Twitter Explained for Business
Here is everything you need to know about Twitter for small business:
Twitter is an interesting social network designed to help you find out what’s happening, right now, with the people and organizations you care about. For small business, that means two things. You should use Twitter to keep track of news and new information about what’s happening in your industry. Plus, you should be using it to help people who care about you and your business keep up with what’s happening in your organization.
Twitter is all about the status updates, and limits posts to 140 characters. This means that you have to limit your posts to one sentence about what you are doing or would like to share with the world, right now. There are some cool tricks that you can use to share and connect a whole lot more than 1 sentence though, so keep reading for how to Tweet effectively.
Here are the advantages of Twitter explained, compared to other social networks:
- You don’t have to follow back. This is Twitter’s biggest advantage. Most social networking require you to connect both ways to socialize. However, on Twitter you can follow others or they can follow you and it does not have to be reciprocal.
- This is a big advantage for business and celebrities who would see millions of other people’s updates on Facebook or LinkedIn, but here they can be followed by many without following them.
- Twitter is rapid fire and it is socially acceptable to post a lot more often than other networks.
- Twitter has developed it’s own short hand and culture to take advantage of the 140 characters, so once you are in the club and figure it out, it can become a lot more powerful.
- It is a lot more mobile than other social networks. Since it is so short, it is easy to post from a phone or tablet, and many people use this aspect to their advantage.
- Hashtags or the # pound symbol was developed here to allow people to share on a common topic, so you can also search and follow news or social topics quickly.
- Speed is Twitter’s main advantage though, you can post or repost other people information with just a few clicks, and the short messages mean people can share news or updates very quickly.
Getting started on Twitter Explained:
- Getting your profile set up is super easy. Again the main advantage of Twitter is the speed, and no other social network can compare with Twitter on this one. Sign up with your email address, pick a screen name and password, and upload a picture for yourself then you are pretty much ready to go.
- You should also immediately follow the favorites in your industry as well. The easiest way to gain followers on Twitter is post about or to some of the industry experts in you field. You also get to see what they are Tweeting and get an idea about what people want to hear.
- Don’t forget about #Hashtags. By putting a pound sign in front of a #Word or #PhraseBunchedTogether you can join the conversations about these topics, and others following those trends will begin to follow you.
- By putting the @ symbol before a person’s screen name, you send the message to them and all their followers. This is a good way to start a conversation with a specific person as well as get noticed in your industry, just don’t abuse it. Try it with me, and put @mikedmontague somewhere in your next Tweet to make sure you get it right. I will write you back and let you know I received it.
- Find other people and topics to follow by doing a search on Twitter. Twitter has a super fast search engine that only displays what has been posted on Twitter, so you won’t get normal Google looking results. They will be separated out into Tweets or People for you to follow.
- When you find someone interesting, just click the blue follow button to add them to the people you see when you log in. You can stop following people at any time, so try a bunch of people and then unfolllow people who post too much or not enough for you liking.
- Keep this in mind for your Tweets as well. The recommendation for frequency on Twitter is about 3-5 Tweets per day. Posting too much will monopolize people streams and they will unfollow you, and if you don’t post enough it is hard to get people’s attention to gain followers. In comparison, once a day is good for LinkedIn, and 1-3 times is good for Facebook and Google+.
- Tweets never expire, but the have a quick shelf-life. Your Tweets will be archived on Twitter forever so keep that in mind, but also consider how long they are relevant. Again, Twitter is all about speed and what is happening right now. Most Tweets only stay at the top of people’s feeds on their homepage for about 6-8 hours. After that, so much has happened and so many other people have posted that yours has slipped down the list and will likely never be seen unless someone goes to your profile page.
- Learn to Retweet interesting posts by other people. When you post a status update, it is called a Tweet. When you “like” or repost a Tweet by another person it is called Retweeting. Most people are familiar with “liking” on Facebook or LinkedIn. The action is similar on Twitter, but it is called Retweeting. You are basically just re-sharing their Tweet with your followers exactly like it what written. Look for the symbol looks like a recycle symbol that is vertical under anyone’s Tweet to Retweet them to your followers.
- If you really love a Tweet or want to save someone else’s Tweet to read later then you can Favorite it. By clicking on the star symbol under any Tweet you can save it to read later and let others know that you really loved it. This is called Favoriting a Tweet. You can go back to these Tweets from your profile page. This plays off the speed of Twitter. Since Tweets go stale in 6-8 hours, if there is a link or quote that you want to revisit in a few days or months, it will be hard to find unless you Favorite it. This should be the goal of every Tweet you write… Would someone favorite it and why? Note- People rarely do this, so don’t expect it, but there is no reason that can’t be a goal.
When you think Twitter think speed. What is happening, right now, that other people really need to know?
You may find it hard to write 3-5 Tweets per day as you get started, but I will give you trick. Most Twitter users will Retweet other people’s updates 2 or 3 times per day. So you can use other people’s updates for 3 of your posts. Then write one unique thought about a hot topic in your industry. Finally, share one post with a link to your website, and share what you want people to buy or participate in for your business.
So your Twitter posting schedule would look something like this:
- 8am- Retweet a post from people you follow that is the most interesting.
- Noon – Retweet another post then write one with the most important thing going on in your business or industry.
- 3pm – Share a link to your website and ask people to buy, share, or sign up for something.
- 7pm – Retweet another interesting post or quote from the day’s Tweets by other people.
Obviously, you don’t want to be too predictable for your followers and some people will be on at different parts of the day, so you will want to rotate when you do each of these throughout the course of the week. Keep it interesting and keep at it. Twitter has it’s own language and culture that you will learn over time, but this post will keep you from looking dumb in the meantime.