Okay, so you’ve gotten on the bandwagon and have set up a Twitter account for your business or organization. But how can you now use your Twitter account to help grow your business, build your brand, and develop meaningful relationships with your target audience? Here are five fairly simple things that you can do to get better at Twitter.
- Interact with your followers and those who you follow.
This sounds like a no-brainer, but it is shocking how many businesses simply use Twitter to blast out links. Doing this adds very little value to the people who follow you and will quickly result in your tweets being ignored. By taking the time to respond to and interact with your fellow Twitterers, you will go a long way to turning your Twitter account into a strong business tool and not simply a novelty. - Tweet about more than just your business.
Yes, I’m sure that your business is very interesting. However, what you want to avoid is becoming that annoying ass who, whenever you see them, prattles on and on about themselves. Endlessly tweeting about you and only you is a sure fire way to loose followers and have those who still do follow you ignore most of what your saying. Talk about your business, but also mix in other things. Trending Twitter topics, current events, the weather, music your listening to, movies you want to see, etc. This adds some personality and depth to your tweets. - Tweet in words, not abbreviations.
“Today sign SJR16 Offshore Oil/Gas Revenue bill;passed unanimously;urges responsible OCS drilling & method to share $ from developmt w/states.” That is an actual tweet from Sarah Palin. If you want to take the time to try and figure out what the hell she is trying to say, have at it. You could probably, after the third or fourth read, decipher it. However, in this lightning fast information age, you can not send out garbled messages like that. If I can’t understand what you’re talking about immediately, your wasting my time. Don’t waste your followers time. - Don’t max out your 140 character limit with every tweet.
Yes, Twitter allows you to insert up to 140 characters (including spaces) into your tweets. However, when you can, try to keep it to 130 or less. Why? Because it makes it easier for other Twitter users to re-tweet your tweets. A re-tweet, for those that don’t know, looks something like this: RT @LaserBurnMedia: “original tweet here”. Being re-tweeted is a good thing. It puts your message in front of more people. However, if you constantly max out your character limit, you make re-tweeting your messages almost impossible for your followers. - Don’t mass follow people.
Following a few thousand people, hoping that they will return the favor, is silly. It may get you more followers, but it does nothing to help you use Twitter to build relationships. No one cares about how many people you have following you, or how many people you are following. If your tweets are meaningful, relevant, and interesting, then you will gain followers. And those followers will actually care about what your tweeting about. Mass following others will only result in your Twitter account becoming irrelevant and largely ignored, even by those who follow you. Think quality, not quantity and it will pay dividends for you down the road.
These are five simple things that you can do, every day, to help get better at using Twitter. Twitter is an insanely powerful communication tool, but like any tool, if you don’t know how to use it, it will result in disaster. With a little thought and effort on your part, you will go a long way towards making your Twitter account a powerful part of your marketing and communication arsenal. If you would like to have the marketing experts at Laser Burn Media help use the power of Social Media to build and strengthen your business, please don’t hesitate to contact us directly. Have a great day, all!
See also: Five Ways to Get Better at Facebook and Five Ways to Get Better at Blogging
-Dan Cheek
www.LaserBurnMedia.com
dan@laserburnmedia.com
