One of the most common questions asked about Twitter is to how to
effectively use it for business. Here are five tips for you to follow.
1. Define your objectives for using Twitter
Are you going to be using Twitter for branding, customer service,
sales, or marketing? You need to first come up with a strategy for
using Twitter and then define guidelines for using. For example, are
you going to ask questions about how to improve a product? Ask for
feedback for services? Give news about your company. Decide on whether
you are going to have a single company account, or several individual
accounts.
When choosing between company and personal accounts you need to
remember that personal accounts are more human, but humans also leave
companies. If you can’t decide, choose both.
2. Look out for keywords
You are going to want to watch out for what people are tweeting about you, or your products. You can use Twitter Search
to search for the your keywords. You can also set up a RSS feed to
manage this for you. Just use the following url:
feed://search.twitter.com/search.atom?q=searchquery and replace the
word “searchquery” with your keyword. This will allow you to see all
posts that contain that keyword. This is a great way of keeping track
of what people are saying about your product, or you can keep up with
your competition.
3. Follow Relevant Twitter Users
You can find authors of tweets you like and start to follow them.
You can also do a search for users or companies and follow them as well.
4. Be Conversational
Your business’s Twitter account should talk like a person-even if
it’s a collective “person” representing your company or brand. Think of
your Twitter account as a character in a little Internet play—it’s a
walking, talking personification of your entire company. If you feel
like it, take it to the limit: Use the first-person (“They’re putting
my stuff on sale again!”), invent a personality. Or just use the royal
“we” and “our”—”Our editors have the latest on so-and-so.” But be
chatty.
5. Make it easy for people to follow you
Put a link to your twitter account on your webpage, email signature and print advertising.
