Common questions we are asked are: Why should I be on twitter? What’s the big deal? What do I tweet about? There are several uses for twitter for both individuals and organizations and I thought I’d outline them with showing you how Frank the Tank, the infamous character from the movie Old School could have used it.

For those of you who haven’t seen it, the movie is about three guys(Mitch, Beanie, and Frank) in their 30′s who start a fraternity comprised of college students, middle aged men and early retirees.

Frank is a key leader in organizing fraternity functions (like Blue’s birthday party), promoting and marketing the frat (through his dj gig), and disciplining the pledges (“drop down and give me ten”).

Given that, there are a lot of ways Frank the Tank could use twitter. Here are a few that I came up with:

1. Branding/ Marketing

Frank can use twitter to market himself to the potential pledges and others and as a representative of this fraternity. His goals would be to drive up membership and attendance at parties. On an ongoing basis, he would highlight fraternity activities, discuss planning for upcoming events, and possibly tweet about current members of the frat. He could post links to things potential pledges may be interested in such as the latest and greatest beers or the top 10 streaking techniques. The goal would be to posting things that your audience would be interested in.

2. Education

Twitter can be a great resource for people trying to learn. I pay close attention to about 5-10 who I follow. I feel that this keeps me up to speed with the always changing internet marketing world. Frank could use twitter to follow other fraternity leaders at other campus’s across the country to see what types of functions/events that they are having. He can also use it to follow rival fraternity members on campus to track what they do. If you have a lot of followers, programs like TweetDeck, can help you organize your tweets so you can more easily pay attention to the people you feel are more important.

3. Communication

Twitter is a great way to get feedback from people interested in you or your organization. Frank could easily use Twitter to see what his followers thought of a party that they had the previous weekend or get feedback from people on what major recording artist they should bring in for Mitch-a-palooza 2. He could have contests to see what followers could re-tweet or pass along the link to a upcoming party. The point is to try and interact and connect with people and it will hopefully make either yourself or your organization better.

4. Networking

People will often re-tweet other people’s tweets for various reasons. Browsing the profiles of people whom your peers re-tweet could lead to networking. For Frank, it could lead recruiting friends of his followers as potential pledges. Also you can meet people through things you are mutually interested in. For instance if Frank visits the KFC twitter page, he could share memories with someone who is also a late night craver of fried chicken.

5. Research

There are various tools that allow you to search twitter for keywords. Frank could use search.twitter.com to search for what people are saying about his fraternity or even the fraternity’s parties. By monitoring this, you can both get an understanding about the online vibe of your brand online. You can also target the people who are talking about you and see if they would be a good candidate to pledge. If someone is saying something negative about you, you have the opportunity to message them to address the issue.

My recommendations for Frank aim to help you figure out how to best use twitter for your organization or even yourself. Hopefully your twitter strategy brainstorming will not throw off your lovely Saturday plans to go to Bed, Bath and Beyond or Home Depot.