In today’s busy world people tend to have little spare time for relaxing and browsing content. With the tremendous growth in the use of smart phones and ipads more people have access to the internet on their way to work travelling or in their lunch breaks. Twitter is short, fast and informative and hence is ideal for all us in our busy world of today.
The following are some basic guidelines for using Twitter successfully for Business.
1) Professional Visual Branding
Make sure your graphics are professional. People will ‘get a feel’ and make a judgement about your business should your profile have poor graphics. Your logo should be readable, no unclear images or cut off words. Professionally branded graphics will market the corporate image of your company. As we all know, perception goes a long way!
2) Personal Photo versus Logo
This is a tough question, however the best advice for marketing purposes is to use a personal photo, possibly that of a Director/CEO of the company in conjunction with the company logo.
The square profile pic, where possible, should preferably be that of a person.
Research shows us that more people are willing to engage ‘with a human being’ as opposed to a ‘brand’.
3) Description
A concise keyword rich description of what you do or what services and products your company offers. Please do not leave out your location as this assists with search results when people in your area are browsing Twitter. By being passionate or by adding a humour here will make you more personable! Remember if people relate to you or like you-they are more inclined to follow you!
4) Contact details
Dont leave out your Website, Blog or email. Either of these make you contactable!
Without them…you are not!
5) What to Tweet!
- Always tweet as if you are speaking to someone. You would never yell out your products/services or prices bluntly when starting a conversation. Grace, politeness and non-pushy sales goes along way to develop relationships of trust with your followers.
- Be informative, offer insight, add humour! Never vent and try to steer away from negativity at all times.
- Indirect sales is the way to go as opposed to direct selling. If you are in the property industry, for example you may want to tweet about positive news or beautiful homes in the area. An interesting tweet can lead your followers to your website.
According to research the following Tweets get more responses :
- Tweets with photos and pics
- Tweets with Links (preferably to your website or blog)
- Tweets with video links!
Be sure to include all 3 of these in your marketing strategy! The good news is photos dont have to be professionally taken, spontaneous pics with your smart phone work perfectly.
6) Magic hash tags!
You may be wondering what on earth these are! Put simply, they are put in front of whatever your keyword is in your tweet. Hash tags help the Twitter search engines to find your Tweet when people in your target market are looking for what your business is offering.
There are no minimum or maximum amounts of hash tags allowed per tweet. Advisable is to use one or 2 per tweet.
7) How to grow your Followers
Add your Twitter link to all employees’ outgoing email signatures
Add your Twitter icon to our website. Make sure its clearly visable. If not-its not going to be of use!
If preferred, add a live Twitter box of your tweets to your Website.
Re-tweet those in your target market to encourage them to follow you. This will ensure they notice you!
Add your Twitter link to all Company Business Cards, Brochures and Fliers
8) Who should you follow or not!
- Avoid following those who dont have an uploaded photo. These could be bots or spammers.
- Avoid following those who do not tweet and possibly have a low following, unless they are a new account there could be good reason for why no one is following them.
- Are you following with a strategy in mind? Follow your Target Market. Its important toconnect with the right people and tweet with them!
- One needs to use discretion, but in most cases unless you have a mutual referral system it does not make sense to follow your competitors.
- Follow those talking about your business! These people are interested in your company services and are more than likely potential or existing clients.
9) Basic Twitter Ethics
- Never ignore your followers when they mention you. Always reply promptly and politely
- Thank each person that Re-Tweets for you. Ignoring this simply means they wont do it again and you will lose followers
- Dont just tweet at people-Tweet with them! Engage in their conversations too!
- Do use ‘ice breakers’ in a friendly manner and include humour.
- Be helpful-offer insight and assistance by replying to their tweets. Make sure this is authentic and not just a sales pitch!
- Be more interested in your customers than in yourself. Your manner is vital as people have intuition and will get a feel about you if you are too self-important and not interested in them.
- Be mindful how you tweet. You just want to add value and have no agenda to ‘making the sale’ yet you’re strategic. Remember Twitter is Relationship Marketing!
- Avoid using DM (Direct Message) to your followers. Why would you want to hide on Twitter? Its designed to maximise exposure. Always Tweet to them publically instead.
- If you by chance you are not getting any RT’s or mentions on Twitter-then change your content strategy! If you are-it means people are interested in your content so keep going!
- Messed up? Received a complaint? Apologise and be transparent when doing so. Do not ignore! Always address any complaint received.
10) Twitter Marketing ideas
Twitter can be a powerful tool to ‘make your business go viral’ A good technique to use is to have give-aways or competitions where you reward followers for Re-Tweeting your Tweet. The Twitter jargon for a ‘Re-Tweet is known as an RT’ An example could be : ‘Angels Media team helps business go viral in London! RT this to win Spa voucher #Social Media’
Another fun idea is to get your followers to Tweet their own pics to you to win a prize. ‘Gorgeous homes in the area #London#Property’ could be a good example. Best pic sent wins a prize.
11) Twitter’s New Approved Logo
Twitter has recently approved the plain Twitter Bird as its sole approved logo allowed to be used in association with the Twitter Brand. Please make sure that this logo is used on your websites, email signature etc.
