If you are like me you started a Twitter account to stay involved in all the social media trends. Fine, I waited a while to make sure it was worthwhile and wasn’t going to fizzle out, but I did start my own Twitter account. At first it was a mockery on late night comedic shows, people ranting how Twitter was being used, stating that not everyone needed to know you just made an amazing PB&J. The beauty of Twitter was the ability to message “real time information”, but it was being excessively utilized. After the hype has passed, the use of Twitter has continued to be analyzed further.
Who are the lead Tweeters?
According to Twitaholic.com the top Tweeters are @ladygaga with 25,702,398 followers. Following close behind is @justinbieber with 23,327,356 followers. This being said, the top 50 Tweeters are all comprised of celebrities and businesses.
My assumption from the charts is, if you can get people to follow your business on Twitter, why wouldn’t you? Not only are customer opting to listen to your marketing, but they are signaling right away that it is something they are interested in hearing. If only all marketing was this easy, reaching a target market that was willing to listen. Now that we have confirmed there is no harm in starting a Twitter account for your business, we can now address the issue of how to effectively Tweet to gain followers and keep your name in their minds.
General Guidelines for Tweeting
First if you need to start a twitter account you can go to Twitter.com. If you need a step by step guide to starting your own Twitter account I highly recommend you read how do I use Twitter?. If you are already set up with your Twitter account and ready to go, read on!
Here are some great guidelines to good practices for your Twitter persona.
1. Get an image for your profile, it is important for people to recognize your “brand image” and feel a connection with more than your Twitter handle.
2. Talk to your followers about things they are interested in. This is a great practice to show that you share a similar ground of interest other than yourself. A great way to do this, is when someone follows your Twitter account, follow them back this way you can see what they post about and get idea for what they are interested in.
3. Be a Human. Twitter is a bird, not a robot. Don’t be a marketing machine that can only talk about how great Apple computers are, relate to businesses around you, lives around you and interesting news. The more informational your tweets the greater chance that people will talk about something new they learned from your Tweet.
4. Don’t beg for followers. Begging everyone at every opportunity to follow you will only make users view you as desperate for one, and not useful for seconds. By posting quality tweets, useful tweets or simply interesting your followers will slowly grow.
Tweet Topics
There is nothing more frustrating than when you have the task of writing a short 140 character Tweet, and you are left unable to compose a tweet. What do you do? What can you write differently that you may have a reaction to? What is enticing enough to get new followers or get your existing followers to bring you up in their daily activities? Here are some great guidelines for attention grabbing Tweets.
1. Ask for Feedback. Whenever you are tweeting about a topic, don’t just leave a tweet at directing someone to your blog post, invite others to interact back and give opinions. For example, if you were a tire company you would be tweeting frequently about new deals you have on tires. Instead of saying, “X brand is on sale for $120 a tire <add link>” you should try, “X brand in on sale for $120 a tire, what brand are you waiting to be on sale?” Social media users are beginning to understand their power, and are more inclined to respond knowing that their voice will be seen, or at minimum you will receive a notification.
2. Many birds Tweeting. If you are a business, have a few people tweeting this does two things, it gives the tweeters some time to come up with original idea to Tweet. It also puts a spin on your tweets having more than one voice and interest relaying information to your target market. The more interest platforms you can connect with your users, the more successful you will be.
3. Don’t be afraid to Tweet. Many twitter users understand that there are not many responses when their following is very low, but as their following increases and there are less responses they decline in the amount of tweets. Don’t do this, instead look at your past tweets and change your habits. Usually the outlandish things that catch your attention are the same things that people will interact and respond with. Again, don’t be afraid to Tweet.
Twitter Must-do’s
If you have skipped down to this section, I understand you don’t have time to read everything, but you need to know what you have to do at minimum to keep your Twitter bird flying. These are the bare bone essentials, when you need to know more, I hope you revisit.
1. Tweet at minimum once a day. You have a sentence maybe two that have to be under 140 characters (inclusive of spaces). That’s it, Tweet something and best of all it doesn’t have to be original. Work smart not hard. Follow people that are tweeting relevant and interesting news, if it something you find worth reading, retweet it.
2. Answer Fundamental Questions. Don’t forget the age old marketing rule, it is easier to retain customers than acquire new ones. If a follower asks you a question that is at the core of your business, something that will change their opinion about you, answer the fundamental question. For example, if you are a grocery store and an individual tweeted, “I just got sick @grocerymart, can I get my money back?” Make sure that you tweet back to these users and make amends to their situation. Hopefully, they will retweet, “@grocerymart thanks for your great customer service! See you next Tuesday.”
3. Tweet to fly higher. My personal favorite, Tweet beyond your scope of interest. Don’t stop learning new practices and never stop Tweeting on topics to meet interests of your many followers.
To keep updated on new Twitter habits: