If you’re hearing from friends and colleagues that Twitter is a free, easy way to promote your business, you may be thinking “I’m in. How hard can it be?”
Well, it’s true—Twitter is free. And, it can be an effective online marketing tool. But it isn’t necessarily easy, and it does come with a few rules. Just like any form of communication, Twitter relies on common sense, etiquette and quality information to succeed. If you want to use it to promote your business, keep in mind the following tips:
Tip #1: Be yourself.
Yes, it’s marketing, but remember—it’s social marketing. And that means it revolves around building relationships. Twitter is a global community made up of human beings who are using it for the sole purpose of connecting. So join in discussions, invite comments and let your personality show.
Etiquette tip: Keep health issues, political opinions and potentially offensive commentary to yourself. Too much (of the wrong kind of) information can kill your marketing efforts on Twitter.
Tip #2: Be concise and creative.
Twitter limits you to 140 characters—and that includes your URL link! The good thing about this is that it forces you to make every word count. Compel people to click by making your tweets creative and attention-grabbing, and always use a URL shortener such as bit.ly or tinyurl.
Etiquette tip: Concise is good, but don’t overdo it. Avoid text-speak—you know, the kind of time-saving abbreviations widely used by phone-addicted teenagers. It not only prevents many people from understanding your message, it also has pretty much the same appeal as corporate lingo or tech jargon.
Tip #3: Share generously.
Twitter makes it easy to share, and it’s essential that you do so. News stories, blog posts, links to useful information—anything that you think your followers would need or want to be connected to—all establish you as an authority and a resource within your community. They encourage others to follow and link to you.
Etiquette tip: If someone shares a particularly interesting tweet with you, pass it on to others and give credit when you retweet it.
Tip #4: Go easy on the advertising.
Yes, it’s marketing. But, the Twitter community as a whole is not very tolerant of sales pitches. The bulk of what you post on your business account should be useful, interesting information related to your niche. For the most part it should be problem-solving and educational in nature.
Etiquette tip: Use the 80/20 rule. No more than 20% of your posted material should be ad or marketing material.
Tip #5: Don’t just feed them.
RSS feeds are great, but your followers want more. Rather than just rely on your feeds to populate your account, add pithy tweets, short comments and links to other information on a regular basis. It gives followers something to look forward to and shows that you want to engage.
