How to Tweet for Business

Thursday, February 04, 2010

Twitter is the fastest growing social media site with an estimated 18 million users, according to eMarketer. With such a host of business prospects at your fingertips, here’s a little know-how to get the most out of your tweets for a successful marketing campaign.

Followers. One of the Twitter’s main strengths is the ability it gives you to generate targeted followers. Search for people and companies talking about your industry, brands and products. You can also search for mentions of key terms in your sector. If you sell athletic equipment, key terms may include “weight training” or “home-based exercise.” Try to go for quality rather than quantity — follow updates you really want to read and respond to. This allows genuine conversations to grow and builds trust in your brand.

Brevity. Twitter embraces the age-old phrase that less is more. With just 140 characters to nail your message, you need to ensure that your tweets encourage whatever primary action you want followers to take, whether it be to read your blog, usher them onto your Web site or participate in a promotion.

Regularity. You should tweet regularly — this can be defined differently depending on your business needs. If you sell nondurable goods like fashion shoes, you may tweet four times a day to reach younger followers who tweet more often and will see your promotions more readily. If you use Twitter to share knowledge as an industry thought-leader, you may tweet once a day to spark a daily conversation topic to explore.

Variety. You also need to mix-up your content messages. Not every tweet should be a promotion. Be sure to show interest in others. Share statistical findings, report on sector trends and ask questions to your readers to allow them to answer.

Value. Your tweets should not be intrusive or overwhelming as this can be viewed as spam. Strike a balance between too much communication with your tweets and not enough. Let your customers know that you care about them and appreciate their business, but that you respect their time and privacy.

And, there is one more thing, which may be blatantly obvious — Twitter is free to use. Yes, it costs you time and energy, but with millions of potential customers at your fingertips, it’s worth it. Fine-tune your tweets and you’ll be singing all the way to the bank.