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You Don't Have to be Ashton Kutcher to "Tweet Like a RockStar"

  

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Twitter has become one of the go to social media channels for marketers, but many small business owners are still apprehensive about using Twitter. Not only does Twitter allow you to reach over 100 Million people every day, but you can also track what is being said about your company or brand and utilize Twitter as a customer service tool.  You don't have to be a rock star or have 10 million followers to do this.  

There are certain unwritten rules on Twitter that you need to follow so you and/or your company don't look foolish to your followers and potential customers.  Below you will see some Twitter fundamentals of setting up, engagement, and Tweeting from your account.

Let's Be Real

Let's start with your profile image. Use a real image of yourself, your company logo, or your staff. This is social media and your followers want to connect with a real person, not a iStockPhoto. Being real is about more than just the image you select, so choose a pic that strategically sends message about what your company does or about your favorite interest or hobby if it is for a personal account.

Optimize Your Profile

We see a lot of empty profiles on Twitter.  If you have an empty profile then why would I want to connect with you? Tell your followers and potential customers what your hobbies and interests are, that you love dogs or wine, anything to make a connection. Think of your profile as your 30 second elevator pitch at a networking event and make is unique.  If your account if for your business then you need to optimize your profile as you would a meta description for a web page. Include highly searched hash tags, keywords, and personal Twitter handles for you or your key staff that are active.

Be Active

There is nothing worse than setting up a social media account and then leaving it unused.  Your followers and potential customers will see this and not come back. Twitter is a micro blogging platform that requires frequent updating. The lifecycle of a Tweet is 3 hours. Inbound Marketing Agencies such as us recommend that you tweet at least 4-6 per times day and not all at the same time. If you don't think you have the time to tweet this much then use a twitter scheduling software such as Hootsuite, Bufferapp, or Timely by Demandforce.  These all have free versions and allow you to schedule your tweets so you can save time and be more efficient.

Don't Spam

Twitter is a social media channel.  So be social.  No one wants to here about you or your company 10 time s per day. You may have the greatest company that is going to change the world, but you followers still won't want to hear about in every tweet. Promote your followers or industry content via links in your tweets in an interesting way that will engage those that see it.  A good rule of thumb is to tweet about your company only 1 out of of every 8-10 tweets you post.  The remaining tweets should consist of followers promotion or ReTweets, engagement with followers, and even questions to your followers.  Twitter is about not about you!  It is about your followers.

Customer Service Hashtags

Twitter hashtags can be your best friend when it comes to customer service. If you don't have software to track your company or brand like a Radian 6 then set up hash tags (keywords) to track what is being said about you or your company. How does this correlate to customer service? If someone tweets about their bad experience at Joe's Hot Dog Stand and Joe has hash tags set up to track his company brand. Joe can then engage and reply immediately to the disgruntled customer via Twitter.  One of the best examples of this type of customer service is Bill Gerth at @ComCastCares. Check out their twitter feed to one of the best in action.

No Begging Zone

For some reason or another a lot of companies constantly ask for ReTweets.  I am not sure why this is, but don't do it unless your tweet is extremely important. Keep this in your back pocket for when you really need it because if you consistently ask for RT's then you will not only not get them, but your unsubscriber rate will increase. Post quality tweets that your followers want to read and they will RT them without having to ask.

Keys

• Utilize Twitter to stay in touch with your customers, potential customers, and to create new leads. 
• Remember it is NOT about You.  It is about your Followers.
• Optimize your profile with a real pic or logo and hash tags and keywords.
• Provide valuable and conistent content for your community

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