A few weeks ago, we wrote a little bit about how Twitter is changing advertising. We suggested that businesses get a Twitter page, but we left you all hanging–we didn’t tell you how to do it. Social Media platforms are a potentially effective tool, but, like any tool, you don’t get much out of them if you don’t know how to use them. With that in mind, here are some guidelines that will make your Twitter page pop.
1: Figure out your audience
Unless you’re already famous and loved, you’re not going to be very effective if you can’t nail down a target audience. You should have answers to each of these questions: What customer base are you trying to reach? How old are they? Are they predominantly male, female, or neither? What sort of groups do they run in? Do they appreciate formality?
2: Design an appealing background that fits your brand
It’s shocking how many supposedly professional twitter pages either skip this step of put in some bare minimal effort. We’re talking about the public face of your business–you can not afford to mail this in with a design that either looks crappy or does a poor job of conveying the message you want it to convey about your business.
If you’ve covered Step 1, you should already have some idea of what you want your background to look like. If you still need help from there, we’d honestly suggest hiring a designer to help you out. It won’t cost you very much–pardon the plug, but on OrangeSlyce.com you can easily hire a qualified student to design your twitter background for about a hundred bucks–and it will save you the time and hassle of trying to get everything “just so” by yourself.
Ed. Note: We’re actually taking this exact route with our own Twitter background right now, because our current one is a little too stodgy. So if you look at our Twitter page in a week or so and it looks nice, then you’ll know we gave you good advice.
3: Reach out to your audience
Everyone wants to know how to get followers. The only long-term answer is by providing interesting content, but you can still prime the pump a little bit. Think about the sort of groups your target audience belongs too, and the sort of profiles that they might follow.
Follow popular users (and maybe dig through their followers and follow some of those followers). Just don’t go crazy following people, for two reasons: Twitter frowns on that (and has been known to suspend or delete accounts for excessive follower churn). Besides, nothing screams “spammer” like a profile that’s followed 1000 people and only had 20 followers.
4:Be Human (not a spammer)
People who use twitter (at least the ones who actively use it) are generally a savvy bunch when it comes to spammers. This is because seemingly 60% of Twitter profiles (and like 80% of the people who will follow you) are spam bots designed to peddle shady wares. People are going to be understandably skeptical of your businesses’ Twitter page–your job is to convince them that you’re for real.
The way you do that is by being human. Don’t just bombard your followers with links or advertisements, talk about your experiences, lessons you’ve learned, and funny thoughts you’ve had. In short, write things that your target audience might find interesting.
If you want more help on writing interesting content, check out this post on getting retweeted over at TwitterTips.
5: Be thankful
On your Twitter’s homepage, you’ll see a link along the right side that says “@(YourUsername).” Click this link, and you’ll be shown all of the tweets that people have directed at you. Reply to these, whenever possible, and thank people (either as a tweet or as a direct message) whenever possible.
6: Retweet other people’s content from time to time
If someone tweets something that might be interesting or useful to your audience, you should absolutely retweet it. First, because it provides value to your users. Second, because it’s the nice thing to do. Still not convinced? Then just think of it as a means of building political capital with those people. They’re a lot more likely to retweet something you post if you’ve done the same for them.
7: Remember you’re still writing for your business
It can be easy to get carried away with Twitter. Before you post anything, ask yourself “am I putting on a good face for the business?” We’re not advocating that you go into a shell (far from it!) but we’re also not advocating that you share too much. Did you have a great time at a local restaurant last night? Tell people about it. Did you have a really great time at a local night club last night? Keep that one to yourself.
