Perhaps you’ve dabbled in Twitter on a personal level, sharing selfies from family functions or opinions about the latest blockbuster, and find yourself wondering, What’s the big deal? It’s great for staying in touch with friends, but…
How can Twitter possibly help my BUSINESS?
Funny you should ask. Because Twitter works for business in virtually the same way it works in your personal life—and it’s easy to get started.
Start off with a complete profile. You hear it time and again, but this step should not be overlooked. Always remember that Twitter is a social tool, not a classifieds site, and your profile is where potential customers get to know the person behind the curtain.
See: How to Write an Effective Twitter Profile
Taking the profile concept a step further, if you plan on making Twitter a major component of your social media marketing program, it’s a good idea to direct visitors to a customized Twitter landing page from the website listing in your profile. Good landing pages act as enhanced profiles and speak directly to people who found you on Twitter, providing a brief overview of your business, some recent tweets, links to your blog(s), an invitation to follow, and connections to your other social media networks.
The next step is to connect to an audience, and luckily, Twitter makes it easy to Import Your Contacts. This is a good way to start building your audience, but in order to go big, you’ll need to start following people and other businesses in your industry. And don’t just stop there. Perhaps the most crucial step is engagement. *Favorite* posts that catch your eye, and when you find content that’s simply awesome, share it with your followers. It’s a good idea to establish some general standards for sharing so you don’t overburden your audience with too much clutter.
The old adage, “You don’t plan to fail; you fail to plan” is tried and true, especially when it comes to a Twitter Marketing Strategy. Be selective when choosing people or businesses to follow and the type of content you’ll share. Create and follow a schedule for consistent posting; nothing makes a potential follower lose interest quicker than hit or miss updates or extended periods of inactivity. Search Twitter for questions related to your industry and create tweets around your answers. And by all means, alert your audience to sales or special events your business is offering. This will help encourage retweets and word of mouth advertising among your followers’ audience.
Like any good businessperson, you’ll probably want way to measure the value of your Twitter marketing campaign. Twitter has Official Partners that can help, but you can also use tools like Tweetstats, Klout, and Bit.ly to measure your activity in a variety of ways.
While Twitter is an excellent tool to help humanize your business and establish relationships with clients and customers, it’s important to keep your private life private. Friends are great, but treating Twitter followers too much like friends can be bad for business.
For more information on how Ghost Tweeting can help you market your business consistently on twitter, contact us for a free consultation.
