How To Use Twitter Effectively

Tweet me!

A friend called with some Twitter questions, and concerns regarding the marketing skills of a company’s new Web Strategist. This prompted me to do a web-presence assessment of the fair-sized international corporation. During this assessment I noticed their new Web Strategist may not have the level of Twitter experience one would like, even expect, in a marketing professional. In fact, I was shocked by some of the mistakes made.

To help those of you without Web Strategists, or perhaps with Web Strategists whose qualifications may be suspect, below are some of the Twitter tips I offered to my friend, and the CEO.

We’ll start with the basics of getting a Twitter account, just in case you haven’t grabbed one yet. Obviously you want to choose a name that is either the name of your business, or what you do. For example, if you own a cake decorating company you have the option to use either your company name or something with the word “cake” in it. Choosing likely search terms can be useful for getting followers.

Setting up your Twitter Bio. Twitter bios are searchable by Google. Use all the text space they give you, and include all buzz phrases specific to your industry. Also include your company name if your Twitter handle [ex: @thebestcakedecorators (this is not a real handle, and has nothing to do with the company assessed)] doesn’t include it. People may want to find you by your company name and this will help them.

Now that you’ve got your account set up, what are you going to tweet? Of course you want to tweet anything directly mentioning or created by your company. But it shouldn’t be all about you all the time. Retweet related industry news from other sources: funny items – yours or others (cake mistakes, wedding cakes in the face, dropped cakes), controversial topics (debate over sugar, gluten free products), and anything else you think would interest your followers. The key word here is interest, but keep it on topic at least 80% of the time.

However, it’s probably not a good idea to promote your competition. Oddly, during the aforementioned web-presence assessment I noticed their Web Strategist had retweeted more content for a competitor than that of the company itself. Holy Conflict of Interest Batman! I should add two notes here: First, the Big Boss may be fully aware of this and has “OK’d” it for reasons to which I’m not privy. Second, the company being retweeted on behalf of the organization I assessed is a non-profit. Maybe they were just trying to be good neighbors and add a little community service (always a good idea) to their tweet mix. However, the non-profit company being promoted is a direct competitor who does the same work – for free. Not the best choice if you want to increase your good karma, or your sales.

Make sure to include your Twitter link on the front page of your website, and make sure it works. Nothing says “We don’t have our marketing together” more than a dead link on the front page.

You’ve got a follower, now what? Follow back most anyone who follows you on Twitter. I say “most anyone” because some are obviously spam mills for Guerrilla Marketers. (The Squirrels don’t approve of Social Wolves or Guerrilla Marketing in social media.) It’s considered “good form” to return the follow within a week, and is also a good way to get new followers.

If you have a Facebook page or Linked-In account, link it/them to the Twitter account. When you post in Facebook (or Twitter, depending on which way you linked) it will automatically be transferred to the other accounts, essentially killing two (or three) birds with one stone, thereby minimizing your Social Media account maintenance time.

When posting on Facebook or Twitter, always use the hash tags (#) appropriate to your industry. In our cake decorator example, appropriate hash tags might be #cakes or #cakedecorating, etc. Almost any word or phrase is game, just put “#” in front, without any spaces. You can do a search in Twitter to see what hash tags others in your industry are using. (Remember to keep FB page posts to 140 characters once it is linked to Twitter otherwise it gets turned into a short URL.)

If you’ve got a blog/RSS feed, set it up so any new posts will automatically be posted in Twitter.

All blog posts and press releases from or about your company should be tweeted four times, at different times of day over several days to reach the maximum number of followers.

These are just some basics to get your started. Please contact us if you could use our Web Strategist and Marketing services, or would just like a simple assessment of your company’s presence on the web. We may consider payment in cakes, and promise not to retweet your competitors posts.

- The Squirrel, a lover of cakes