Are you trying to improve your social media presence by using Twitter? Here are some of the most creative - and effective - ways to get the most from this popular platform.
Customize Your Profile Page:
Twitter is primarily known for its short messages - but you can drastically improve the look of your personal profile by updating the background and providing more information about your business.
Change Your Inbound Links:
Most companies choose to have website links that bring visitors to their front page, but this may not be the best way to introduce people to your site. Instead, consider creating a special landing page just for people coming in from Twitter - and remember to keep it short and simple.
Don't Follow Everyone Who Follows You:
Your business Twitter should only follow the accounts that are most relevant to what you do and who you want to reach. In particular, be careful to avoid following bots - you aren't reaching customers through them, and all they'll do is fill your list of tweets with content that doesn't matter to you.
Use Twitter Lists:
This is a feature that a surprisingly small number of businesses have taken advantage of. In short, lists allow you to group people you follow into specific categories - so you could easily see all tweets from customers, other people in your industry, employees, or whatever other categories you choose.
Listen to People:
A lot of the most powerful uses of this social media platform come from listening to others. Pay attention to the people who mention you and Follow them, and consider searching for the name of your business to see who mentioned you without hashtags. You can repeat searches by saving them, and this can save a lot of time if you have many things to check on a regular basis.
Prune Your Followers:
There is no need to keep following people who never tweet. Free tools like unTweeps can tell you which people you're following aren't talking, and you should drop people who haven't talked in months. However, don't drop everyone at the same time - Twitter may flag this as spammer behavior and suspend your account.
Use Photos:
Adding photos to your tweets can call attention to them and provide an added level of visual impact - which is more than slightly important on a site where it's easy for your messages to get lost in the noise.
Get Serious About Offers:
You don't need to limit yourself to tweeting about topics and holding conversations with your customers - though both of those are valuable tools. Instead, get serious by starting to offer special deals and bargains that are only available through Twitter. This encourages people to follow you, stay on the lookout, and pay attention to what you say. The offers don't need to be amazing - small contests can be very effective - but they should be good enough that people will want to take advantage of them.
Review Your Tweet Topics:
Once you've established yourself and learned what your customers care about, it's time to review the things you tweet about and see if you can directly address the questions, concerns, or uncertainties that people have about who you are and what you do. Having a list of topics to talk about - ideally at least one a day - can also help when you're not sure what to say. Regular tweets are critical to remaining in the minds of your followers.
Mix Tweets and Blogs:
Twitter now supports integrating tweets across the web - and blogging is one of the most powerful forces in Inbound Marketing. Mixing them is a good idea.
