Social media can be a bit of minefield for business owners, and often a daunting prospect and throughout out blogs we hope to provide you with some helpful guides on best practice for using these channels.
This post focused on Twitter and the great thing about Twitter is that if you can enjoy texting and sending short messages (which the majority of us can handle) then you’re already half way there!
The key mistake is to think that 140 characters are your opportunity to sell, sell, sell! Twitter is a conversation medium, its role is to encourage discussion and open the conversation to others.
So with that in mind here are some of our best practice tips for using Twitter
- Ensure others can find your conversation by including #hastags for relevant words only remembering to #keep #hashtags #to #a #minimum #to #avoid #annoying #your #audience
- Tag people, companies or associations into your posts by including their @username so they can join in the conversation
- Include pictures and videos to your tweet (embed them by using the camera icon) – these have a 50% higher viewing and engagement rate
- Instead of automatically retweeting – copy the message and put RT @username: rest of the message at the beginning so people can see it comes from your twitter account and your branding is still at the forefront
- Be sure that you leave at least 17 character SAFE ZONE so people re-tweeting can add their comments to the message and keeps content in what’s being commented upon
- If you automatically reply to another @username only the people who follow you BOTH can see the message in their feed. Don’t forget to use the period (.) or some text at the beginning of the tweet so everyone can see i.e. .@username continue rest of message
- Don’t be shy, engage in the conversation – reply to people who engage with you, or join a debate or conversation – it’s called Social Media for a reason!
- Sharing is caring – don’t forget to share other people’s tweets, news or announcements
- Grow your network – look for suggested people to follow as recommended by Twitter or use the Discover tool to see who’s talking about the same conversations, interests as you
- Create lists on Twitter and assign your follows for better and easier management of what you review and reply to
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