If your customers are on Twitter then you need to be there too, and you need a strategy of how to reach them.
Firstly assume your audience follows more than a few people (because if they’re active on Twitter they will have a growing list of people/brands they like) therefore you also have to assume their news feed is very active. It’s an ocean of information and that means…
If you only tweet once a day it’s about as effective as a message in a bottle…
in a sea of message in a bottles!
Here’s 10 tips for getting better business results on Twitter:
- Make sure your Twitter handle/name is short (helps others re-tweet you);
- Don’t forget your branding: your Twitter page should be professional and consistent with your website style and message;
- Get efficient! Look into social media management tools (eg Hootsuit or Tweetdeck);
- Use a URL shortner like Bit.ly (built into Hootsuit & Tweetdeck) to give you more space to write your message;
- Follow everyone who follows you;
- Follow thought-leaders in your industry and retweet good stuff;
- Tweet lots; Once per hour (some can be re-tweets);
- Get used to the # hashtag (great for tracking trends and your campaigns);
- Engage users; use the @ to mention Twitterers by name (goes to their news feed). But don’t overuse it!
- Practice 4 to 1 tweet karma: For every 1 self-promo tweet you should tweet 4 educational or entertaining tweets (this is good advice for Facebook too).
Remember if you aren’t going to spend at least 30 minutes a day on Twitter then you’re going to sink to the bottom of the sea floor without even a ripple to say you were there. Don’t let yourself sink!
If you want to know more about how to design a business twitter page read our blog by our director Bianca Board.