Twitter is an excellent way to keep with people in your industry. It’s also a way to chat casually with people. It possesses the photo-sharing features of Pinterest, but invites more conversation. It also mimics some of the conversational aspects of Facebook, but keeps the chat short, making it easy to chat on a lunch break. If you’ve not really used your Twitter account to its fullest, you’ll want to try these five suggestions to get yourself up to speed on the chat.
1. The Right Bio
As a business owner, your bio should be more than a bio. It should be a 160-character explanation of what your business can do for others. The Xyngular bio provides a good example of this elevator-pitch bio. From this short piece, you know the company is into a holistic approach to health that will quickly get its customers the results they want.
When you’re writing up your bio, make sure that you tell would-be clients exactly what your product or service can do for them. Use actionable verbs. Write and rewrite it until it encapsulates your business philosophy in a nutshell.
2. Use Your Header Graphic
Your Twitter account’s header should be like a billboard of sorts. The Social Media Examiner suggests using this space to tell your story. To do this, you can either repeat your bio or add information.
This is actually a helpful step and maybe not for the reasons you think. Many business owners make the mistake of asking people to buy their product in every tweet. Instead of doing this, carry on conversations with people. Let them see what you do and follow up. The 80/20 rule is good to follow. Eighty percent of your tweets should be helpful and conversational. Twenty percent should be promotional.
3. Join a Twitter Chat
Twitter chats are an underutilized tool. If you’ve never joined a Twitter chat, make a point of doing so. They’re simple in concept. Basically, a person or organization organizes an open conversation on Twitter. Followers of the chat follow a special hashtag (the pound # symbol) that allows them to keep track of the conversation.
For example, if you’re a restaurant owner, you may want to participate in the #foodiechat on Mondays. This chat is organized around the topic of food and often, food-related travel. Foodies from all over the world show up, post pictures of their favorite dishes, and get to know one another. Of course, food-industry people use this time to interact and get new clients, too.
The good news is you don’t have to be a foodie to do a chat. You can search Twitter for chats in your industry, using keywords plus the word “chat.” You can also do a Google search for Twitter chats. There are quite a few websites that list known chats. Find some in your industry or organize your own.
4. Follow the Right People
This is a corollary to the above suggestion. Who you follow on your Twitter account determines the quality of your Twitter wall. It also shows you at a glance who you might want to tag when you’re having a Twitter chat. It additionally allows you to keep track of your customers, your suppliers, industry experts, and other opinion leaders.
5. Link to Your Website/ Blog
You’re given a couple of opportunities to link to your blog or your website. In the bio section of your Twitter account, there is a place for a link. You also have the option of putting your blog’s URL in a tweet. (Be sure to use a URL shortener like Bit.ly or Goo.gl. You only have 140 characters to work with. A long URL will take up most of the tweet.)
It goes without saying that you’ll put your link in promotional tweets, but not all tweets have to be promotional. If you’re participating in, say, #MondayBlogs, put a link back to your blog on that tweet in a non-promotional way. Anytime you can legitimately link to your site because you have helpful information that’s not promotional, you should do it.
Twitter can be a great business asset if you know how to use it. If you haven’t been using it to promote your business, you’ll want to set up an account and start tweeting. Although this list gives you a good starting point, you should invest some time into learning how to use this tool. Your business will benefit in the long run.