The number one mistake that businesses (and individuals) make with Twitter is to not fully put it to good use – to have an account, but to only use it for the occasional marketing promo, the sporadic chirp. It’s been said before – you cannot simply ‘set it and forget it.’ You need to fully engage with your followers, your audience, and the overall Twitter population. Put another way – you must interact with your past, current, and even potential customers.
It doesn’t matter how many followers you have – it matters on how you engage with those followers as well as the rest of the Twitter world. The forum can be a noisy place (think high school cafeteria before prom), and it’s a platform where the extroverted get themselves noticed. However, introverted individuals who may struggle in real-time social situations find that Twitter can give you a voice. Tweeting with those in your community, your base of followers can give even the quietest of people a chance to make some noise.
So just how does one become the greatest communicator they can be on Twitter?
- Do not be shy to retweet, mention, favorite, and respond directly to other users – like Nike, just do it. And then do it again. And again.
- Make it a common practice to participate in chats that involve your skillset, product, or service.
- Be yourself! Just like in the real world, if you’re not being authentic people can tell.
- Present good content at a high volume. Your tweets should consist of a mix of both individual works as well as blogs, articles, and posts from people in your circle.
- Be responsive (and be polite). If someone tweets at you, to you, or mentions you, be sure to respond, communicate, or thank them in a timely manner.
- Be visual. It’s proven that when tweets use photos and pictures that there is an increase in engagement (the same goes for Facebook posts).
- Selling a product or service? Use the ‘search’ box at the top of the screen to type in exactly what you are selling. Sure enough, a number of tweets will pop up with your subject matter…then communicate directly with those users whose tweets pop up. This is a great way on Twitter to build a brand, to find your customers and potential buyers.
- Think of yourself as needing to be on the offensive in order to get your brand out there. Make it a point to (first) engage with new users; (second) interact and communicate; before (third) asking them if they’d be interested in your product or service.
- Speaking of asking, feel free to ask users to retweet your work. (A simple ‘please retweet’ will do the trick!).
- You cannot just post something that right away says…”Hey, buy my product!” Or… “Hey, use our service!” …and then only list your website with a few pertinent hashtags. Sure, you might get a few site clicks for the hashtag but beyond that won’t you gain any real customers. You need to ‘work the room’.
In summary, the way to become the great(est) communicator on Twitter is to do just that – communicate.
Focus your attention on this keystone of social media marketing, and then work to excel at it. You’re going to need to engage, participate, and interact… you have done the leg work. With that, you must have great content and an even better product or service. It used to be that you could put an ad in a newspaper, or hang a sign on Main Street, and people would check out your work. Today though, you cannot simply post an ad on your own website or on Twitter and hope for the best… you need to put yourself out to your audience.
Tap into as many conversations as you can. You’re not spamming the users, you’re being polite, having good conversation and dialogue, and finding common ground with a potential client. After you’ve both come to realize that you have a common interest, one that’s going to bring you both value, well… that’s when you can pop the question at large. “Perhaps you’d be interested in our product?” (In other words: “Will you go to prom with me?”)
