Twitter Top Ten Tips

Twitter is easy to use but with a little more effort, it can be more rewarding. For example, most people manage to follow a few people when they first set up their twitter account and then they tweet, sometimes sporadically, sometimes frequently. Here are some tips for optimising Twitter for your business.


1. Are you tweeting as a person or a company? The two are (or should be) quite different unless, of course, you are the company. A corporate account should not compromise the company with personal views or opinions. You can, of course, set up an account for each.

2. Review your Twitter profile. Is it still accurate and is it interesting? Personal accounts are best with a head-shot image or other icons that represent your personality but please don't leave the generic starter pic on your profile.

3. Occasional promotional tweets about your products or services (with relevant links) are fine but the majority of tweets should be informative or entertaining to engage followers, e.g. links to an interesting blog post.

4. Occasional re-tweets, #FFs, responses to @others show that you interact with the Twitter community.

5. Don't just tweet links to general news* because people have probably already seen it. And don't be tempted to tweet rubbish just because you can't think of anything else! Imagine being the recipient of boring twaddle - you would soon 'unfollow'.

6. *Instead, tweet items that you found to be interesting and add a comment to explain why.

7. Give value to your followers - tweet tips or links to tips within your area of expertise.

8. Respond to questions on twitter, especially within your area of expertise. You can ask questions, too.

9. Unless you regularly do so, make an effort, perhaps once a month, to review your followers and follow some back. In addition to finding people to follow within your industry, follow local businesses too.

10. Finally, please refrain from just setting up automated tweet facilities. It's OK to have your LinkedIn and FaceBook Page posts tweeted but if you don't read tweets, you can't interact with the Twitter community and you will lose much of the value it could bring.