How to Twitter

If you’re like a lot of people, you still aren’t sure what Twitter is for, how to use it, or how it can help you. You don’t have to worry, though, because you can learn to use Twitter effectively for your business – without a lot of stress and strain. You can also have more than one Twitter account, so you can have specific accounts for business and personal tweeting – and you can also have separate accounts for each business venture if you have more than one product or service line.

Twitter makes things very convenient for anyone who wants to use it to market his business. You’ll be limited to 140 characters per tweet, which doesn’t seem like much, but you can say a lot in that character limit when you abbreviate things properly. You want to be clear, but there is ‘Twitter slang’ that won’t make you look unprofessional. After all, people understand the character limit and that it applies to business as well as personal accounts.

Using Twitter comes with certain expectations and responsibilities. One of those is that the person using it won’t be spamming his followers with a lot of junk. Ads aren’t looked on too favorably, and someone who uses his account only to provide links to his products or services won’t be appreciated, either. Instead, go for a mix.

Tweet about your products and services – that’s what you’re there for – but also be sure to tweet about news that pertains to your industry, sales you’re offering, and other things that are related to your business but aren’t directly asking people to buy from you. As you establish yourself through Twitter and other forms of social media, people will begin to respect your opinion as an authority, and they’ll take you more seriously.

Being thought of as an expert can really help someone boost his sales, no matter whether he has goods or services (or both) that are being offered. If you don’t take any time to establish yourself as someone who has a lot of knowledge about what you’re offering to the public, you’ll be hurting yourself, your future sales, and your bottom line.

Another thing you should seriously consider when you’re learning how to Twitter is the following that you’re getting – and who you’re following back. If you have a few followers, that’s great, but can you get more? How can you get people who will actually buy your product to follow you? You also have to consider who you follow. You don’t want to follow so many people that you can’t keep up, but you want to get to know people.

Follow others who are involved with your industry, so you can get to know some of them and be seen as part of the industry. As a team player, you’ll have more of a chance of impressing the people you want to catch the attention of, and you’ll be able to learn from your competition. That’s a great way to use Twitter to your advantage.

June 14, 2010