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5 What you need to know before you tweet ....................................................................................... 7 14 Twitter Tips to Engage Your Followers ..................................................................................... 10 Social Media Dashboards: Tweetdeck vs Hootsuite ..................................................................... 13 Twitter lists: How to organise your tweetstream and see through the noise .................................. 15 3 Twitter Tools to Spring Clean and Grow Your Twitter Followers ................................................ 17 Time to get Tweeting ..................................................................................................................... 19
A fast track guide to Twitter for business success. Hands on strategies by Chris Finnegan and ClickWebDesign
www.ClickWebDesign.com.au 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. Twitter for Business eBook
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Introduction
Twitter has been an amazing tool for our website design business, ClickWebDesign. After signing up in mid-2009, we quickly met and engaged in conversation with people we would never have otherwise crossed paths with. These great people now form an exciting network of collaborators, clients, educators and suppliers that have been critical to our business success. More than three years on Twitter has taught us a few things about how to use Twitter for business. So after writing many blog posts relating to Twitter I decided to continue writing and share my experience with our first ebook.
Watch out for me as you read, Ill be sharing interesting Twitter facts
This ebook is written to help both new and veteran Twitter users get the most out of Twitter with limited time and effort. A how to style gives you the knowledge to implement our techniques. To keep up to date with the latest Twitter tactics subscribe to the ClickNewsletter and follow us on Twitter,
Online Business Specialist, ClickWebDesign Free Call: 1800 602 007 www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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So how can you harness the power of Twitter to accelerate your networking?
Rather than fronting up to dozens of networking events every month, you can find your preferred clients easily on Twitter. You can search based on keywords (e.g. caterers, mechanics or babysitters), and even set your search geographically to target prospects in the areas you service. Thanks to the countless applications created to support Twitter and make it ever more efficient. Advanced Twitter tools grow your followers in a targeted fashion.
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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Once you locate your potential customers, follow them on Twitter and make yourself known. Avoid the sales pitch; just approach and engage. Social media dashboards help you monitor tweets and engage new clients. In time sometimes hours, sometimes months you will have a bona fide contact to invite to coffee to discuss mutually beneficial business matters. Using Twitter to seek out your prospects is efficient, time-saving and powerful. Attending networking events in person without having identified in advance if your potential customers are on the guest list is setting yourself up for failure.
Twitter users or tweeps send out a staggering 340 million tweets per day
By following people and businesses on Twitter, you'll often see if they're signed up for various networking organisations and you'll discover where your target audience congregates. Industryspecific events are bullseyes for your networking endeavours. Instead of the stab-in-the-dark approach, illuminate your potential and meet only those with whom you'd like to do business. It will spare you a great deal of footwork, time away from critical tasks and endless handshaking that delivers minimal results. Jump on Twitter today, set up your profile and start mingling!
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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Name
Long gone are the days when anonymity was critical on the Internet. After all, youre marketing your business. Avoiding mentioning your name makes no sense whatsoever. Use your real name in this field or if your Twitter account is for a company or even if you want to focus on your business name rather than your personal name then use your businesss trading name.
Twitter handle
You have to create a unique Twitter handle for your account. This identifies you specifically from all the other millions of Twitter users. This is typically your businesss trading name, or as close as possible. Some add au to handles when their business name is already taken.
Image
The image you use in your Twitter profile is key to being remembered. When people use Twitter, they become accustomed to seeing the same images popping up again and again as tweets flow into their stream. You can use a photo of yourself (but make sure its professional and easy to see), your logo or an item that is representative of what you offer.
Bio
Your Twitter bio can be a maximum of 160 characters, including spaces, punctuation, numbers and letters. Here is where you dont want to waste any opportunity to use all your characters. Your bio appears in notification emails to other Twitter users when they are advised that you have begun following them. You have that miniscule window of opportunity for them to consider following you back so make the most of it. Think long and hard about what information you include in your Twitter bio. Leave out superfluous, irrelevant information. Include keywords pertaining to your businesss offering because they will appear in searches when someone goes looking for what you do. Consider adding a call to action which could include a phone number or special offer. You can change your Twitter bio whenever you need to, to reflect current specials, a change of phone number or variations to your businesss offerings.
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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You can even include your web address or a shortened URL (using a service such as bit.ly) in your bio that leads to your preferred landing page on your website.
Location
Your location is vital, particularly if you run a business that depends on patronage from local customers. Remember, when people search for the products or services you offer, they will likely refine their search results to show location. Your suburb, town, state and country are relevant. If you mainly serve clients from overseas and your Australian location is a selling point then you may leave out your suburb and town.
Web address
In addition to including a web address in your actual bio, you are also able to add a URL to your general Twitter account. This should be easily readable, in other words, not a shortened URL or a long URL with complicated extensions. When people want to look up your business they want to know exactly where the link will take them, at least until your business is considered trustworthy and credible.
