Using Twitter may be one of the most powerful ways in connecting with other professionals in your industry.  It helps you get to know your clients on a more personal level.  It is a microblogging service that provides you with a constant news feed from people who you choose to be connected to.  Being able to connect on Twitter can make it easier to promote your business online; on the other hand, it can also scare off potential clients if you aren’t using it correctly.

What you shouldn’t be doing on Twitter…

• Constant Self-Promotion – Tweeting several times a day about how great your company is will send your followers straight to the “Unfollow” button!
• Don’t tweet something and *hope that someone else will retweet it.  Ask, and you shall receive!  Studies show that if you ask followers to “RT” you’ll get a 12X higher retweet rate than if you don’t.  But if you spell out the word “retweet”, that figure jumps to 23X!
• Give away all of the information in the actual tweet.  You should, however hook a follower in and encourage them to click a link to your blog or website for additional information.
• Post boring tweets – Instead, post your personal thoughts on a certain topic to make it unique.
• Don’t over tag your tweets.  If you tag every person you know in every tweet you post, your tweets will eventually be considered spam.
• Do not ignore people.  If someone follows you, tag them in a quick tweet thanking them for the follow (i.e. @NewEmpireGroup Thanks for the follow!)

The main focus of using Twitter should be to interact with your followers and build relationships.  One of the biggest mistakes companies make in terms of their Twitter marketing strategies is allowing themselves to fall off the radar. 

If you are new to Twitter, here are a few key words that might be useful, if you don’t already know them:

• Tweet – A 140-word-limit post (similar to a ‘status update’ on Facebook).
• Tweep – Someone who uses Twitter.
• Follow – When you subscribe to someone else’s tweets.
• Follower – Someone who is following your tweets.
• #Hashtag – A way to identify keywords or topics in a ‘tweet’.
• Retweet or ‘RT’ – When someone re-posts one of your tweets for all of their followers to see.
• Reply – When someone replies to one of your tweets by clicking the “reply” button.  Your name will appear with an ‘@’ symbol before it, then it will list whatever the other person’s reply was.  (Click on the tweet and it will expand to show the original tweet the person replied to).
• Mention – If someone ‘mentions’ you in a tweet, your name will appear on your feed with an ‘@’ symbol in front of it. (Same concept as ‘Replying’).
• Direct Message or ‘DM’ – Private tweets between the sender and recipient.

Don’t get discouraged if you aren’t getting a ton of feedback right away, stick with it and try new things.  Eventually, if you follow these do’s and don’ts you will figure out the right strategy for your company!

If you enjoyed this blog, you should also check out…

Is Twitter Right for Your Business?

Learning Twitter: The Art of #Hashtagging

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