Does your brand or business have a Twitter account, and is it proactively used to create a voice for your business to communicate with customers and potential customers? Many well-known football clubs are now doing so, and according to Twitter’s Head of Sport for the UK and Europe, other brands should take note. </p> <p>Football brands embrace the channel</p> <p>According to Lewis Wiltshire, both big UK football clubs such as Liverpool and Arsenal as well as European clubs Barcelona and Real Madrid, have been busy over the last year or so developing their own distinctive “voices” across Twitter. Putting hashtags – the subject titles given to something being discussed which allows all tweets on a subject to be viewed together, such as “#carlingcup” or “#2012season” – on other media such as posters encourages consumers to go online and tweet their own opinions on the specific subject. Arsenal, for example, tweets multiple times a day, talking about fixtures, tickets, making live game comments and posting quotes from players. Wiltshire also suggests re-tweeting fan (or customer) comments as a way to build a closer personal connection. </p> <p>Use twitter to develop more personal communications</p> <p>Of course, as Twitter’s Head of Sport, he has a vested interest in promoting the use of the microblogging site, and keeping up a constant stream of tweets isn’t realistic or possible for many brands with small or even non-existent marketing teams. However, many brands could make more use of the short form content site than they do, using it to develop a more reactive and consumer-friendly face than an often very static website. Are you using Twitter yet?<br />