Top 10 Twitter Tips for Businesses
Twitter has been a huge success in the social media market. But Twitter is not just to let someone know what you had for lunch or just saying hi. Of course Twitter is “social” media and is a great way to network and make friends, but it is also a powerful tool for business to use to promote their products and ideas. It is also a great way to share information and give your clients special deals they couldn’t get anywhere else. Below are some tips to help a business succeed at Twitter and to interact with their clients.
Top Twitter Tips
- 1. Your Twitter Profile
- Yeah, this is the place to start. Before you send your first Tweet, make sure your sending the right visual message to your customers and peers. Hire a designer to brand your twitter background to match your other marketing material such as your website, letterhead, and other promotional material. Also, make sure you have a profile pic and use the description area to highlight your companies strengths.
- 2. Don’t Worry About Your Follow Count
- Focusing solely on Twitter Followers is a sure fire way to be unproductive with Twitter. You want the right type of followers, you know, the ones that want to hear what you have to say. These will be your most valuable customers. If you give them valuable information, they will come.
- 3. Engage in the Conversation
- Even though the messages are only 140 characters, this is a social media built around conversations. Make sure to respond to people that send you a message or follow you. Also, follow your brand and reply to messages about it. See next tip.
- 4. Track Your Brand
- Do a Twitter search for your company name and follow that search. When people talk about your company, respond and “engage in the conversation”. What a great way to support others that are promoting you or to put out fires before they really start.
- 5. Stay Positive
- Just like the non-cyber world, nobody wants to hang with someone that is negative. Keep the conversations positive. Opinions are great…but negative bashing is not!
- 6. Say Something
- Say something worthwhile is more like it. There is a bunch of chatter and noise on twitter. A business can’t afford to get lost in the noise. Make sure that you are sending worthwhile information about your company, promotions, and events. Some of your tweets will be self promotion, but make sure your also giving your followers some real meat.
- 7. Know when to Tweet
- This really goes along with knowing who your customers are. Stay at home parents and business peers…you can most likely tweet mid-day. If most of your clients work a 9-5 job then sending some tweets in the evening hours and the weekends would be beneficial.
- 8. Use A Twitter Client
- Businesses using Twitter need a client. Some of our favorites include TweetDeck and HootSuite. Both even manage Facebook. HootSuite has some built in analytics and allows for scheduling of tweets. (hint hint…remember tip #7)
- 9. Analytics
- Track your links. This will help you see what types of tweets users a clicking on. There are a couple of services out there that can do this such as Twitter Analyzer, TweetBurner, and HootSuite.
- 10. Be Yourself and Have Fun
- Don’t try to be something that your not. Remain try to yourself and your business plan. And most importantly, Twitter should be fun. Remember, you have a great opportunity to interact with your clients in a way that wouldn’t be possible without the far reaching and instantaneous communication tool that Twitter is.
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