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:
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.
Gail Gardner
Twitter is all about connecting with people and offering value., humor, etc. You must give people a reason to want to see what you have to say.
What an interesting article. I’m just starting to use twitter and realizing too that you have to relate to your audience, have to retweet the good stuff, and have to inject humor! Thanks Gail for an informative read.
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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…
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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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.
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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?
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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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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.
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
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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.
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.
Thanks for posting this topic,I think it help us,as I use twitter to for promotion,but I cant get the proper result,i think it would help us.
Thanks for the info! We just created our first Twitter acount last week, I have been struggling to figure out what to write about. The link you listed for the Business Guide is exactly what I needed.
Amidst of all the confusions among businessmen that leads them to a wrong path and sometimes resulting into failure, this is the perfect guide specifically to the newbies and planning to mingle their business inside the Twitter World. RT or should I say retweeting other blogs that is relevant to your business is important in expanding business. Well, I guess I find it really helpful for everyone who loves to join this social media site.
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Thank you for the information in this article. I have just opened a Twitter account today and will use your advice to help me in my marketing strategy.
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There are really people who keep on tweeting for their business without thinking that they might be over exposing their business. It would be better to put personal touches on our accounts so that we wouldn’t be tagged as spammers.
I thought this article was so good that I passed it around the office in hopes that we can get a better handle on our Twitter strategy.
I agree having a twitter account is definitely beneficial to both you as well your clients. It can be difficult to keep up but as you mentioned with programs that assist you, it becomes a little easier. There are so many spam twitter accounts out there, it is very important to not come across as a spammer. Great information, thanks 🙂
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ABSOLUTELY! I always tell my clients to “take it easy” with the marketing attempts in certain cases. Being overly-promotional and not personal enough on twitter makes you look like a spam-bot, basically. I know I’ve actually unfollowed people on twitter before, just for being overly promotional (like reading a series of advertisements).
Freddy K
Twitter is a very powerful resource for helping your business to grow, but you have to apport good information that can interest people for following you
Oh.. So it is, the reason why I failed using Twitter for promoting my business. I was lacking in communication with my followers. Thanks for the tips. Now I’m sure I can do much better than before.
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You make some great points in this post. It’s so important that your twitter account doesn’t sound like such an overt advertisement of your company. Personally, I tweet pretty infrequently about information directly related to my company. You have to put yourself in your followers’ shoes. How would you respond to a constant bombardment with such aggressive forms of advertisement? If it’s not something you feel as though you’d be interested to read, then your followers probably won’t either and you shouldn’t be tweeting it.
Occasional tweets about your business keeps people interested, tweeting all the way about your business makes them hate you. And also , there isn’t any protocol that refrains you from involving other people in your tweets.
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There is a big misconception in this social networking site with the businessmen. I think it is okay to tweet the advertisement about your business but first, you need to build a ‘good relationship’ with other people. Follow their tweets and the things that you should be posting on your account (something that is interesting and can enthrall their interest).
I’m afraid that I, as well, do not know how to use Twitter properly. I need to read more info like this to understand a good marketing approach for my tweets.
You are right. Some people don’t understand that Twitter is a tool to create good relationships, to be in contact with readers, friends and costumers. It’s not a good idea to use your twitter profile only to advertise with no value.
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Today everyone just thinks to be as rich & famous like Steve Jobs or Warren Buffet but they fail to understand that they also didn’t accomplish their tasks in a single day??? They also struggled for months altogether & than only they could see the ray of success aligning ahead of them!! I don’t understand why people want to show all such stuffs on micro blogging site like Twitter where you won’t get much of recognition & also you have limited scope to market your business. I agree it should be a part, but whole & soul depending on it is sheer foolishness!! There are plenty other options like Facebook, Google Adsense, also can start with blogs of their own to help them achieve their tasks & reach them to the topmost position!! They also shouldn’t forget that, “Rome was not built in a day”!!! Agree???
Thank you! Now if people will follow it! On the same vein, people who, day in and day out, continually post variations of: Find out how to get more customers! Find out why you don’t have customers! Here’s my free thing on getting more customers! Have you seen my information on getting more customers! They have once piece of information and run it into the ground. They also never try to actually connect with anyone who follows them. I might be interested in your information but you can’t take one second to GET MORE CUSTOMERS FOR YOURSELF! ROFL!!!
