Do some research on your Twitter community. Think about what you plan on posting and how frequently you plan to post. Your tweets need to find a balance between what your audience wants to hear and things to promote your business. Focus for example, on how your products and services benefit your customers.
Research shows that these types of tweets get more responses:
Create a list of all of the things that you can tweet about – company news, blog posts, important announcements, special offers, industry news, etc. Be sure to include the three elements above in your strategy!
Always tweet as if you were speaking to someone, with the aim to develop relationships of trust with your followers. The most effective ways to tweet are to be informative, offer insight and add humour! Try to steer away from negativity at all times. Rather than directly trying to sell your services through Twitter, you should use this tool to build brand awareness and attract more followers.
Hashtags identify a common topic or theme. They use the hash sign (#) followed by a unique identifier. Hash tags help the Twitter search engines to find your tweet when people in your target market are looking for what your business is offering. Your tweet will not only reach your followers, but also those searching for that topic as a hashtag! It is advisable to use no more than one or two per tweet.
Don’t just tweet at people - tweet with them! Engage in their conversations.
Never ignore your followers when they mention you, especially if you’re receiving a complaint. Always reply promptly and politely, apologise and address the complaint. Thank users that re-tweet your messages. If you are not getting any RT's or mentions on Twitter - change your content strategy! If you are, people are interested in your content, so keep going!
Twitter can be a powerful tool to make your business ’go viral'. The best way to do this is by writing good informative content that your followers want to read and share.
You can also offer give-aways or competitions where you reward followers for re-tweeting your messages.
An example could be: 'Angels Media team helps business go viral in London! RT this to win Spa voucher #SocialMedia'.
Another good idea is to get your followers to tweet their own pictures to you, to win a prize. You can offer a prize for the best picture. The main idea is that you create a dialogue with your followers, ask them questions and encourage them to share their views with you!