Want to quickly and easily spread the word about your business? Have a special offer you want to communicate to your customers? Or how about a blog you want to promote? Twitter is a great way for businesses to build brand awareness, market products and services, engage in meaningful conversations with customers, and so much more. Here are some tips for getting started …
FILL OUT YOUR PROFILE COMPLETELY
If you’re looking to make a powerful first impression on Twitter, you’ll want to take the time to fill out your profile, or “handle” in its entirety. Be sure to include your username, profile photo, bio, header image, web address, and your pinned tweet. Remember, your Twitter presence is an online representation of your brand so you’ll want to put some thought into creating your profile.
LEARN THE LANGUAGE
Don’t know your hashtags from your cashtags? Peruse Twitter’s glossary to learn the lingo. Then get the conversation going.
HAVE SOME PERSONALITY
One mistake entrepreneurs new to Twitter often make is to treat it exclusively as a sales platform. While it’s completely fine to push your products and services on Twitter, it’s equally as important to simply engage with customers on a personal level to give them a better feeling about your brand. Let your personality, or better yet, the personality you want your brand to personify, come across in your tweets.
START A CONVERSATION
As we’ve mentioned in past blog posts, social media is about precisely that, being social. Resist the urge to simply talk at your followers with “buy now” type messaging. Instead, start a conversation with them. Ask questions. When you do, you’ll gain access to important insights that can help drive your future sales.
POST REGULARLY
Want to build momentum for your Twitter account? Try to post on a regular basis – say two or three times a day. Make it a point to post between 12PM and 3PM EST Monday–Thursday when Twitter traffic is highest.
MAKE EVERY WORD COUNT
With a 140-character limit on tweets, Twitter forces you to be succinct in your messaging. Make sure every word is working hard for you by furthering your mission of sharing engaging and relevant content. Want to include links back to your website but you’re running out of characters? The free URL shortener Bit.ly is a tool you’ll want to check out.
RE-READ BEFORE YOU POST
We are living in the age of screenshots. What does that mean? It means that once you post a tweet, even if you delete it, it could come back to haunt you. Avoid poster’s remorse by taking a moment to re-read your tweets before you post them.
GIVE CONSUMERS REASONS TO FOLLOW YOU
Want more consumers to start following your tweets? Give them a compelling reason to do so. For instance, offer special, limited-time-only discounts to anyone who follows you on Twitter.
POSITION YOURSELF AS AN EXPERT
Another way to attract more Twitter followers is to position your business as a trusted source of industry related info. Stay current on trends within your particular industry. Then keep your followers informed of those trends by creating content backed by reliable sources. Before you know it, they’ll be coming back to your tweets again and again.
STICK AROUND
Again, one of the keys to making Twitter work for you is to think of it as an ongoing conversation between your brand and your (potential) customers. Rather than just creating and scheduling posts and then moving on to your next order of business, stick around to see what conversations your tweets start. Those follow-up conversations could lead to “a ha” moments that can really take your business to the next level.
