So now you have a Twitter account, but you’re not sure how to utilize it for your business, how to connect with your customers, or how to build your brand awareness. Well, here are 25 great tips, tricks, and secrets for using Twitter to promote your business:
1. Use your Twitter account to ask your followers questions about what you provide, this will encourage participation and interaction. People like that.
2. If possible you should try and have at least two people tweeting, it really expands the variety of content being tweeted. Make this clear in your profile and sign off each tweet with the initials of the person. This makes your messages more personal.
3. Tweet about other businesses, other products, and services that you have personal experience with and you can talk positively about. For example, review a book in your area of expertise and let people know what you thought.
4. Provide advice that is relevant to your industry, it will build your reputation and credibility.
5. Send out a tweet to thank new followers to show them you are in a fact a human user and let them know your appreciation.
6. Take advantage of Twitter Search or Twellow to find others in your relevant industry.
7. Use URL Shortening tools like Goo.gl or Bit.ly, to shorten the links you put in your status updates so you can fit more content in.
8. One of the strongest ways to get involved in the Twitter community is to re-tweet what others are saying and comment on other’s tweets which you find interesting.
9. Take advantage of some of the great applications Twitter has such as Twitpic, FileSocial and TwitPay. These will work in tandem with your on-going Twitter campaign.
10. Exchange your business card with other professionals through the Twitter Business Card application Twtbizcard.com.
11. If someone follows you, follow if you can but remember that 10 000 people will have a lot to say. If you go down that route, use ‘Lists’ to filter out the noise.
12. Try to use a human photo rather than a company logo; it shows your followers and other users that you are a real human and not out there to push your product at every given moment.
13. Take advantage of link tools mentioned above (Bit.ly) as they provide you with data who clicked your link. Great for ROI!
14. Use hash-tags to start targeted conversations about key topics. Word of warning, don’t overdo them, there is nothing more annoying when someone Tweets: #Morning all on #Twitter, I have bought an #awesome #Sony… you get the picture.
15. Take advantage of social media dashboards such as Tweetdeck, it will allow you to keep track of all your important accounts and same you tons of time.
16. Use Twitter to run discounts, deals, and promotions for your products and services but remember that the more you ‘push’ products the more you also push people away.
17. You can also use Twitter to handle customer complaints because of your followers see that you truly care about unsatisfied customers, it will build your credibility and reputation. This is a proven fact.
18. If you have company events, try to take some photos and post them on Twitter using a service like TwitPic for all your followers to see what it’s like inside your organization. No, not that picture, the other one.
19. Hold Tweeups, which are basically like online meetings held on Twitter – they can be great for networking in a relaxing environment.
20. Use scheduling tools to pre-schedule your business tweets, this way you can schedule your tweets for the day and it can save you a lot of time. Auto-Tweeting can be useful if you’re promoting a competition or for promotional periods not to engage customers, for that you need to be available.
21. Sync your Twitter account with your mobile phone so you can tweet on the go.
22. You can also take advantage of Twitter’s hashtag search tool where you can search out keywords which are trending and interact.
23. If you are launching a product or service, build anticipation through your Twitter micro blogs.
24. Try and brand your profile by customizing the background of your Twitter profile, though this may prove tricky as it will depend if the follower uses the old or new version of the service.
25. If you find it difficult to spend longer periods of time on your account, try to share when you are online and available to Tweet: Mon – Friday 9-10am and 5-6pm. People appreciate honesty.
There are literally thousands of ways you can use Twitter to improve your communication with clients and increase your brand, can you think of any other ones?