Background
You can create a Twitter background that everyone will see when they look up your profile. A custom background elevates your profile and makes it look like youre serious about your business. One thing to remember is that a Twitter background is static which means you cant create hyperlinks from it. It can be purely decorative, matched to your businesss branding, or it can feature information that you want viewers to see such as your logo, your tag line, key services offered or images of products you sell. Your design should be 240px wide and 700px high to account for common screen resolutions. This forms the visible left sidebar, while the remainder can be set by the background colour. Your Twitter profile is a marketing opportunity for your business. Capitalise on it as much as possible by including all the valuable information you can, without polluting it with irrelevant material. Revisit it every now and then to make sure its still up to date or else you could be losing leads!
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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Regular tweets
This is your garden variety tweet. Its up to you what you say, of course, but to make it count. Ask a question, make a statement, announce your specials, introduce your business, comment on a news item, provide gems of wisdom but try to make it something your followers will find worth reading. Yes, even at 140 characters, you have to stand out above the crowd!
Tweets mentioning the word marketing have a lower click through ratio!
Regular tweets appear in your timeline and on your profile page. They also appear in the timeline view of anyone who follows you. They wont appear on anyone elses profile page unless they retweeted for you.
Mentions
Sometimes you want to mention another Twitter user in a tweet. You may want to draw attention to them to thank them for helping you or to assist them in reaching a larger audience. By mentioning someone simply by typing the @ symbol directly before their Twitter handle, anywhere in the tweet except the very beginning all your followers will be made aware of them. So for instance, if you want to shout the praises of a Twitter friend, WhiteKnight who has just won an award, you will tweet something like: Wow! @WhiteKnight took out top honours at the Real Estate Awards last night! You may also want to attract someones attention by using a mention. Simply tweet: Hey, @WhiteKnight, congratulations! Mentions will appear in your timeline and on your profile page. For the recipient (the person youve mentioned with the @ symbol), they will appear in their regular timeline but also under their Mentions and Interactions tab on their profile page. Mentions will also appear in the recipients tweets timeline view if they are following you. In fact, anyone who is following the sender of a mention tweet will see it in their home timeline.
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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When you begin a tweet with another users Twitter handle, in reply to one of their tweets, it is known as an @reply. An example is if someone you follow has talked about something and you want to address them directly by reply. Your local fruiterer FruitCo, whom you follow, might tweet: Red apples have just arrived in our fruit store and you might reply: @FruitCo, save some for me, Ill be right over! @Replies are still public, i.e. visible to all who follow you, and can be read when anyone visits your profile page, but theres one difference. If you begin a tweet with @username, it wont appear in the standard timeline of anyone else who follows you unless they follow the person youve mentioned as well.
Direct Messages
Also known as DMs, a Direct Message is a private tweet sent directly between someone you follow and who follows you. No one else can view this tweet anywhere. When you DM someone, the tweet will appear in their Direct Messages area. You would send a Direct Message whenever the information you want to relay is private, confidential or completely irrelevant to anyone but that particular person. DMs are commonly used to exchange critical information such as phone numbers, addresses and email addresses that are not for public consumption.
Retweets
A retweet is when you want to share with all your followers, a tweet that youve seen by someone else. When someone you follow tweets something that would be of value to your own audience, retweeting their tweet makes it available to everyone who follows you. So lets say youre a grocery store owner and you follow a food manufacturer. One day, they tweet information about an important product recall. You would retweet to your followers and urge your customers to return the product for a refund.
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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Retweeting reinforces the authority of the tweet and conveys it more as first-hand information because the original tweeters username is shown in the tweet itself. To retweet, simply type the letters RT and then a space before the entire tweet, as follows: RT @SpaghettiTreats Important announcement! Tomato Sauce Spaghetti Treats have been recalled due to the presence of undeclared food allergens. Retweeting is made extra simple however by selecting the retweet option on your dashboard. Whether you use the standard Twitter.com interface or one of the many apps available (Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, etc), youll find a retweet button to simplify things.
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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1. Ask questions
Asking interesting questions can be a good way to draw some people out of lurking mode and get conversations started. The questions can relate to your business, or be general in nature (yes it's ok to be human). A survey is a more formalised way of asking questions but one that some people can't resist! It can also be anonymous so your followers get to respond without being 'outed'. When people are asked their opinion, they feel more a part of your community.
3. Be yourself
There's no need to create an online persona on Twitter. Many people meet some of their Twitter followers offline eventually. Don't let the 'real you' be a surprise!
4. Be consistent
No one likes mood swings or other personality inconsistencies in the real world. On Twitter, it can be just as obvious. Try to maintain balance in your Twitter engagement.
5. Use humour
Everyone enjoys sharing a laugh and Twitter folk are no different. Inject a little humour to break up your regular tweeting behaviours. Your sense of humour can make you more memorable as well as more approachable and that can help your business!
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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Alert your Twitter followers to both industry-specific and general news which is likely to be of interest to them. If you're among the first to inform your following, it will often lead to retweets and replies as your followers and their followers discuss the topic.
