The Simple Guide to Twitter

New to Twitter? This can be quite intimidating for a Business. Who is it for? What is it? Do I need it? How do you start? How do you get people to follow you? How do you get customers through it? These are just some of the questions that arise when you decide to set up a Twitter account for your business.

Who is Twitter for?

Twitter is for everyone! There are nearly 1 billion registered users on Twitter and over 500 million tweets a day.

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a social platform made up of 140-character messages called Tweets. Subjected to only 140 characters?!

Don’t think of this as a negative. It’s a good thing. It forces people to be clear about their message, making it an effective communications tool. Twitter’s goal is to bring people closer to their interests. It is about discovering interesting people/businesses online and following their daily short burst messages. Twitter works in Real-Time so current tweets will always be at the top of your Timeline.

Terminology:

User:

Twitterer / Tweeter

Handle:

@Matrix_Internet

Follow / Unfollow:

This is subscribing or unsubscribing to a Twitter account

Tweet (Verb):

Act of posting on Twitter

Tweet (noun):

A message was posted on Twitter.

Hashtag:

This is how Twitter organises conversations. It also greatly helps your search capability. Find out more about hashtags here.

Mentions:

Mentions are used to bring a tweet to someone’s attention. This is putting the person’s handle within the tweet but not at the beginning.

Reply:

This is used to respond to a tweet.

Retweet:

Sharing a tweet with your own followers.

Message:

You can send private messages to people who follow you.

Timeline:

The timeline is where you can see the real-time tweets of who you follow.

Notifications:

News about your Twitter account. including if you’ve received any mentions or followers.

Discover:

This is where you can find industry experts on certain topics. tailored to your interests.

Getting Started:

• Sign up for Twitter: Twitter.co/signup
• Create a handle (e.g @WishListGift) that describes who you are. This is like your calling card and is how people will communicate with you.
• Follow the walk-through to add followers.
• Set up your profile and header image. These should reflect what your business stands for.
• Make sure you coordinate your profile image with your header image so that they don’t clash.
• Introduce what your business does in the biography area

Once you have set it up make sure that you let people know that you have joined Twitter. Share the link on your website and all the social platforms you use.

Build your Audience.

Who to follow? Start off by following friends, family, clients, local businesses you work with and industry leaders. Sometimes they might even follow you back! Import an email contact list that you already know. Make sure that you take advantage of Twitter’s capabilities. Search for hashtags that are relevant to your business and see what people are saying about the subject. See if your local area has a hashtag of its own. Bakers in Donnybrook Dublin use this strategy on Twitter and Instagram to target the local area.

Composing a Tweet

Your tweet should be interesting, readable and grammatically correct. Make sure what you’re typing is compelling. Use a mix of headline questions and facts to drive clicks and retweets. Build your tweets so that they can be easily Retweeted.

Stand Back & Listen

First off, avoid jumping in with a huge amount of tweets. Watch what industry leaders are doing and tweeting about and learn from them. Be unique and timely, the most popular tweets are witty and in quick response to events. Customers expect a quick response on Twitter so you’ll need to respond quickly e.g Comcast. they do a great job in customer service online via Twitter.

Start following accounts that work well in their industry. Always evaluate what you are doing. Find what works best and build off of that. Stay in the convo! Download the Twitter app on your phone, alerts will be sent to you if someone interacts with your tweets and you can respond quickly. Make sure to pay attention to Twitter updates and news.

Lists

To keep followers organised you can set up lists. This is a great feature on Twitter to keep it organised. Go to profile, click on more and then lists, create a list. Think of Lists as a marketing tool. If you are a blogger would your fans like to see a list of your favourite bloggers? Yes, they would! You can either make the lists private or public. This lets you solely view the tweets of people on that list.

Twitter for Business:

Twitter helps you connect with current and potential customers. People choose to follow brands so that they can learn about products and services. Twitter users are 3 times more likely to follow brands than Facebook users. Because of Hashtags and fewer privacy restrictions it is easier to find customers that have an interest in your industry than it is on Facebook. Twitter users want to hear from businesses. 67% of users are more likely to buy from brands they follow on Twitter.

Will Twitter benefit you?

Twitter helps you to build up your brand. It can help you stand out as an expert in your industry which will help your reputation like Elon Musk, the business magnate.

A Few Pointers

1. Make your account attractive.
2. Tweet regularly.
3. Use hashtags
4. Give freebies away with competitions
5. Update clients on sales and promos.
6. Stay up to date with Twitter updates and news.

Useful Links:

business.twitter.com
media.twitter.com
moz.com/blog/category/social-media
library.hubspot.com
mashable.com/guidebook/twitter
socialmediaexaminer.com/tag/twitter

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Engage with your audience like never before with Matrix Internet’s social media platform management services. We focus on creating compelling content that encourages interaction and builds community around your brand. Contact Matrix Internet your Social Media Marketing Agency to start enhancing your social media presence!