If you’re trying to run or promote your business and you aren’t on Twitter, you’re missing out on a major promotional tool. Twitter allows users to follow developments with your company or your product, share information about it with their friends or even interact directly with you.
But if you’re not tweeting in the right way, Twitter can turn from a handy marketing tool to an exercise in wasting time. Making sure your tweets meet the following criteria will ensure they remain firmly in the former category.
The Personal Touch
Twitter is personal thing; it gives its users a mouthpiece to interact with others or just to spill what’s on their mind. It’s important to remember this when tweeting.
Adding the personal touch can make all the difference; if you’ve got a shop and all you’re doing is tweeting about the latest sale items in that shop, people will rapidly tire of your presence in their news feed. Interspersing the deals with little inputs like “guess who came into the store today…” or other personal, blog-style touches will help you connect with your audience.
Link and Connect
One of Twitter’s greatest strengths is its ability to create a network of clickable links which expand on what is said within a tweet itself. The brevity of the Twitter format has made posting links a popular way to share information.
Studies have shown that posting links to content relevant to your product, service or business can greatly increase follower engagement. For example, if you own a high end fashion company, posting links to fashion news or other developments in the fashion world is going to attract followers who are interested in topics relevant to your business, a portion of which will then translate into sales.
Re-tweeting and connecting with other relevant Twitter accounts is another great way of engaging with a wider audience. Re-tweets usually begat re-tweets and if you scratch someone else’s back, they are likely to return the favour.
Remember to Analyse
There are a whole host of Twitter analysis apps out there, so be sure to use them when tweeting. Hootsuite is an example of a Twitter app that analyses user activity and identifies accounts you should be engaging with. This streamlines your followers and tailors them towards the best demographic for your business.
Qwitter is another useful app. It informs you who has unfollowed you over the past week and lets you know what might have caused them to leave your followers list. Take tips from this app and improve your account’s user experience in the future.
Engage and Assist
Most important of all is the quality of your tweets. Any tweets you send from your business account should offer helpful, personalised advice or information. Your previous tweets should read like a carefully considered and eminently useful body of work which can be pored over by people interested in your field.
Talk to other Twitter users, engage in conversations and promote healthy debate. This is what Twitter is all about; connecting. So connect with other people and watch your follower count – and subsequently your sales conversion rate – grow.
