Twitter for Your Small Business – Part II: Getting Started
Posted by | Tommy Liu | November 4, 2009 | What are Your Thoughts?
Now that your palette is wet from the benefits of Twitter, this is how to get started:
Setup
Sign up for a free account at Twitter.com. Choose a username that is unique, your real name works too. Try to make your username short, so when people refer to you in a tweet, you don’t use up too many characters. Fill in your profile completely with a bio, link to your website or blog and add a picture. A profile without a picture is often seen as a spammer and ignored.
When you’re set up, start tweeting. Highlight your interests by tweeting about them or linking to blog posts and videos you’d like to share. After a few solid tweets search for your friends by clicking the “Find People” link at the top. Search for topics that interest you and follow those interesting people. The reason to make a few solid tweets before following people is because when you follow someone Twitter notifies that user and very often that user will check out your profile and tweets to determine if you’re worth following back. Do not be discouraged if people you follow don’t follow you back. You should be following them because you’re interested in what they have to say and not so you can bump your followers count. Don’t just take in other users’ tweets. Engage them and start a conversation. @reply them.
Community
The community on Twitter ranges from novice to expert. The novice posts updates about what they are doing at the moment. It’s not always useful information and sometimes nobody really sees those updates because a novice’s connection is small. The expert uses Twitter to network, share links, tips, and useful information, usually about the social media industry. They usually have a larger follow base made up of other experts. Those Twitter users in the middle are people who like to share funny stories, interesting articles, ask questions, and explore the opportunities they find on their feed.
These Middle-of-the-Road Twitter users are the most active, thus making them the most valuable to a business. These are your customers. They seek information in social media. They click links. They participate in promotions. They print coupons. They buy what you are selling and they tell their friends about it. Using this knowledge about Twitter users helps a business get in touch with the right people.
The key to getting Twitter to work for you is getting people to listen to what you have to say. Earn their trust by presenting useful information, without shoving it down their throats. Keep them involved in the process. Interact with them. Ask for feedback.
Customer Support
Some businesses use Twitter as a means for Customer Support. Users can address their questions about a product and have a representative help them all out in the open for others to read as well. The business has to be sure to keep tabs on what people are saying about their product. Searching for a few keywords can turn Twitter into a great barometer for a product’s impact. And since Twitter is in real time, users can get feedback right away.
In a nutshell, Twitter is a real-time online communication tool. A lot of people start off on Twitter not knowing exactly what it is. They update a few times with boring, mundane posts stating what they are doing throughout the day that nobody really cares about. They don’t understand that Twitter is so much more than that. To get the most out of Twitter, you have to put yourself out there. Share stories, links, opinions, insights, questions, pictures, videos, etc. You get what you put into it.
There you have it, now you are good to go. Well, not completely. You’ll probably want to see the next post with a slew of suggestions, tips and notes. So, subscribe!
Supercool Creative is an ad agency specializing in online video creative & production, video seeding and integrated social media campaigns. Supercool Creative provides superior production quality, targeted viral marketing and relevant social media campaigns. Contact us: Supercool@Supercoolcreative.com.
Tags: getting started with twitter > linkedin > local business > small business > smb > spotzero > tommy liu > twitter > twitter for business
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