I have seen many Twitter HOWTO's and Guides, but I have yet to come across one that shows consumers how they can get the attention of brands/products. We have all been busy talking about how we can talk to consumers, how we can engage with them.. which is all great, but we seem to forget that just like marketers, a lot of these social media tools are new to consumers as well. After all, we are all consumers.

Being on the monitoring end of things, I hope that I can give some insights to how brands see the world and how you, the consumer, can make your voice better heard. The most important thing you need to know is this: good brands are really trying to listen.

Give your opinion weight

Anonymity is perhaps one of the Internet's biggest double-edged swords. We like being able to make anonymous comments. It removes a veil of civility that we often put on when communicating with others. Being anonymous online is like having a license to kill. Say what's on your mind and it won't have to come back to haunt you -- that's at least in theory.

This is fine, but if you were an active blogger, forum contributor, twitter user, etc., your opinion has weight. Yes, marketers weigh your opinion based on how much influence your user id carries. Do people retweet your tweets? Do they link back to your blog posts? Do they comment on your posts? The more people do, the more weight this user of yours has influence. The more influence he has, the more weight the opinion associated with it has.

So, maybe you don't want to give up being completely anonymous.. but do consider using a pseudo-name consistently.

Simplify your sentiments

There are millions of posts and tweets happening everyday. It is virtually impossible for a person to sift through them as they happen. What marketers do is rely on computer technology to tell them when someone is mentioning their brand favorably or unfavorably. Sentiment assessment is not as sophisticated as we would like it to be. In fact, most programs do this horribly. So, if I were to talk about a product and wanted to express disappointment, using emoticons in close proximity with the product's name is a good way to ensure that programs can pick up on it. Also, using strong and clear descriptives "sucks", "disappointed", etc. in close proximity to the product also helps.

This is similar to the problem journalists started facing when they had to start thinking differently when writing headlines and leads to stories posted on the Internet. Writing for print and writing for the net is fundamentally different. Clever puns and wordplay don't always work very well in our Search Engine Optimized websites. This is a very similar situation.

Engage with the top

Don't be shy. I've seen it happen time and time again. Most heads of departments/organizations care about the product and/or service they offer. When Google first launched their ejabat service, many people (including myself), questioned the Egyptian 'g' initially used in the name of the service. Engaging with the product engineer directly was so easy it was almost unbelievable. Not long after, the name has been changed to the more encompassing "ejabat".

Remember that in most cases, product and/or services providers are not out to hurt you - they have a genuine interest in being the best at what they do. It's not an us vs. them scenario. We're just all trying to figure out how we can better talk to one another.