Learn/8-Tips:-Promote-Better-on-Twitter
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In today’s market, Twitter provides plenty of opportunities for small businesses. People can easily recommend you to their friends. You can forge connections with influential people, and keep up to date with the latest news and trends. Most importantly, you can use Twitter to communicate directly with your customers and get instant feedback.
Twitter is straightforward and easy to use. But making the most of it to promote your business takes a little savvy. We’re here to share our tips for creating the best first impression possible, and for attracting followers and customers, whether you’re new to Twitter or have already been tweeting for a while.
Contents
- 1 Mix it up
- 2 Maximize engagement
- 3 Don't get hung up on how many followers you have
- 4 Read your own Twitter timeline back to yourself on a regular basis
- 5 Check your profile background and design in different resolutions
- 6 Cross-promote via retweets
- 7 Work out your own policies
- 8 Link to your work, not just your homepage
Mix it up
It’s easy to get stuck in the habit of retweeting particular users, chatting with friends or pushing sales tweets. Mix it up by combining:
- Links to interesting articles, tools and other resources around the Web
- Links to your own content
- Retweets of other people you follow
- Industry-related comments
Bonus points if you take the time to hunt down and share resources that you haven’t seen tweeted already. Try to find little-known tweeters who share great content, and retweet them. People will notice that you’re sharing unique things, and they’ll follow you.
Think outside the box when you’re posting a tweet. Don’t just retweet a blog post because everyone else has, or because it’s from a popular website - chances are, your followers will have seen it already.
Make sure you’ve actually viewed what you’re retweeting. Titles can be misleading, and you don’t want to get the reputation for sharing irrelevant or useless content.
It’s great to start a discussion by stating your view or adding a question to the link you’re posting.
Ultimately, it’s all about finding a good balance. Don’t tweet too frequently, or post a number of tweets in quick succession. Be consistent - don’t abandon your account for weeks at a time. There are plenty of applications and services that help users un-follow inactive Twitter accounts.
Maximize engagement
Follow and interact with people in your industry who are thought leaders and who share interesting news and resources. Comment on people’s tweets, but make sure it’s a thoughtful and intelligent comment rather than just “Agreed” or “Great point.” Ask questions and reply to people only when you have something to say.
Always interact with people who retweet you or take the time to engage with you positively. You’ll find that people get interested in people who respond to them. Don’t forget that your interactions with others are being watched by both your followers and theirs. This is your opportunity to attract more people to follow you and get interested in what you do.
Be positive and polite. Take the time to maintain relationships once you’ve initiated them, and keep your tweets and followers tied to your specific niche and industry. That will keep your focus tighter and your tweets more relevant to your brand and business.
Don’t set up your account to auto-tweet, or you’ll be missing valuable interaction opportunities. Most tweeters can tell who’s auto-tweeting, and they may unfollow you. And auto-tweets usually aren’t very appealing - they don’t have the flavor of real-time tweets.
Don’t send automated direct messages, or automatically follow users – you’ll decrease your follower relevancy if you do. Auto-following also promotes spam by giving more exposure to spam accounts…and there are already more than enough of those.
Don't get hung up on how many followers you have
Having 50,000 followers means nothing if half are spammers, and the other half are just looking to increase their follower counts. Followers like these won’t engage with you beyond the initial follow.
Your follower base will build naturally and organically if you focus on maximizing engagement and actively communicating with useful contacts, professional peers and potential and actual clients. Your followers’ followers will see your active participation and interesting tweets, and some will choose to follow you.
Look at Twitter’s suggestions for additional people you can follow. If their tweets are relevant to your business and what you want to learn about, follow them. They may follow you in turn.
Actively hunt down new people to follow by using directories such as {{{2}}} (visit). You can also find interesting new people to follow if you look at the “following” lists of both the people you follow and those who follow you. People of like interests follow each other on Twitter, so make the most of these lists. You can also use Twitter’s suggestions of people who are similar to ones you follow now.
Read your own Twitter timeline back to yourself on a regular basis
It’s a great way to see how you’ve been coming across recently. Have you been complaining too much? Have you used too many exclamation marks? What topics have you covered? Is your sales pitch too invasive or frequent?
Remember that people following a link to your Twitter profile will be presented with your timeline as a first impression. Avoid tweeting the same or similar messages in a row for this reason, or you risk looking like a spammer. If you’re targeting different time zones, then include some different tweets in between two similar marketing tweets.
Check your profile background and design in different resolutions
Custom backgrounds are a great way to introduce yourself and create a professional first impression. Make sure you really do create a good impression for everyone by checking your profile design in a variety of screen resolutions.
On smaller screens, your background can be cut off, so make sure any essential text and images aren’t lost on a smaller screen. On larger screens, you run the risk of the default background color showing around the edges. To avoid this, try to use plain colors or simple gradients, and remember to change the background color of your profile to the same shade. It sounds obvious, but so many people don’t check, and so risk making an amateurish first impression.
If you’re in a visual industry, take the opportunity to signal your design expertise with your Twitter background. Change it every so often, and think about showcasing your previous designs on your website. You could even offer them as free downloads on your website.
Cross-promote via retweets
Retweeting the same few people all the time can get old. Done in moderation, it works well for pushing the most important links you have, and extending your reach. Try to assemble a small group of Twitter users in your industry, and arrange to retweet each other’s key links for maximum exposure. This works particularly well in a group of power tweeters with lots of influence.
Work out your own policies
Even if you’re tweeting on your own behalf – not for a company – it’s worth developing guidelines for tweeting and responding to people. Will you follow back everyone who follows you, or will you be more selective? How would you deal with someone who constantly wants your time and advice for free?
Deciding whether to follow people back or not is one of the most important decisions to make. You will be recommended to other users based on whom you follow, so following lots of web designers will get you recommended to lots of web designers. Likewise, following lots of spammers will get you recommended to more spammers.
It’s tempting to follow everyone back for etiquette reasons. You'll do better, though, if you consciously choose people whom you find interesting, and preferably, who are related to your business in some way.
To cut down on spam, make a policy of never automatically following people back via online services or software.
Link to your work, not just your homepage
If you offer a service such as design or writing, tweet links to finished pieces of work on your own website or your client’s website to alert potential customers. This has the added benefit of pleasing clients by linking to them. Don’t forget to include their Twitter handles in tweets for a bigger chance of a retweet. If you lead off with someone's name, put a period in front, like this:
.@JoeSmith – Glad you’re so happy with the new design! Thanks for showcasing it on your site.
When you respond to someone at the front of a message without the period, only your followers who also follow that person will see it in their Twitter stream. Add the period, and everyone following you will see it.
Examples of your work are a stronger pitch to potential clients than a simple "Get in touch for a quote" tweet. Of course, it never hurts to follow up your example links by by saying you’re currently taking on new clients and projects!