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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Share other people's tweets by retweeting posts that will be of interest to your followers. Add a comment if it will fit into the 140 character limit. In order to build an engaged and responsive Twitter following, you need to invest time to communicate and build trust. It's not much different to offline relationships in that respect. The more we all apply these tips, the more enjoyable and helpful the Twitter community will be.
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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What can you do with these social media dashboards that you can't on Twitter.com?
Instead of a single timeline, you can arrange Twitter lists and searches into multiple, easily digestible columns. Schedule tweets and direct messages to send automatically in the future. Manage multiple Twitter, Facebook LinkedIn and Foursquare accounts. Allow pop-ups for status updates. Customise RT's with your comments. Create and manage Twitter Lists. Follow Topics in real-time through saved searches. Automatically shorten links Filter columns by keywords to remove content youre not interested in.
Both Hootsuite and Tweetdeck (owned by Twitter) can be used as online applications, Tweetdeck requires installing an extension for the Google Chrome browser. Tweetdeck can also be downloaded and installed on your computer as a standalone application.
Twitter tip: Don't keep social media dashboards open all day or you'll never get any work done!
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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One limitation of Hootsuite is it lacks the ability to choose which new tweets you would like to be notified about. Some prefer to only be notified of @replies and mentions, to respond quickly and keep conversations going. Beyond this there are not significant differences between them for the majority of users. It's really down to personal preference as to which of these social media dashboards you choose. Both are used at ClickWebDesign.
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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Twitter lists: How to organise your tweetstream and see through the noise
Twitter is a massive source of information and communication, but you just cant listen to 1,000s of people at once! At some stage youll need a way to filter the noise and avoid missing the tweets youre most interested in. Twitter lists organize the nonstop data and communication that exists on Twitter, allows you to view tweets from particular accounts in isolation from all the others you are following, filtering the signal, or list topic from the noise. Interests, news, celebrities, organizations, industries, trends or hobbies, can be a topic assigned to a list. Lists are then populated with Twitter accounts that are relevant to the list topic. A "Fashion" list might include designers, clothing companies, periodicals, blogs, columnists, and events. Twitter tools known as social media dashboards make viewing your lists a breeze. Creating a column for each list allows tweets from 3-4 Twitter lists to be viewed on one screen. Tweetdeck and Hootsuite are the most popular social media dashboards. In business lists can be used as niche channels for marketing to particular groups, consumers or clients as just remember engaging your followers will be more fruitful than a direct message sales pitch! Keeping up with industry news has never been easier, find and create your list of industry experts. You will also be helping those you add to lists, creating networks by allowing others with similar interests to find these accounts. Twitter notifies people that they have been added to a list, so it wont be unnoticed, tweeps love being added to lists, as it grows their exposure.
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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Creating a Twitter list is simple. Establish the list objective, the type of list and the list name. Then follow these steps: 1. Locate the top navigation bar and select the profile's drop menu, or visit the Profile page and click the List tab. 2. Select Create list 3. Type in the list name (up to 25 characters, cannot start with a number). Enter a brief list description. Select private (accessible to account holder) or public, for all access subscription or following the list. 4. Click Save list. Twitter Help Center provides additional guidance, including maximum number of lists and list users.
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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Tweet Adder helps you quickly build lists of targeted people to follow. There are several methods available:
Search tweets by keyword and location. Search profile data (bio's) by keyword and location. Add followers of a Twitter user. Add Twitter users followed by one particular user. Add Twitter lists created by other users.
Suppose your business deals with Australian accountants. A profile search for the keyword "Accountant", with the location "Australia" instantly returns a targeted list of potential new clients. I can't stress enough how important this is for efficient Twitter marketing. Once you've generated your list of people to follow, simply switch on the follow automation. Tweet Adder will start following your list adding a natural delay between follows until your list is exhausted or a preset follower ratio is reached. Automatically unfollow those that haven't followed you back within a number of days (typically set to 4 days). This cleans your tweetstream of those that aren't interested in your tweets, and allows you to follow more people without hurting your follower ratio - the ratio of people youre following to those following back. Making a connection is just the first step - engage your new Twitter followers in conversation to develop relationships rather than just chasing numbers. There are many other features of Tweet Adder you may like to explore. Automated tweeting is a feature which generates much discussion. A drawback is that you can't schedule specific times, tweets are sent randomly during a set time period. To schedule specific times use a social media dashboard like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite. Auto Direct Messages are another feature that should be used with caution, Twitter folk quickly develop a blindness to auto DM's which makes them ineffective. Tweet Adder can manage multiple profiles, for one profile the licence costs $55. This really is a small expense when considering the 1000's of targeted contacts it can generate from searching, and following relevant Twitter accounts, other features are just a bonus. Checkout these Twitter tools now to spring clean and grow your Twitter following. Don't waste hours of your time doing these tasks manually and hoping for people to find you.
How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au
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How To Use Twitter for Business Success 2012 ClickWebDesign all rights reserved. www.ClickWebDesign.com.au