Twitter For Business: Best Practices & Engaging Your Audience

In my last post, I shared with you 10 tips on how to get your business started on YouTube. Today, we’re continuing the series by taking a look at Twitter. I’ll be sharing my best practices for getting started on Twitter and how to engage your audience with your business.

Twitter Best Practices

1. Make sure you have a foolproof password. The last thing you want is for your account to get hacked and someone you don’t know posting as you.
2. Find out when your best audience likes to frequent Twitter. Select some of your followers and follow their tweets back over a few days. See if there’s a time they consistently appear (e.g., every morning after 8 a.m.).
3. Be consistent. Whether you tweet 5x a day, 3x, or even every other day, make sure you’re consistent.
4. Be sincere. Don’t just tweet for the sake of tweeting.
5. Find a core group of real Twitter buddies. Carry on real conversations — and don’t worry that your “fans” won’t understand your cryptic utterances. It’s proof you really do interact with those on the “inside” of your personal circle.
6. Don’t worry about how you “appear.” Yes, there’s a fine line between making sure your tweets support your professional image and business goals and being yourself. (Practice makes perfect!)
7. Acknowledge and answer people who tweet directly “@” you. Use their Twitter call signs to respond (so you can track the conversation if you need to).
8. Don’t acknowledge abusive or rude tweets. Attention is what this type of tweeter is hoping for. (And do report them!)
9. Track your results. See what works. (At the very least, use your bit.ly links to see how many people clicked through on links you provided in your tweets. Monitor your website or blog traffic to see if it’s consistent with particular tweets or heavier Twitter engagement on your part.
10. Make notes. Keep track of what works well, and what earned zero response.

Now that we’ve talked about the do’s and don’ts of Twitter let’s discuss how to engage your audience with your business.

Get Personal

Don’t be afraid to have real conversations with your followers. Ask questions, get to know them, share a thing or two about yourself. This will help you build rapport and develop that “know, like, and trust” factor. Twitter is the one platform that makes it super easy for big companies, brands, or celebrities to engage with everyday fans on a more personal level.

#Hashtag

Use relevant hashtags to join trending conversations and present your tweets to potential followers who otherwise might not find you. A Hashtag is simply any word you like with a “#” in front of it. Including a hashtag in your tweet means that anyone on Twitter using the same hashtag will be served your tweet.

Twitter will automatically serve up a bunch of currently-trending hashtags in the right-hand sidebar of your Twitter feed. You can pick one up from existing Twitter friends tweeting about that subject. For example, you could write a post that says: “Crosses in nature – black and white photos: bit.ly1aBa2: #ArtPhoto” and have your tweet seen by everyone following the #ArtPhoto hashtag. Or you can start your own and call on others to retweet it.

Hashtags can be a powerful tool when you’re:

• Promoting a webinar or other event for your business
• Focusing on a specific topic, you’d like your followers to see
• Positioning yourself to align with a certain group
• Looking for followers (or people to follow) with the same narrow focus

Use Good Headlines

When you use Twitter’s platform, you’ll notice that you’re feed is constantly being refreshed with new tweets every few seconds. This means your followers are constantly bombarded with tweets from their favorite band announcing a new album to pictures of their second cousin’s new cat. In a sea of new tweets, how can you stand out rather than get scrolled past? You use good headlines that get them to stop and say “hmm, I want to know more.” Get them intrigued.

Is Twitter Right For You

Remember, not every business needs to be on Twitter. Do your homework and analyze your ROI for time spent on Twitter. Does your target audience spend a majority of their time on Twitter or is there another platform they prefer? Most importantly, have you talked with Holy Spirit about whether or not Twitter is a good fit for your business? No amount of tips or best practices will help your business flourish if this is not the platform God is calling you to be on.

So were any of these tips or practices surprising to you? Which one did you find most helpful? Leave a comment below!

To your success!