Today we are going to talk about Twitter. In case you haven’t heard Twitter is a social networking site that boasts around 236 million active monthly users, and is a gold mine for leads, and business to customer interaction. We are going to go over the basics on how you can use Twitter for your own gain in this tutorial.
What is it?
Twitter is a little different from several of the other Social media sites out there. Twitter is essentially a stream of data that flies by, and the more accounts you follow, the more rapid the stream. It’s unfiltered, not targeted, and always visible. Unlike other social platforms the accounts you want to speak with are directly approachable. Just including @BBC_ICT in your tweet launches that tweet directly at us for us to view and respond to, you can also take part in larger conversations with the simple hashtag.
Getting Started
- Signup – Try and create a great Twitter handle, avoid complex combinations. Surprisingly not all great handles have been taken! It is best to create both a personal and a corporate account, and keep the two separate. Following your corporate account folks will be expecting promotional tweets, they will not necessarily be expecting your personal account to be throwing promotions at them non-stop on Twitter.
- Profile Setup – Nobody wants to be an egg, and nobody will trust or follow one either. Make sure to add a photo of your companies logo as your profile photo. Then upload a compelling background photo for your profile, take some time to customize your color scheme to match your companies colors.
- Bio – Here is where you want to keep it short and simple. Just a few sentences about what makes your company unique. Do not stuff your bio with URLs, hashtags and abbreviated descriptions, try to imagine yourself as a customer and only having a split second to make a good first impression.
- Location – Make sure you accurately represent your location so customers can find you.
- Website – Make sure to link your website so that visitors to your page can find out more about you!
Twitter Management
Now you need to get the apps. Whatever smart phone you are using there is a Twitter App waiting for you! When it comes to managing Twitter on the desktop there are some great options out there to really help you take control of your twitter feed like Hootsuite and Tweetdeck.
Tweeting
- Twitter limits the length of a tweet to 140 characters. This makes crafting the perfect tweet an art. In your tweet you are going be cramming in things like URLs and hashtags so it is important to utilize URL shortner like bitly, if you are using a desktop management app, most of them have URL shortners built in. Take time in creating the perfect tweet, because those are the tweets that result in retweets and follows.
- Double your engagement by selecting at least one hashtag, two or three are better (if you have room.) Selecting the right hashtag can take some research, if you are interested in having an app offer you suggestions on the fly try RiteTag.
Increasing Your Reach
- Find your industry’s leaders on Twitter, follow them, and share their content, and don’t be afraid to engage with them whenever you can add value to the conversation.
- Search for your customers on Twitter, follow them, help them, engage with them, and retweet their content to create a relationship.
- Don’t be a pest. Avoid automated direct message platforms, writing to people unnecessarily, and using grow your followers schemes.
Those are just a few of the basic techniques for getting started on Twitter! Be sure to come back for part 2 coming soon! If you are interested in Social Media but need assistance, we can help! Contact us here.