Twitter is about building relationships. (c)
this is what it is for. i personally hate reading posts like “visit us at … it’s great!” hope in the future eveyone will keep in mind what twitter is for. by the way, the same situation is at facebook groups…
A lot of us have been hooked up in tweeter. And i strongly agree that you should not just keep on tweeting about your business. So in order to have a successful business, you should limit the things you post on tweeter. These are really great tips especially to those who do not fully understand the use of tweeter. This could help them build a better relationship with their customer. Tweeter is one of the easiest way to connect to your customers so use it well so as to protect your company from scams.
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I don’t think businesses are run with money?? They require some unique ideas which can help them progress ahead with such patience & temperament which will surely gain them more money!! Also, Twitter fails to draw you much of business as it fails to reach thousands of them as people don’t prefer Twitter over Facebook as it doesn’t allow you to emphasis your product range & also availability of customers!!!
In todays business, this is really a so true scenario. Many are aiming to get recognize, without realizing that sometimes it’s a bit of redundancy. Instead, why not compensate for something advantageous, for the whole not for ourself only.
I think the reason most small online and offline businesses don’t have Twitter accounts is because they’re usually manned by one to a handful of people; and they’re having a hard enough go of it handling inventory, bookkeeping, and other daily tasks necessary just to keep their business afloat, without having something else to do. On the other hand, big corporations can afford to hire people just to handle social media…
Hey Gail,
I think every company needs to read this. Companies that don’t know how to tweet annoy me.
Great tips.
That was one mistake that I regreted ever since. I have not used Twitter in a correct manner and I get less followers. I have been researching on effective ways on how I can make use of it for my business and as well as on how I can communicate well with my followers. I have learned my lessons and I’ve been practicing my interaction skills. And what I feel is great for I’ve known a lot of people…and we often do chat. That’s what I love about Twitter.
Great article! Consumers nowadays are so inundated with “white noise” – ads (whether they be in the form of email, tweets, or print) that are one sided in their approach to engage (basically they add up to “buy me”, “pay me” or “try me”). As you point out, the old adage “know your customer” is the key to creating a relevant Twitter feed (or Facebook page) that attracts and interacts with your target audience.
I think about 25% should be about you. the other 75% about other related stuff.
I’ve seen alot of people do nothing but spam Twitter over and over like you show in your example and it just turns people off and causes them to unfollow that person.
I must say I really love twitter but this is one of its biggest problems. Everyday I get followed by bots just spamming the twittosphere with their useless ads (I refuse to call them tweets). Don’t these companies understand that they are just hurting their image. Sure, they may generate some traffic to their website through these links but what is the value of this traffic if there is no relationship between the visitor and the brand?
Wim
Many businesses just do tweeting of their products for namesake!! They don’t understand the logic behind such gimmicks on Twitter & other social sites too where they just love publishing some nonsensical stuffs which boils out customers!! They don’t understand that rapport between customers & company is the most important criteria which need to be fulfilled!!! They should also understand that you interact with your customers to increase your efficiency & overwrite your mistakes just to be on the peak in your field!! Agreed??
I kinda Tweet from my personal/business account things I would like to read myself, I don’t think you can go wrong with that unless you have very weird tastes. About following who follows you, I thought just like you once, but I have become kinda more picky with time, as I don’t really see the point of following someone I am totally not interested in (different niche, different interests, even different language sometimes… I am sorry but I really don’t speak german).
I think that building a trustworthy reputation is probably the first thing to do, rather than forcing a business down peoples throats, after all, people will soon get sick of blatant self promotion in a short period of time 😉
So true… most businesses overdo promotion and neglect the importance of customer relation. In fact that is the purpose of social media to connect and build connection.
Thanks for your great tips. These are great! I found it very true when you RT people’s tweets, they will more likely to RT back yours. I also have researched more on the automated process since you mentioned it.
Excellent roadmap for how businesses can use Twitter successfully. One of my criteria for whether or not I’ll follow someone back is – do you have a well balanced mix of tweets? Do you RT for other people? I think one of the best ways to bring value to your followers is to share information that you yourself have benefited from, found funny or somehow thought tweet worthy.
I love that your examples don’t have profile pics too. Great job!
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Retweeting other related businesses’ tweets (if you’re friends with them) wouldn’t hurt either. If you only talk about yourself, your timeline actually becomes boring. And of course, please get over the egg profile pic.
It’s true I think many businesses don’t know any better and have no clue how to use Twitter or social marketing. It does take a little getting used to as it is so much different than old school marketing where you just bombard your customers until they finally give in.
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