Most businesses that are new to Twitter make the same mistake. It seems like the right thing to do when you want to use Twitter to promote what you do, but it just doesn’t work. Their Twitter feed contains nothing but tweets like these:
Actual Twitter feed obscured to protect the Business
When someone clicks through to your Twitter page and sees nothing but what amounts to advertisements for your business they will not follow you – and you have lost the ability to connect with them. So what DOES work?
Twitter is about building relationships. For a business, if you build relationships with those who are most likely to be interested in what you have to offer, when they need what you have they already know where to find you.
If your business operates locally your first priority is relationships with people in the geographic area you serve; however, you should be equally friendly to anyone who follows or interacts with you because they could have friends or family in your area or be researching for a client.
Just as most business owners do not turn away potential buyers at the door, you should welcome those who follow you on Twitter – unless they are obviously the online variety of a con artists also known as spammers who follow people and send them messages only to try to sell them something.
Some businesses new to Internet marketing do this because they don’t know any better; others because it works for them and they are too selfish to care about other people’s time. You do NOT want to be a spammer. You want to be a friendly, neighborhood business. (If you sell globally you simply have a much larger neighborhood.)
What SHOULD You Tweet?
Whatever you feel your potential customers who are following you would be most interested in, such as:
- Local News and unusual weather.
- Human interest stories
- Some humor now and then.
- Retweet things your followers share that you find interesting.
If you have time to do this consistently, do not despair. There are practical, acceptable ways to automate your Twitter feed. What we do is identify blogs that regularly publish the highest quality, most relevant content that would interest your followers and use a tool like Twitterfeed to automatically share that content with your followers.
We use another tool to automatically follow those who follow you. While this does have the drawback of following accounts you would not choose to follow manually there is no serious downside to that. The up-side is that you do not have to worry about getting busy and forgetting to follow the real people who want to reach you.
Even though you can put your Twitter account on auto-pilot it really works best if you spend at least a little time actually using it yourself. We automate what we can and then you only spend your precious time doing the fun part – actually chatting with people who want to know more about your business.
Every business should have a Twitter account because it is a really easy way for potential customers to reach you. Many people are tired of leaving voicemails and trying to find real emails in a sea of spam. For them, sending a quick tweet is a great way to see if your business is responsive and get a quick answer to a question they have.
Answering only takes a few minutes a day – unless you get super-popular in which case you can make lots of sales and hire someone to help! The number one way to close more sales and get more leads is to be responsive. People only buy when they feel confident they know what they’re doing. Answer their questions and they are far more likely to buy.
Today Twitter came out with a Twitter for Business Guide and we have a very good Twitter Best Practices post that contains links to all the processes we use. If you don’t want to do this yourself, setting businesses up on Twitter and teaching them one-on-one how to use it is one of the services we offer and part of our Small Business Internet Marketing Starter Package.
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I think Twitter is only useful for a business from a customer service point of view. Using twitter is pointless for marketing, so businesses need to understand that sooner rather than later.
Twitter is useless for business and personal use if you ask me.
Social media isn’t my cup of tea.
Aldo Google+ is good for business use.
Nieuwsgroep would love you to read ..Spotnet
Twitter: GrowMap
March 18, 2013 at 4:37 am
Hello,
Twitter is the fastest way to connect with busy people who don’t have time to answer the flood of email they get or who have gatekeepers on their only methods of communication. It is also fast for sharing and spreading links between influencers.
Google Plus originally was pretty much like talking to yourself until they started communities. Those make it worthwhile because finally a significant number of people interested in a specific topic will actually see what you share. See Best Google Plus Communities.
GrowMap would love you to read ..Twitter Best Practices: How to Use Twitter Effectively ~ Make Twitter Work for YOU [UPDATED Feb 16, 2013]
Twitter is a great tool if you use it correctly. Unfortunately though, too many people use as a social tool rather than a business tool and write too many tweets for the sake of it.
