“To Tweet or not to Tweet?”. That is almost certainly the first question I get asked by small businesses.
So, whether it is nobler in the Twitter, Bare Bones Marketing has put together some “Top Twips” (OK, enough of the Shakespeare talk I promise!)
Top Twips
1) You don’t need to be a “techy” to tweet. But you do need to have some desire to interact with technology on a regular basis. So if you’re a complete technophobe, or prefer dealing with people “off-line”, Twitter is not for you.
2) Keep it professional, but warm and friendly. Don’t forget if you’re tweeting for your business, you’re tweeting for your brand. If you want to tweet what you had for your tea, or that you’ve just had a rather nasty (insert your own health topic) inserted/removed, set up a personal account and don’t link the two.
3) If you wouldn’t want to read about it in tomorrow’s tabloids, then don’t tweet it (see twip 2). In fact, this goes for any type of communication!
4)Do keep it relevant and interesting. Your followers want to gain something from your tweets, so think about the messages you’re trying to get across.
5)Be gentle(ish). Twitter is not for the hard sell all the time. It is also about building relationships (albeit virtual). BUT if you have a special offer, or want to get new clients then don’t be afraid to promote the offer, or ask for new clients. After all you want to get something out of the time you spend on Twitter.
6)Follow people who you might get ideas or advice from. You’ll find that many of them buy diazepam from india will follow you back. Follow people who are in your target audience. If they follow you back then they’ll see what you’re like and learn about your business. Follow your clients and suppliers. Also, see twips 2 and 3!
7)Retweet – this means if someone you follow has something interesting to say, then tweet it too. You might find that they’ll retweet something of yours when you want them to. Don’t be afraid to ask followers to retweet for you (usually by putting “pls RT” on your tweet).
8)Spend time reading tweets to start off with. You’ll learn the terminology, and also you’ll get a feel for what people tweet about so that you can decide on the tone that best suits your tweeting. You’ll also see things like #ff (Follow Friday, where you recommend people to follow to your followers) and hashtags (anything prefaced with “#”) which identify trends.
9)Tweet regularly, to suit you, but somewhere between 1 to 8 times a day. Any more and not only will you find you’ll repeat yourself, people will get fed up. The exception to this is if you’re a news company – then if you’ve only got 8 things to say, it must have been a very slow news day!
10)Don’t get addicted! I’ve not heard of anyone in Twitter therapy, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Twitter is just one type of communication method and it is easy to spend too much time tweeting and not enough time on your business. After all, it’s one thing to be on Twitter and another to be a Twit!