Many businesses simply hop into Twitter and go for a ride. While it is admirable that they want to begin their Social Media adventure so quickly, it is not surprising when they crash and burn. Just like anything good in this life Twitter takes time and work to be worthwhile.
As a way to help ease business owners into Twitter I have devised 5 simple rules that anyone can use to build a Twitter stategy.
1. Brand Identity
Your business has a brand. Your brand is what users will identify you with. If your brand identity is not concrete you will be unwittingly creeping out users. People need context to coordinate their thoughts. If they never know who or what they are talking to when interacting with you they will be less likely to open up and enjoy the experience. Multiple personality disorder is a no-no on Twitter. Stick to one voice and you will do alright.
2. Know your audience
Getting to know people you have never met before can be tough. If it were easy everyone would be doing it, right? Your job as a business owner is to find out who you need to be talking to and how it will help your business. If you currently do not have an audience then you have the glorious privilege of choosing one. Regardless, solidifying your specific audiences will help you craft targeted content that will push the needle for you brand.
3. Great Content helps
While your Tweets can be anything under the sun, they shouldn’t be. Your mission as a brand is to help your consumers. That is what business is all about and it does not stop when customers leave through your doors. Great brands find ways to help their customers at home AND in store. Twitter is designed for information distribution, which makes it a natural venue for awesome content marketing. Create content that your users will benefit from and you will grow engaged followers that crave your business.
4. Keep it Simple
140 characters is great. The problem is that consumers won’t even read that little bit. It might seem counter-intuitive but keep your Tweets as short and sweet as you can. Most users will not read past 50 characters unless the content is absolutely amazing. While you may think your newest piece of content descended from the heavens itself it is better to keep it short just in case. No reason to make something just to have it crash and burn from a bad lead-in.
5. Engage and Interact
This is THE most important Rule. Your brand has to engage with its following. Pushing content and never actually speaking to a user makes you look like a robot. No one likes talking to robots. Except maybe robotics engineers, but that is beside the point. Talking to your following gives your brand a human element that users want to see. They want to know there is a human on the other side of that Tweet that wants to communicate with them. If you can give them that consistently you will far exceed many others on this platform.
These 5 rules, when taken to heart zealously, will guide you through Twitter. Breaking any one of these rules will harm your brand and damage your reputation.
Stick with them and they will serve you well.
Alec the Media Guy 