Twitter For Profit 1-2-3
Are You On Twitter? Follow BizTrek Here! and/or Follow Gil Gerretsen Here!
Once you have decided to build a Twitter presence for your business, follow these steps to get things started.
WHAT IS TWITTER?
It is a “micro-blog” designed to help people keep up with their friends, who are constantly “twittering” with short updates that answer the question … ”What are you doing now?” … in 140 characters or less. In the case of a business, it can be a great way to “listen” to their audience, prospects and customers and better tune in to their feedback and needs.
PERSONAL OR BUSINESS?
There are two ways to use a Twitter account. A personal account allows you to connect with your closer friends that are part of your inner circle of relationships. For most people, this adds up to about 50 - 300 people (or "followers"). A business Twitter account is wide-open. It is a place to LISTEN to your fans and find ways to serve them, and communicate with them.
GETTING STARTED
To create a Twitter profile for your business, go to the Twitter web site and click on the “Get Started – Join” button. You will be asked for your full name. Give your REAL first and last name, not something that you made up or some weird version of your business name. Then you will be asked to create a user name. This is where you should use a memorable version of your business name. I prefer to keep it short and simple. Try to avoid anything that could be confusing or make you harder to find. Mine is simply “BizTrek”. Next, create a password you can remember. Finally, provide your email address.
NOTE: Be aware that you are limited to just one Twitter account per email address, so if you want to have a personal Twitter account as well, then you should use your “sales” or “info” email address for your business Twitter account. Finish by answering the visual / type test to prove you are a real person and then click on “Create My Account.”
Now, before you start Twittering, go to the Settings page (the link is on the top right corner). You will see a tab called “Accounts” where you can set up some more details such as your time zone, your web site, a short bio, and your location. Write something creative for your short bio because this is what people will see to decide whether they are interested in following you. Be professional because customers are NOT drawn to a business that behaves childishly. For your location, include your city, state and country so people can find you with those key words as well. Please note that a business should NEVER protect their updates. The whole value is to encourage dialog, not hinder it! Once you are done, hit save.
Next, go to the Picture Tab under Settings and upload a picture or “avatar”. This is a small picture associated with your account and which shows up on the screen of all your fans (followers). For businesses, an image of your logo is recommended (200 pixels square is the best size), but using your own photograph (perhaps with a job title caption) is perfectly acceptable as well. Some businesses have combined the logo and a facial picture to help people “put a face with the name”. Click save when you are done.
Next, go to the Design Tab and pick a background for your profile. You can pick on of the ones provided by Twitter or upload one of your own. As soon as you can, create a custom background for your Twitter home screen. Establish a branding area on the left hand side. If you do not have the skill to do this, your graphic designer can easily create one for you (2000 pixels wide by 1000 pixels high seems to be best for most screens). You can visit BizTrek's to get an idea for your Twitter background. If you have a smaller image, you can have it “tile”, which means that it will repeat like a mosaic block.
While in the Settings area, you can also change notice settings and text message options. Be careful when choosing to get text messages to your phone unless you have an unlimited plan. You might get overwhelmed quickly.
WHAT SHOULD YOU TWITTER ABOUT?
Many people are now using Twitter as a source for the latest information about “their world”, both personally and professionally. Many savvy reporters are using it as a starting point for their stories. In addition, many businesses are finding that it can be an effective addition to their other marketing strategies. How could or should it be used for your business? Here are some things you could Twitter about:
1. You could post short thoughts, musings, tips, or ideas that would be out of place on your company’s blog.
2. You could give people brief updates about what is happening with your business.
3. You could announce special or short-term (or even online only) sales and promotions.
4. You could find great links (other web sites) and “tweet” them to the people who are your followers.
5. You can establish brief conversations with your followers. Look for ways to add value to their lives by sharing your know-how and expertise.
6. You can use it to strengthen relationships with clients and other people in your network.
7. If you are working on a blog post, you can “tweet” out some questions and get almost instant input.
8. You could solicit feedback about business changes you are considering, such as new products or even locations.
TIPS FOR SUCCESS WITH TWITTER
1. Remember to announce and advertise your Twitter presence on your blog.
2. Follow the people you know well outside of Twitter and some other interesting and active Twitterers that you value (i.e. authors, influencers). When deciding who to follow, check their ratio of how many people follow them versus how many they follow. If they follow thousands of people but nobody follows them, it is a pretty clear sign that they should be avoided or blocked. The most valuable Twitterers will tend to have more followers. You can find influential Twitterers at Twitterholic or Twitter Grader (find local influentials by entering your city name).
3. To participate in direct dialogs with people or businesses, you can send them @ messages (i.e. @biztrek). If you both follow each other, you can also engage them privately by using Twitter's direct messaging function, which is similar to email capability.
4. Initially, you want to follow most people who follow you because that will likely be your inner circle. However, eventually, you may start having too many followers to track effectively. That threshold is different for each person, but you will recognize it when it happens. You can push that threshold by making use of a tool such as Tweetdeck, which allows increased functionality and also allows you to sort people into groups, making them easier to follow. Once you have crossed this threshold, you can look at people’s profiles before deciding whether you want to follow them back.
5. Become an effective communicator. Most people really do not care what you had for lunch. Instead, provide useful information and links to interesting stories and pictures.
6. Establish yourself as a subject expert. That is how you become interesting to a targeted population. If you are an expert on cruises, search for “cruises” and answer people’s questions. People are likely to follow you and also retweet your posts, giving you expanded exposure. And … do not be afraid to express your opinion in your area of expertise. It is better that some people refuse to follow you than no one knows who you are.
7. Use pictures and multimedia. Think about using your cell phone to show product samples or other interesting tidbits that would engage your followers.
8. Ask people to follow. If you don’t ask, you don’t get!
9. As you progress in the world of Twitter, one thing I would NOT do is use the automatic Direct Message function offered by some services. Although you will discover that many people are indeed using this function to send a direct note when you follow them, it quickly becomes annoying. In fact, it has become so annoying that some services have eliminated that capability completely. It is the equivalent of spam and is a major reason that I choose to unfollow a person.
FINALLY. IF YOU FOUND ANY ERRORS HERE
Facebook periodically changes some of their policies, systems and processes. If you discover any changes from what is written here, please let us know so we can update this resource page for other readers. Please use the "Contact BizTrek" link at the bottom of this page.
Good luck and I hope to see you soon on Twitter …. and don’t forget to follow ME …. @BizTrek and @GilGerretsen.