Using Twitter Effectively – 11 Twitter Tips for Businesses

If you are breathing right now… YOU HAVE HEARD ABOUT TWITTER! The social media site has become enormously popular with everyone from celebrities to major corporations. For small businesses, Twitter can be a valuable tool – if you know how to use it effectively. That is the key… How do you use Twitter effectively?

Here are some tips on how to make Twitter work for you.

1. Create Your M.A.P.

Create a “Marketing Action Plan”. We have our clients put together a list of things they can tweet about – things like resources, facts about the company, Company/Product history, interesting company trivia, their products, and what discounts or promotions are okay to offer (really, whatever is relevant). This starts with a list of Ten Topics that reflect their business, vision, mission. and purpose.

Conversely, we also have them make a list of things that are not okay to tweet about.

2. Add Some Personality

Small businesses can be more informal and friendly than they they think they can, so use this to your advantage. Larger companies like the Luxor Hotel Casino, Jet Blue, Southwest Airlines, MailChimp, and Starbucks (Our Model) offer great examples of how to inject a little personality into your tweets.

Some large companies stay away from being too opinionated – but adding some personality make you more approachable to your clientele and customers.

Says Matthew Griffin, president and CEO of Baker’s Edge, a baking products company in Carmel, Indiana. “There is no backlash if we state we don’t like a particular food or if we endorse a local team. These little nuggets go a long way to humanize us, and that personality is reflected in our products.”

3. Know Who’s Talking About You – And Reply

See who talking about you and what they’re saying. Keep an eye on your “mentions” – the posts that mention your name. Click on the @username link in the right-hand column of your Twitter home page. When your name is mentioned, take the opportunity to respond and to make a connection.

You gain a lot of credibility in the marketplace (and on Twitter) by personally responding to mentions or reTweets. It adds tremendous value to your followers. A friend of mine tweeted a link to an article about Denny’s “unhealthy menu items” and guess what… Denny’s responded with info about some healthier choices…

4. Respond to both Positive and Negative Tweets

Ignoring criticism doesn’t make it go away. Take the time to respond, assist and try to wind back a disgruntled Twitter user. This may not always work but by taking th time to work on remedying the situation, you gain some more of those valuable marketplace points.

What you can do is take this opportunity to explain things about the company that the poster may have misunderstood. You can politely and in a helpful way educate the person (and the rest of your followers) by giving them the real scoop about your company or service.

Don’t let a negative tweet get you down. Instead, relish the opportunity to be able to undo this misunderstanding and about your company. There is a direct correlation between a company that deals effectively with an issue when it arises and how they are perceived in the marketplace. Studies show that companies that have honestly worked to solve problems (and indeed solved them) get more respect in the marketplace than similar businesses that have never faced adversity.

“If one of your customers has a bad experience, fix it. Reach out to them publicly, apologize for the mistake, and resolve it .  Not only will this be visible to the person complaining, but to everyone else who stumbles across the tweet, post, or whatever it is,” says David Neuman, social media supervisor for Prime Visibility of Long Island, New York.” He goes on, “It can significantly enhance the brand image of your company if you make the effort to reach out to individuals directly who had a bad experience with your business.  A lot of companies are hesitant in doing this because they are worried that it will add “fuel to the fire”, but there really is no negative in replying to an angry customer and doing what you can to fix the problem.”

One final, very important thing: NEVER EVER respond in anger or frustration or in a condescending way to the tweeter… This will only add more damage to your reputation in the marketplace!

5. Offer useful Information, Not Just Ads

If all you ever Tweet is BUY MY PRODUCT… that’s just not going to work… But, if you were a health and fitness coach like our client Pilates instructor, Lindsey Borden, you could provide frequent diet and exercise tips.” Are good rule of thumb that we give to our clients is to ask yourself the question: Does this benefit my audience (followers)? If you answer “yes”, then Tweet it.

6. What is your Frequency?

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to the frequency of posts. It depends on what you say, and who your followers are.

How often should you tweet? Some “experts” will tell you that once or twice a day is good., that anything more can be almost annoying to some people.

That philosophy we don’t agree with. Twitter moves very rapidly. If you aren’t staying in touch with your market by Tweeting enough to make an impact, you are doing little good. If you are continuously delivering relevant and useful content, more is probably better. See how your audience reacts to your frequency, and adjust accordingly.

7. Find Your Clients – Don’t Assume They’ll Find You

Your potential customers/clients won’t always find you. Use the Twitter search function to search for specific keywords that will lead you to users that might be potential customers. For example, since we offer web design, we could search for key phrases like, ‘I need a website.’ Then we follow and start a conversation with them using Twitter’s @ feature.

8. Customize Your Twitter Profile

Since your Twitter page is valuable (and free!) real estate, make sure you have a complete and well-written profile, a URL linking to your business’ website or Facebook fan page, and a custom background. In our backgrounds, we always use the company logo, a photo and info about the person behind the tweets – it acts as a complete branding package and it really makes a difference.”

9. Use Twitter Tools

There are several handy tools that can help you manage your posts and see what others are saying about you in theirs.

It’s important for businesses to use monitoring tools such as Google alerts or Netvibes. It’s also important for the Tweeter to learn how to use tools like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to manage updates, responses and all the aspects of communicating on Twitter.

(HINT: some of these tools will allow you to manage Facebook, LinkedIn and other networks too!).

10. Offer Special Rewards to your Followers and make them Feel Like VIP’S

This makes your followers feel special, encourages others to start following you and gives you tons of traction in the marketplace!
Take Naked Pizza, a small pizza parlor in New Orleans, for example. The pizzeria is equipped with a large, prominent sign encouraging people to follow the eatery on Twitter. Naked pizza also measures its success through sales. On a record breaking day, over 68% of total sales and 85% of their new customers were from Twitter.

Abbey Klaassen, in an AdAge article writes:

Twitter’s real-time messaging service is turning out to be a boon to local establishments, who are starting to get onboard — mostly because the message pops into users’ Twitter feeds and they’re close enough to act on it. For Mr. Leach, who is targeting people within a three-mile radius of his store, that’s key. He’s gone so far as to erect a billboard outside his store publicizing Naked Pizza’s Twitter handle…

11. Use Hashtags

One of the most complex features of Twitter for new users to understand is the hashtag, a topic with a hash symbol (“#”) at the start to identify it. Twitter hashtags like #followfriday help spread information on Twitter while also helping to organize it.

Enter a hashtag by inserting the “#” symbol before important keywords. This makes the term a clickable link.

The hashtag is a favorite tool of conferences and event organizers, but it’s also a way for Twitter users to organize themselves: if everyone agrees to append a certain hashtag to tweets about a topic, it becomes easier to find that topic in search, and more likely the topic will appear in Twitter’s Trending Topics.

Hashtags are used by millions of people to find relevant tweets and accounts that cater to their needs.”

To Sum it all Up

Experts agree (and we concur) that Twitter is a must have tool for today’s small business owner. By taking just a little time on your tweets every day and adding a personal touch to your conversations with followers, you can use Twitter to give your business a big boost – and best of all – it’s free.