The thing with Twitter is, you’re either on the bus, or you’re not. Those that aren’t think it’s just a passing fad and don’t really understand it. But, it’s becoming increasingly important as part of any brand building strategy.

In a recent article, out of the 100 most mentioned brands on Twitter, less than half have a Twitter account. And, some of those aren’t really making the most of their presence.

It seems crazy to think that there’s a whole heap of conversations going on about these brands in the twitterverse and these brands aren’t even listening, let alone participating. You can bet your last dollar that if these conversations were happening in print, they’d be watching, reading and taking notes. But here, they choose to ignore.

So, if you are one of those brands that is not taking part in the twitterverse, you’re probably wondering where to start. So here’s my beginner’s guide to brand building with Twitter in 6 easy steps.

1. Clarify your objective!
You must first decide on what basis you are going to participate. Is it to enhance your brand story and add personality, or is it for customer services? Are you going to have just the one twitter account or are you going to encourage employees to tweet. Word of warning with the latter: make sure this is part of a wider social media strategy that permeates the business so that everyone concerned is clear on best practices. Reputations can be destroyed online in seconds, both personal and corporate.

2. Decide on the nature of your tweets
It may be worth having some guidelines in place as to the sorts of things that your brand will tweet about. It’s not about sell, sell, sell, but about listen, engage, listen, and engage. So how are you going to engage? And, when you listen, how will you respond? There are 6 main types of tweet;
a. Brand news
b. Customer support
c. Feedback
d. Special offers
e. Interesting info or resources
f. Random thoughts

You will need to be clear as how you will employ each of these and if you will actually use all of them. Some say, it’s best to reserve using the last one for personal brands. But, if random titbits is part of your brand story then why not?

3. Register your brand name twitter profile
Make sure you pick something that sounds right. You may want to use your name to reinforce your brand message in some way.

4. Create your Twitter page
Use the background to display your brand assets and key brand messages. You might want to use the profile pic to display your logo. Some brands put a pic of the person managing the account. This reinforces the personal nature of twitter and can be a good tactic if twitter is a key strand of your customer services strategy.

5. Allocate resource to maintain your twitter account.
There’s nothing worse for a brand than lack of consistency and the same applies here. The person who’s job it is to manage your twitter account must be very clear on the brand values and proposition. Twitter can enhance your brand if used correctly. It can also destroy.

6. Listen, listen, listen
I know, I’ve mentioned this already, but it’s a biggie. It’s important to track what is being said in the twitterverse, so make sure that your twitterer is using an application that allows you to keep track of your brand mentions. It’s also a good idea to listen to what’s being said about your competitors as well as your product/service category. You could pick up some great ideas for new product development or service improvements.

Apple has attained what a lot of brands can only dream of: avid loyal fan-atics who act as brand-ambassadors without prompt. How do they do this?Here’s one way, the Apple Brand Experience.

As a relatively recent Apple convert, I am still at that early stage of wonder and curiosity as I walk the path otherwise known as the Apple Brand Experience. So far, I have collected a number of really positive experiences since acquiring my beautiful little macbook. The most notable one so far is the fact that my macbook works. Yes! Simple things. And, it works when I want it to work. This makes a refreshing change from my PC days. Each day, I continue to be in awe at how smoothly it runs. Surely, this was too good to be true… Was it all about to horribly wrong? In a word, yes.

A few weeks ago, during Easter bank holiday weekend, a horrid cold forced me to spend the weekend in bed watching back-to-back episodes of Lost. I enjoyed it actually. Amazed at how long my battery was lasting, I just kept moving onto the next episode. But, the inevitable happened, so, before starting the next episode I crawled out of bed to get my lead. I plugged it in. Nothing. Nada. No little green or red LED. Nothing. Zip. Diddlysquat! No matter how much I wriggled the lead, the little LED’s just weren’t showing up. And I only had 20 minutes of juice left! AND…. It was bank holiday weekend! Aaargh! Suddenly, the sweat on my forehead had an entirely different composition.

The next 20 minutes were spent frantically searching the interweb for anything on the Magsafe power lead. Lost was soon a distant memory. A few forums later and I’m now a little wiser on the subject of the Magsafe power lead. They’re not all that great apparently. Some say a little bit delicate, too delicate. Others think that it’s not that well designed, especially when you compare it to other Mac stuff. And others still complain of theirs dying just after the warranty expires. Typical! But, time was running out. I needed to focus. First, I checked my warranty. Phew, another 2 weeks left! Second. I found the list of local resellers where I could get it fixed. Third. Emailed friends with Macs to see if I could borrow their lead. And relax.

