Why should your business be on Twitter?   It’s a great way to stay connected to your customers, it’s an excellent lead generation platform, you can share information quickly and gather feedback in real time.

Twitter is a recipient driven platform.  People choose to follow  your account.  Messaging is quick to read and write, exchangeable anywhere and is easy to integrate into multiple networks such as Twitter, Instagram, and your website.

There are a few cautions to note.    Be sure to check out the profile before you follow someone.  Pornography sites are prevalent, hackers are present, and stay away from people selling “followers”.  Lastly, be careful about aggressive tweeting – hounding people to follow you, pushing people to interact, you could get your account shut down.  Respect the platform and see who starts to follow you and be sure to follow those whose tweets you want to see more of.

Messaging is limited to 140 characters per tweet (for now).  This includes website links and pictures.  Be sure that you write well though.  Don’t start using short hand unless it’s necessary.  You’ll find the more you’re on Twitter, the more concise your writing will become!

Best Practices

SHARE! Share photos and behind the scenes info about your business. Even better, give a glimpse of developing projects and events. Users come to Twitter to get and share the latest, so give it to them!

Listen.  Regularly monitor the comments about you, your co-workers and your company, brand, and products.

Ask – Respond – Engage

Ask questions of your followers to gain valuable insights and show you are listening.

Respond to compliments and  feedback as soon as you can.

Engage existing &   prospective clients; it may not seem so, it adds a personal touch.

Demonstrate Wider Leadership.  Reference articles and links about the bigger picture as it relates to your business.

Champion Your Stakeholders.  Retweet and reply publicly to great tweets posted by your followers and customers.

Establish the right voice.

Twitter users tend to prefer a direct, genuine, and of course, a likable tone from you, think about your voice as you Tweet. How do you want your business to appear to the Twitter community?

The very best way to become comfortable within Twitter, is to start using it.  Search for people and businesses to follow.  Start with following your current clients.  Then start Tweeting.

You can also attend one of our many Marketing for Small Business classes.  We offer training on how to choose the right social platform for your business as well as how to use those platforms.  Our next HOW TO: Twitter class is on Wednesday, October 5, 2016 from 11:30 – 1:00pm.  Register here today!