Used with a little thought, Twitter can become a powerful marketing tool for your small or medium-sized business. The following are some basic guidelines for creating a social media marketing foundation that will allow you to capitalise on the growth of social media:

1) Professional Visual Branding

Make sure your graphics are professional. People will 'get a feel' and make a judgement about your business simply by looking at your profile images. Your logo should be high res and high readable, so don’t use unclear images or cut off words. As we all know, perception goes a long way!

2) Personal Photo versus Logo

It depends! The best advice for marketing purposes is to use a personal photo, possibly that of a Director/CEO of the company in conjunction with the company logo.

The square profile pic should preferably be that of a person. Research shows that more people are willing to engage 'with a human being' than a 'brand'. The only exception of this is when a company has a mascot. Statistically speaking, mascots can create high levels of engagement because they portray the company as fun and community-driven.

3) Description

Use a concise, keyword-rich description of the services and products your company offers. Do not leave your location out, as this improves search results when people in your area are browsing Twitter. Being passionate or adding humour here will make you more personable and help you attract followers!

4) Contact details

Don't leave out your website, blog or e-mail. All of these make you more contactable!

5) Set-up your website to increase your Twitter followers

Include a Twitter icon on your website and make sure it’s clearly visible. This is probably the easiest way that you can drive new followers to your Twitter page. Similarly, you can also drive followers to your Twitter account by adding a live Twitter stream of your tweets to your Website. Finally, add your Twitter link to all employees out going email signatures.

6) Who should you follow ?

Are you following with a strategy in mind? Follow your Target Market. Its important to connect with the right people and tweet with them!
One needs to use discretion, but in most cases unless you have a mutual referral system it does not make sense to follow your competitors.
Follow those talking about your business! These people are interested in your company services and are more than likely potential or existing clients.

7) Twitter approved branded logo

Twitter has recently approved the plain Twitter bird as its sole approved logo. Make sure you are using the right Twitter logo on your website and e-mail signature! Do not anger the blue bird!

If you have any questions, please e-mail Chanel@AngelsMedia.co.uk and we will be happy to help.

Don’t forget to FOLLOW US on @AngelsMedia :-) Happy Tweeting!