subject: A Beginners Guide to Business Twitter [print this page] A Beginners Guide to Business Twitter A Beginners Guide to Business Twitter
You have heard about Twitter and know that it could be very beneficial to your business. So, where do you start? This article will help you establish a Twitter account for your business and begin using it effectively.
1. Go to Twitter online and select "Sign up now". You will be asked to provide some basic details and then select "Create my account".
2. Create an avatar. This is the picture people will see when they see your tweets or your profile. I suggest you use a real picture of yourself - it makes it much easier for people to connect with you and helps bring depth to your online relationships.
3. Design a background. This is the background people will see when they go to your Twitter profile. Think about how you can incorporate some corporate branding and contact details into the background. Be aware that people will usually just see your background as a border around other information, so you may need to tweak it a few times until the details you want to be clear are totally in that border area.
4. Write your bio. This is crucial for a number of reasons: it can help with SEO, it allows people to find you in searches, it links in with Twitter directories like Twellow, and it allows people to connect with you. Taking the time to write a bio will ensure you attract a lot more followers than someone who hasn't.
5. Start following people. If you know someone in your local business community who is already on Twitter, have a look at who they are following, this can be a good way to start choosing followers. A lot of people will follow you back in return for your follow.
6. Organise your followers into lists. People will generally reward you with a follow back if you follow them and have listed them. Lists allow you to organise your followers and their tweets. You can choose which lists you regularly look at.
7. Tweet. All too often businesses set up great Twitter accounts but do not regularly tweet. Twitter is just another way to build relationships and your tweets are how you communicate with people and gain their interest. N.B. do not just tweet updates about your business. You may find this interesting but your followers really want to be reading information that is relevant to them. Your tweets need to be entertaining, topical, educational, or a conversation with other tweeters. You will not get many followers by simply tweeting about what you do.
8. Utilise applications that have been designed to help with Twitter to make your participation more organised and streamlined. Explore:
Social Oomph - Very useful for automating your account. It can help with automatically following followers back, scheduling tweets to be published later, and sending out an automatic DM to thank someone when they follow you, amongst other functions.
TweetDeck - A great way to view and reply to tweets. TweetDeck organises tweets into easy to read columns, and allows you to Tweet just as you would from Twitter itself.
Twellow - The online Twitter directory. Make sure you register with Twellow and have a comprehensive profile there to attract followers.
Follow the steps above and you will have a solid foundation for a great Twitter account. The rest is up to you and what you tweet.
