When it comes to Twitter, most people find it hard to really maximise all of the tools available to benefit their business. To help you really understand how Twitter can work for your business, here are 21 tips to help you build your best practice around Twitter.
1. Have a Purpose
When it comes to starting a Twitter account, you need to have a goal in mind. Your purpose could be to increase sales, to find more customers or even both. Once you have this in mind you know where you what you want to achieve.
2. Focus on Your Passion
If you have a business, it will be in a sector you are passionate about so you will need to communicate this to your audience.
3. Defining Your Brand
It may be as simple as taking a pen and paper and defining your brand with those around you. This is a crucial part for your online marketing strategy and without a defined business, you will not achieve your purpose.
4. Learn the Basics
It may sound silly but you really do need to know the basic best practices when it comes to Twitter. How to follow, how to Tweet and How to RT are three very basic but very important actions to take inside of Twitter
5. Profile Image & Header
For you to really sell your brand on Twitter, you need to have an engaging profile image and header. These should be two different images. Your profile picture should be a logo and the other should be a lifestyle image.
6. Find Your Keywords
If you have defined your business, you will know what keywords to use when writing your Twitter biography and sharing information. If you need to do this research but don’t know where to start, use Google Adwords.
7. Do Your Hashtag Research
A twitter feature you will need to learn how to use is the hashtag. The use of the “#” symbol before a keyword creates a hashtag which can then be searched and monitored. Use this to your advantage and monitor your keyword hashtags to find potential customers.
8. Share your Twitter Account on Social Media
There may be people who like your Facebook page who are not connect with you on Twitter. Make sure you capture these by sharing your Twitter username on Facebook.
9. Twellow
Twellow is a great tool to use when trying to find people in your industry to follow and connect with on Twitter. Use your industry keywords to find those relevant to your business.
10. Favoriting Tweets
When you “favourite” someone’s tweet, they will receive a notification of this and because you have acknowledged their profile, they are likely to follow you back. This a great way to increase your followers list.
11. Create Lists
Creating a list allows you to fine tune into certain accounts so you can drown out the constant noise on Twitter and just listen to what is important to your business. Use this to keep on top of what clients and industry experts are saying.
12. Two Ears, One Mouth Rule
Make sure you listen and research before you speak. It is better to listen twice as much as you tweet, this way you can keep your followers engaged with you and share only relevant information.
13. Social Media Scheduling
Using a tool like Hootsuite will allow you to schedule tweets when you are unable to do them in real time. This is a great way to manage your time on social media.
14. Original Tweets
Yes, it is great to retweet and reply to tweets but you also need to be creating your own, original tweets to keep users engaged with you.
15. Curate Great Content
Although mentioned about, you need original content, it is also good to share great content. This way the content creator will see you have shared their information and most likely thank you for this on social media.
16. Share Facts & Statistics
You not only want to engage with your audience, you also want to educate them. Make sure you share facts and statistics that will make your audience engage with you.
17. Duplicate Content
When posting on social media, the chances are your tweet will only reach a small fraction of your audience. Make sure you use the same tweet each day, at a different time to get the best click rate.
18. Share Different Types of Content
Just writing tweets will not keep your audience interested, you need to make sure you are sharing video’s and images too.
19. Use the Direct Message Feature
Using the direct message feature allows you to privately communicate with another account. This is a great way to build a working relationship and also builds trust for your business.
20. Use Other Networks to Leverage Your Tweets
Share your Twitter content with your audience on other networks by re-posting your tweets on Facebook and LinkedIn, when appropriate. You also can embed a tweet into your blog or website.
21. Use Klout to Measure Your Social Media Score
It may not be 100% accurate but using Klout to measure your social media score is a great way to see if your online profile is where you would like it to be. A score over 60 means that you are doing very good indeed.
If you would like to get sales and accelerate your business on Twitter, I will be running a special 2 hour webinar on the 9th December 7pm-9pm. Spaces are limited to only 20 people so click here now.