One of the most common questions asked about Twitter is to how to effectively use it for business. Here are five tips for you to follow.
1. Define your objectives for using Twitter
Are you going to be using Twitter for branding, customer service, sales, or marketing? You need to first come up with a strategy for using Twitter and then define guidelines for using. For example, are you going to ask questions about how to improve a product? Ask for feedback for services? Give news about your company. Decide on whether you are going to have a single company account, or several individual accounts.
When choosing between company and personal accounts you need to remember that personal accounts are more human, but humans also leave companies. If you can’t decide, choose both.
2. Look out for keywords
You are going to want to watch out for what people are tweeting about you, or your products. You can use Twitter Search to search for the your keywords. You can also set up a RSS feed to manage this for you. Just use the following url: feed://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=searchquery and replace the word “searchquery” with your keyword. This will allow you to see all posts that contain that keyword. This is a great way of keeping track of what people are saying about your product, or you can keep up with your competition.
3. Follow Relevant Twitter Users
You can find authors of tweets you like and start to follow them. You can also do a search for users or companies and follow them as well.
4. Be Conversational
Your business’s Twitter account should talk like a person-even if it’s a collective “person” representing your company or brand. Think of your Twitter account as a character in a little Internet play—it’s a walking, talking personification of your entire company. If you feel like it, take it to the limit: Use the first-person (“They’re putting my stuff on sale again!”), invent a personality. Or just use the royal “we” and “our”—”Our editors have the latest on so-and-so.” But be chatty.
5. Make it easy for people to follow you
Put a link to your twitter account on your webpage, email signature and print advertising.
I started twitter a few weeks ago, since then I’ve begun to love it. What started out as a love hate relationship it’s allowed me to network with people in my life alot easier. News and updates happen in quickly which makes for a great social communication app.
I love twitter, and I tweet probably way more than I should. I’ve followed you on twitter. I use twitter more than ever nowadays and my blog feels abandoned!