to take-off into the social space….or shall I say galaxy. Start with a crisp brainstorming to establish the purpose…fill the white-board, begin engaging your people.

Look out for the next wisdom series tomorrow about the business benefits of using Twitter….keep your 140 on!

Follow us on @iridiuminter or my personal twitter @sbharatam