This week we are going to focus on Twitter and how you can use this awesome social media platform to market your small business. Using Twitter can seem overwhelming at first especially if you don’t know the basics of mastering it but once you know the basics it can be a very powerful marketing tool.
The # 1 first thing you want to do for your Twitter account is to create a custom Twitter background. This is a prime piece of realestate and you want to make sure you use it to the best of your abilities to present your business in a professional and inviting way. Having a background that represents you and your message will help you stand out from the crowd and will help draw in your potential client by sharing your brand with anyone who visits your page. You only have one chance to make a great first impression and your Twitter profile page is a great place to do this.
The second thing you want to focus on is your content. Twitter is just like all of the other social media sites in that people are using it to be social and make connections…and they want to learn more about you, your business, your knowledge, and what you have to offer that will help them in some way. So “being social” should be a key factor in your strategy when using Twitter… now that doesn’t mean you have to share every tiny detail of your life with your followers… it just means that you need to let them know you are human, you are just like them, and that you share common interests.
If you main goal of using Twitter is to get more exposure for your business then having a nice combination of social posts and helpful informative content regarding your niche is the strategy I would suggest. Types of content that are great to share are blog posts about your niche (by you or other niche related experts), helpful videos, links to articles, and newsworthy posts about your niche. A great way to find up to date information about your niche is to set up a google alert http://www.google.com/alerts on your topic so you will consistently be informed of what’s new on the web in your niche. If you are always sharing helpful information to your followers on the topics they are interested in then it is only natural for you to become an expert in their eyes…because you are providing them with what they need and want. A great way to include your marketing message is to provide your followers with a link to a helpful blog post about the subject that then leads them to your product or offer…so you are killing two birds with one stone…you are providing them with helpful information and then also showing that your product may also be the information they may be looking for. (It’s marketing but done in a way where they won’t feel like they have been sold to….they will actually Thank You for providing them with such great information and resources!)
Another great thing to incorporate into your Twitter strategy in order to be successful is to connect with your industry’s leaders. There are several ways you can do this and I suggest doing each one of them for the full effect.
- First you will want to find other people who are related to your niche that are on Twitter… you can do this by going to http://search.twitter.com to search who is tweeting about the same topics as you. So for example if you wanted to search for other people tweeting about Facebook….just type in Facebook and all of the tweets about that section will show up.
- Once you have a good list of industry leaders you should start following them. Then if they are posting some good information that you think your followers will enjoy then retweet it. The great thing about retweeting is that they will see that you shared their message and that will start the potential of you building on that relationship. Also if there seems like the two of you could start up a relatonship on Twitter go ahead and talk to them about something you have in common by using the @ sign and their name, your post will show up in their stream and if they want to connect with you they will respond. And remember this is all about building a relationship…so please don’t abuse this connection…always be appropriate and respectful of the other persons social media space(meaning don’t ever ever SPAM)
The last thing I would suggest is to try build new targeted followers everyday. Creating a consistent schedule to follow everyday when it comes to adding new followers is key to building a large following. The most important thing to remember when adding followers is to focus on targeted people that will be interested in what you have to post. Yes it always looks great when someone has 1000’s of followers but what is most important is …are those followers listening to what you have to say and acting on what you have posted? Having 5000 followers does you no good and really is actually wasting your precious time if everytime you post your message it is being ignored…so make sure you keep that in mind when you start this process.
Follow these tips and this will get you started out the right way in using Twitter to market your small business.
To Your Success!
Kate Wilber
The Marketing Momma
Great info Kate!!!
I enjoy your weekly updates, keep up the good work.