REASONS TO LOVE TWITTER FOR BUSINESS

In the realm of social media marketing, Twitter can be a powerful tool for connecting businesses and consumers. If you’re not yet using Twitter for business, it’s time to rethink your social media marketing strategy...

If you’ve allowed your Twitter marketing strategy to decline, or you’ve never used Twitter for business marketing, you’ll benefit from taking a fresh look at how Twitter can help you grow your business.

Twitter is simply a short messaging social tool for communicating with the millions of other people on the platform. Messages called tweets are short (140 characters only) and can include links to other web content including sites, blogs, images, and video content. Subscribers follow your account, and you follow accounts that are compatible with your business – be they other businesses or consumers. You can interact with and share tweets, and have your tweets shared by loyal followers.

HOW IS TWITTER UNIQUE IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA LANDSCAPE?

Twitter is considered to be a micro-blogging tool, as its messages are short and can be somewhat random and disconnected. This is a feature it shares with Tumblr and a few other less-well known platforms. It also shares some features with Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube; yet Twitter stands alone in its unique qualities overall.

Some of these differences that make Twitter unique include:

• While a tweet is similar to a short update on Facebook, on Twitter, every tweet is delivered to every follower. Facebook filters what is delivered to users’ newsfeeds.
• Twitter allows for conversation lists and groups in a similar way to Google+ circles.
• Whereas LinkedIn is based on connections where trust a personal relationship is present, Twitter allows for complete and unlimited stranger following.
• Tweets can contain links to video, in a broader and more general way than on YouTube.

HOW CAN YOU USE TWITTER FOR BUSINESS MARKETING?

Present your business and your brand to the world.

The potential reach of your Twitter profile is literally global – and with well over 300 million worldwide Twitter users, there is no excuse to not have a profile on the platform. It presents a golden opportunity to tell your brand’s story to the whole world.

Make sure you keep consistency in your brand identity across all of the channels in which you affect your online presence. This will help maintain your recognisability for consumers and to build trust.

Your Twitter username needs to express your brand identity and clearly show who you are. Keep it as simple as possible; this will help with user satisfaction, especially on mobile devices.

Choose appropriate profile and header images – a professional headshot or company logo is ideal for your profile picture. If you are a small business enterprise, a personal but professional headshot will be suitable for the profile image and it will give a personalised tone to your account. Use the header image space to tell a story about your brand.

Customising your Twitter page background can further enhance your branding.

Complete your profile

A completed Twitter profile will detail your business and build a stronger online presence. Be sure to include:

• Your location – including country
• Your website - provide a clickable link to this
• A short bio – tell the world who you are and what you do … what can you offer them?

Follow other Twitter users

Be somewhat selective – others can see who you follow, so make it compatible with your brand, your business and your identity that you wish to present to the world. Following too aggressively can lead to Twitter suspending your account, so don’t dive in too fast and follow every user you come across.

Ideally, you will follow:

• Your business partners
• Your customers
• Your contractors
• Your suppliersYour vendors
• Your peers
• Your competitors
• Professional organisations for your niche
• Your professional network
• Your influencers
• Other businesses in your locality

Create valuable conversations

You just need to offer short snippets that pertain to your business and your brand. They can be tweets, replies to other users and retweets from followers, mentions and direct messages. You can include links to video, GIFs, images, websites, blogs and other content online.

Find a happy medium between what you have to say to promote your business and what your target audience wants to hear. How can you help consumers? Answer their questions, show them how you can benefit them, and offer value.

Remember that with its concise nature, each tweet is like a headline – it needs to say what you mean. Make every character count!

Integrate

You need to integrate your Twitter profile into your brand’s online presence as a whole. Add links and buttons to your website for direct linking to Twitter, as well as a Twitter newsfeed to your website. Select only the best and most appropriate tweets to share on your business website.

You should also make it simple for other Twitter users to share your content from your blog etc on Twitter. The easiest way to do this is to include a tweet button on your blog and website content, or to embed a tweet into a blog post.

DRIVE TWITTER TRAFFIC TO YOUR WEBSITE

Create tweets around links back to your site, your blog, or other valuable links to your business. By creating compelling messages, you make your audience want to learn more – hence they will be encouraged to click through and continue their journey on your site. Always use link shorteners! These free up space in your tweet and also look much more appealing to social media users.

Use hashtags to expand your audience

You want to extend the reach of your business to a new and wider audience. The easiest way to be visible to a fresh audience on Twitter is to use valuable and appropriate hashtags.

Hashtags are used in tweets to identify common themes or trending topics. When a user clicks on a hashtag, all tweets using this tag will appear – including tweets by people not currently followed. It facilitates a greater conversation.

Create a unique and usable hashtag for your brand; used on Twitter for business marketing, it will help people find your business and what people are saying about it.

Here’s a round-up of our most popular Twitter blogs:

1. Using Twitter for business - get it right: When using Twitter for business, you need to have a clear and well-thought-out plan of attack, with a long-term commitment to building your follower base and delivering what they want to see, share and, most importantly, act on.

READ MORE

2. Attract, engage and succeed on Twitter: Twitter is one social media platform that every savvy marketer should take advantage of for business marketing purposes. Yet the overall marketing equation relies on much more than simply creating a Twitter profile and tweeting now and then. Twitter engagement with your brand requires commitment and a clever strategy to succeed.

READ MORE

3. 15 ways to smash your social media strategy with Twitter: Twitter may well be the social media platform that offers the biggest punch, yet for the smallest amount of content shared. With each tweet limited to just 140 characters, users are forced to be brief and to the point.

READ MORE

Have a look around the blog for more social media snippets on all the major platforms.

Social media a great tool for raising awareness, generating leads and boosting your bottom line if you’re in business. It can also help you get ahead in your career by raising your profile and opening up opportunities you may not know exist. Here is a new short course we have just released and it is FREE,?check it out here

About Adam

His second book The LinkedIn Playbook is available now.

His newly released training courses Linkedin2Success and Mentor2Success are receiving rave reviews world-wide as the most innovative approaches to social media and on-line marketing.

Adam Houlahan is an International Keynote Speaker specialising in Social Media for business, and CEO of the highly successful boutique agency, Web Traffic That Works. He lives in Australia's famous tourist destination the Gold Coast Queensland, and is considered to be one of Australia's leading experts in harnessing the power of Linkedin for business. Over 3,000 people globally have sought his skill and insights to leverage the power of LinkedIn for their businesses.

Adam is also a featured columnist for MOB Magazine , an Australian National Business publication. He consults on Social Media to private clients in Australia, New Zealand, North America, The Middle East and Singapore. His work as CEO and owner of 6 successful companies has given him the hands-on experience to understand business from the inside.

Adam believes real and meaningful change comes through the world’s entrepreneurs. His purpose is to provide their businesses with powerful tools to grow and accelerate their global footprint. And that together we make a huge impact!

Through his Lifetime Partnership with the Global Giving Initiative B1G1 www.B1G1.com he is well on track to positively impact the lives of more than 1 million people in need.