After two painful days with minimal mac usage (damn bank holidays!) the day came for me to take my little macbook to be fixed. To avoid potential embarrassment, I checked both my lead and my friend’s lead. After all, I would not look very cool bringing in the lead that worked. But, both leads worked! What?! Now I’m not sure what’s worse. A lead that is faulty, or a lead that was faulty once and now isn’t… but might be faulty any minute now. How could I take the lead back – it worked! But, now I didn’t trust it. Weird concept, not trusting a lead.

Well now Apple. What are you going to do now? My brand experience has been shattered. I’ve lost trust in you. How can you possibly recover from this one? This question interested me, as both a marketer and a consumer. A week went by and the rawness of the experience started to fade. Time is a healer, right?

And, then I find myself with a spare 15 minutes in between meetings and I’m near the Regent Street Apple store. Well, it would have been rude not to go in. I had never been in an Apple store before, so this was potentially quite exciting. Maybe, I could talk to a real person about my problem. The power-lead one.

I was a little apprehensive about walking in. Everyone inside the store looked far too cool. Would they let me in? I might get rumbled as an Apple newbie and get sent out again. I put my Ipod on to make myself feel better.

Once inside, I was in awe. As a retail space, it was quite incredible. It didn’t feel like a store at all, more like Apple World. There were zones, workshops, one-to-one training sessions, and people using products, everywhere. I made an enquiry about my problem and was advised that it would be best to bring my little macbook in so they could have a look at it. On my way out, I picked up a program of events for the month. After all, as a newbie, I could probably do with attending the “Going from a PC to a Mac” workshop at some point.

My next Apple retail experience was in their shiny new store in the Westfield centre, where, armed with my little macbook, I turned up as the doors opened. A very helpful, very cool guy welcomed me into the store and listened as I explained the problem. We walked together to the counter at the back. I was thankful for this, as I’m sure I would have got ejected for not looking cool enough if I was on my own. As he opened my Mac, he noticed a crack that had appeared near my mouse pad. I tried to hide it, as I was sure he would be thinking that I didn’t treat my mac with enough respect. He suggested that my lead connector might be loose, but that if I get my casing replaced under warranty, the connector could be done at the same time. And, while he was tinkering under my Apple bonnet, he also noted how slow my machine was. So he prodded and poked for a bit. Then he let me know that my machine should run a lot quicker from now on. Fantastic! I skipped out of the store with my new slicker, faster machine and the AppleCare phone number. All ready for stage 2. Result!

In an effort to test Apple, I decided to call AppleCare, on the last day of my warranty. Well, no. Actually I forgot. But, these things don’t matter in Apple World. I called and spoke to a very cool guy. Well, his voice sounded cool. I imagined him sitting at work in his jeans, scruffy white designer T-shirt, and trainers. Hair ruffled, but in a styled way. Like I said, cool. He created an Apple file just for me for me, which detailed my problem, and then he gave me a unique Apple number. I felt very important. But, I needed to be put on hold for a bit while he raised the paperwork. As my sense of importance diminished somewhat, I listened to some cool music. Then he came back, assured me that everything would get fixed free of charge under warranty and reminded me to have a great day. I did.

Now for the Big Fix. This was where it could go horribly wrong again. As I don’t have a local Apple store, I have to use a reseller to fix my little macbook. The marketer in me was once more very interested in how this next stage was going to play out. We marketers know that the challenge for brand owners when they outsource is ensuring that the brand experience is maintained. Outsourcing customer-facing aspects of your business can be risky, as it is here on the front line, that brand loyalty can be won or lost.

But I needn’t worry. Apple has clearly picked a very good organisation in my area. Once again, I was faced with super-cool staff and excellent customer service. I was so impressed with how it was all going that I forgot about my untrustworthy lead and got way too excited at the prospect of having new casing. I know. I should get out more. Well I am planning to go to the Apple workshop next time I’m in London.

So here I am now with my new shiny white casing, and I still have a lead that might stop working at any time. But, do I care? NO! In fact, I’m delighted. I have a new set of keys to tap away on that I can see (my E had disappeared), my mouse pad feels slick and fast, and I have no crack in sight.

Great brands know that if they have a customer in distress, it is a ripe opportunity to turn that customer into a loyal brand advocate. After all, the real test of a brand’s strength is how well the situation is managed. We are all human, and as customers we accept that mistakes can happen. It’s how we are treated in that situation that will colour our opinion. In my situation, Apple could have sorted the lead situation out no problem. But as a customer, what difference would I have noticed in my brand experience? However, now I have shiny new casing with new keys that I can now read again, and a mouse pad that seems even more efficient than it was before. So even though my brand experience wasn’t really in question (bar the lead), I am now even more in love with my little macbook. So, I’m more than happy.

And you know what? If the lead dies, well, c’est la vie! We can’t all be perfect.

The final part of our article on what it takes for a successful re-launch.

Inspired by the flurry recent high profile re-brand disasters, this is our take on what makes for a successful brand re-launch. And, we got a bit carried away, so we’ve split it into 3 parts. This is part 1.