Twitter: allaboutmexican
March 12, 2012 at 5:52 am
a good twitter relationship can really help in your online success.
fresh salsa would love you to read ..A Simple Quesadilla Recipe
Twitter: matthewacoleman
March 9, 2012 at 3:09 am
relationships really is the lifeblood of a successful twitter profile…build and nurture it
Twitter is a social network, when you first meet someone for the first time you don’t pitch them on your business, you must make nice conversations first, build relationships and then tell people what you do. You’ll get better results that way…
Twitter: claysonya84
February 11, 2012 at 7:52 pm
Nice guide. I’m just starting to use twitter and I’ve asked the same questions as well, whether to tweet about my business so often or not. You clarified this – thanks.
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Definitely true. Basically social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and many others come with the intention to build interaction between two persons. Rather we have taken it as business tool and definitely wrong. True power should be found in your relationship. Why you keep hope with other way. Thanks for sharing.
Twitter: BrianHumek
November 8, 2011 at 9:01 am
I’m amazed at how many businesses simply buy followers and also buy tweets. I have a friend who has a few hundred followers and I know he knows nothing about twitter. He has the same fifty tweets in his twitter stream. They repeat at different intervals, but still, they’re all automated. Unbelievable.
I always check out my followers, if they don’t @reply on a regular basis, if they are not social, I don’t follow back. I hate that.
Gail, can you please follow me @brianhumek. I think I follow you already, if not, I did so on another account but am consolidating my twitter accounts into one.
Brian would love you to read ..Stock Photo of Lucky’s Cafe in Dallas
Twitter: GrowMap
November 8, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Hi Brian,
I continually delete comments from people who sell Twitter followers, tweets and Facebook Friends because I don’t want my readers to fall for any of that nonsense. Your friend probably has his bots tweeting to their bots.
Twitter has a really weird but since last night that is unfollowing other influential bloggers I follow. I click follow and it says following but if I refresh the page I’m not following them again. I must not have been following that one of your Twitter accounts because Twitter let me follow you just now and didn’t unfollow you.
The problem only affects influencers who follow each other and interact. See http://getsatisfaction.com/twitter/topics/people_we_know_follow_each_other_show_not_following – ANYONE who sees that bug needs to try to post in that thread so there is a record.
IF someone DOES post in that thread and their posts disappear please LET ME KNOW. If you know any bloggers who want to collaborate to grow a Twitter account for the Dallas metro area let me know? I already have one started but have limited time to grow it. I would love to find an apprentice who wants to learn advanced Twitter skills in exchange for doing simple tasks. If you know anyone send them my way?
growmap would love you to read ..Why Your Geographic Location IS a Niche
Good post about twitter.
It is obvious that people don’t want to follow some boring company advertising itself on twitter. We get flooded with advertisement enough already. We want the human connection with the company. Not be treated like a walking wallet.
(If you sell globally you simply have a much larger neighborhood.)
I loved that one, haha.
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I absolutely agree. Social Media is called Social Media because you need to interact with others. Intereaction with customers can help generate sales, shouting at somebody about your ‘special offers’ will simple turn people off. And why would you follow???
Good article and good examples.
So another suggestion to exposure on social networking is a platform to share some of the behind -the-scenes reality versions of another day in day out communication. And advertising can only do so much. It seems the variety of artificial intelligence and the ‘old school’ business practices are learning how to break the mold. Congrats, making mistakes that we can chat about and grow from is working.
Twitter: thinkmachone
August 10, 2011 at 12:19 pm
Great article and one that I wish was mandatory for all Twitter users to read before tweeting their tweet.
I think i’m going to give twitter a try for my business.
Thank you for the tips!
Gemma
gemma would love you to read ..slider1
Twitter: membermoney
June 29, 2011 at 8:22 am
I can’t use twitter properly too as I don’t have even one visit from it.
Yeah, you’re totally right. I think it’s stupid to only talk about your services or your products. It is more interesting to add some informative or helpful content.
Posting your business in tweeter is indeed quite great idea. Yes by posting you share a lot or anything about the company, however you can predict the reaction of the market that sometimes people over react or give irrelevant topics which make the post less sensible when someone read the post. Though, i do appreciate the though of posting your business on the tweeter.
Thank you for the post. Very informative and it’s such an eye opener. A lot of us use Twitter for advertising and promotions to no avail. We are totally clueless, we’re exactly doing the dont’s you have presented. I will change strategies with my Twitter promotions from now on. And thanks for that great help.
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