The Basics Of Twitter

No matter if you love or hate Twitter, chances are you have used (or at least thought about using) the social media giant for personal or professional purposes. Twitter is a unique and wildly popular platform known for its simplicity and authenticity. While other popular social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest) rely heavily on visuals, Twitter tends to be a more text-based platform. With short messages and real-time updates, investing your time in a Twitter account is a smart move. Here are some tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your Twitter account for your business.

Find your target demographic:

As with most aspects of business, recognizing your target demographic is an important first step for success. Twitter used to be used almost exclusively by a younger demographic, but that is starting to change. There is a good chance your Twitter demographic is younger or more mixed than your business’s demographics on platforms such as Facebook, and you still need to ensure that you are producing the best content for them. Since Twitter is a fairly casual platform, you can take a more casual tone with your tweets. Twitter was designed to mimic sending out short “text message” like notes, so imagine you are having a polite conversation with a friend when phrasing your messages. The level of causality truly depends on your audience. For example, Wendy’s Twitter account is known for sending out sassy and funny tweets to their audience. At BMT Micro, we have more of a professional audience so we choose to tweet motivation, tips, and industry news.

Create a Twitter schedule:

Since Twitter consists of short, real-time messages, it is easy to get overwhelmed in the changing content and forget to post your own. Creating a schedule helps you remember to tweet at least a few days a week, and gives your followers content to look forward to. Weekly tweets you can send out could be as simple as a Motivation Monday, Wednesday Wisdom, or Tip Tuesday. Make sure you incorporate holidays in your Twitter schedule as well. Engaging your audience by responding to tweets directed at you, or retweeting relevant tweets, will help you gain followers as well. If someone “likes” or “re-tweets” you, it will show up on your timeline, your follower’s timelines, and the person you are interacting with’s timeline. This opens you up to a whole new audience and can help both you and whoever you interact with to gain new followers. While you don’t want to be too excessive with sharing other’s content, it can help you make new connections and share a wider array of topics and opinions with your audience.

Interest before business:

Because Twitter is a fun, casual platform, make sure you incorporate enjoyable content into your feed before you dive into promoting your business. Once you start to get a following, casually slip in tweets advertising your company and products. Some users will follow you simply to keep up with your brand and products, while many others will follow you for the entertainment value. Going back to the Wendy’s example, not many people would feel the need to follow a fast food chain on social media, as they already know what they serve. However, by providing entertainment, they have gained themselves quite a following that they use to promote themselves. While their humor might not be the best tactic for your business, find ways to delight your customers other than your wonderful products. Researching your competitor’s Twitter accounts to see what they have been doing successfully is a good place to start collecting inspiration.

With consistency and strategy, Twitter will be a simple and fun platform you and your audience will enjoy interacting on. Make sure to keep up with all aspects (including messages and direct tweets) and Twitter can become a key component in your brand strategy and growth.