Twitter for Business

Twitter connects you to thousands and thousands of individuals who would be interested in you and your product. This could be worldwide, or you can stick to your country.

The point is that THEY have chosen to follow you, so they are already interested in you or in your product. Twitter is not right for every company, but can be a whole new world of trading for some.

Twitter attracts a different audience to your website and will grab the attention of people that have never even thought of searching for you on the net.

Rules for Tweeters

Twitter is not a place for hard selling, or constant reminders that your company sells the cheapest or best product. It is a place to engage and connect with people and bring people onto your web site. You have to be informative when you are tweeting. Interesting, even. You have to be helpful and give advice, then your followers will recommend that others follow you. It works very much like giving information on your web site. People look up that information and will appear on your site, ready to buy or recommend you!

Only people that are following you will see the tweets you tweet. But you must remember, many tweets are picked up by search engines, so keep it clean!

The most important thing about twitter is that you are generous to others. You should “retweet” tweets that you find interesting [Always start a "retweet" with RT space, then the users twitter name eg. RT @othertwitterer]

Your followers will follow many others, and the only way to get their attention is to give them something. Give them tips on something that might interest them. Chat to people or comment on their tweets.

Secondly, make sure you constantly refer to your website and link to pages of interest for your twitter friends. You must remind people what you do, they will not remember and you may just get them at the right time, after you’ve offered them some interesting information.

Case Study

James owns a MUG company. He has manufactures mugs in different designs – including campervans, animal designs, retro designs and lots more. He starts his account on twitter and calls himself @jamesmugs. [When you invent a twitter account your username would always start with an @ sign. If someone wants James to see their tweet, or wants to mention James in their tweet so that others will associate it with him, you they would always write @jamesmugs]

So where does James start?

James has to ask himself some questions. Who would be interested in his mugs? What would they want them for?

His mugs would usually be gifts for campervan lovers, animal lovers etc. He may even want to target online shops to sell his mugs. So firstly he must start to follow some people to start generating an interest.

James types #campervan into the search on twitter. Lots of tweets appear by people James doesn’t even know but they have written about campervans so they must be interested in that type of thing. James follows of few of these. Now he continues and types #cats, #dogs etc., following people that look like they may be interested in buying his product. Next he thinks that there might be some gift shops out their that would like to trade with him. So he searches for giftshops in the twitter search and finds a few to start following.

Hash tags

The next day, James finds that some of these people are following him back. He starts his first tweet “New mug design for split screen camper is ready for the shop floor #campervan” [The hash tags are used as 'keywords' for people to search on, like James was doing earlier].

Responding to tweets

He decides people might like to see the design he has created and takes a photo and uploads it using twitphoto. Someone called @bertie responds to his tweet “@jamesmugs Great mug design! Where can I get one?” James now has a chance to direct this person to his web site, so he does just that “@bertie Go on to my web site at www.jamesmugs.co.uk and you will see all my latest designs! Thanks for your interest!” This means all his followers and all @bertie’s followers has seen James reply!

But not only that, replying to people will encourages others to engage. Bertie is now a friend.

Shortened URLS

James has a page on his web site giving information on how his mugs are made. He directs his twitter followers to this page by creating a new tweet “See how my mug designs are hand crafted in our shop in the Cotswolds http://bit.ly/bjH60G“. [The "shortened" web address shown here is a shortened version of where James actual page is. This stops him from writing more that the 120 words that a tweet requires. Writing long URLs can annoy follows and this just keeps it clean and tidy. James uses the web site www.bit.ly to shorten his links before he posts them on twitter].

Re-tweeting

The most important thing about twitter is that you are generous to others. This means they will be generous to you. You should “retweet” tweets that you find interesting [Always start a "retweet" with RT space, then the users twitter name eg. RT @othertwitterer]

A new follower called @ninetynine retweets his mug making tweet. They have put “Cool designs! RT @jamesmugs See how my mug designs are hand crafted in our shop in the Cotswolds http://bit.ly/bjH60G“. This means all of @ninetynines followers can see the tweet!

James is really pleased with his first retweet and knows the rule is always to be polite and say thank you, as he would in everyday life! So he replies with “@ninetynine Thanks for the retweet!”

Now followers of @ninetynine may start to follow James as they are interested in his mugs. And so it goes on!

If somebody re-tweets you, follow them, it is polite.

Keep your tweets interesting

James’ followers are interested in different things. Some may be interested in campers, others in ceramics, others may be interested in artwork. James should tweet tips to engage with these people. May be some tweets on camping. Where he last went, where he used his mug. How are the mugs made? How does the artwork start out? Has he a new idea for a design? Each of these tweets will be interesting to someone different.

And the things you should avoid

Don’t buy followers or use any kind of technique to gain auto-followers. Be real.

You can use an scheduler like HOOTSUITE, but you must keep it real. Don’t repeat a tweet over and over, although you should retweet your tweets sometimes. Not everyone will of seen it the first time round.

The reports on this page are for your information only. Kaydee will not be liable for any damage, loss of money or any other problems that arise if you do take actions on the advice given.