Setting up Twitter for Business
by Yolandi on 26/10/09 at 1:00 pm
2 comments
Twitter is a great way of adding value to your company’s online identity. When it comes to setting up Twitter for business, it’s as easy as clicking on the “Sign up now” button. After that, you just set up a profile under the name of your company (keep your username short) and making sure the profile is fully completed such as adding the company logo and website. When people want to check out what your business is about, they need to see it on your profile. Now, there are two important channels you need to follow (pun intended) to use Twitter for Business: Follow Me and Follow You.
Follow Me refers to getting people to follow your company on Twitter. It’s important to set aside some time everyday to spend on tweeting. When tweeting, try to offer your followers something of value such as interesting links to other blogs or news about the industry. You can of course tweet about company news, latest blog posts and press releases but don’t overdo it. Find the balance between the two. If you sound too promotional or self-serving people won’t follow you and you can actually end up damaging your company brand. Remember to be real about this. Engage in the community. People that follow you want to know that there is an actual person sitting behind a PC or Laptop typing these tweets they see. So, respond to others, comment on other tweets and retweet. It’s all about the personal touch and personality of your company.
Follow You refers to how you should go about following other people on Twitter. Don’t go following a few 100 people – it’s sort of like twitspam. When following a person, check their relevance to your business. Are they in the same industry? Do you know them? A Client perhaps? Also, follow people that interest you and your company. When you follow someone of relevance they’ll most likely end up following you back. Now, do it in reverse as well – start following people that follow you. Not everyone, but those who interest you once again. When you’ve set all of this up start monitoring what people are saying about your company and follow those people. Also, when someone does say something about your company – respond to it. People like to know that you care what they have to say.
This should be efficient to get you started on Twitter. When you’ve grown accustomed with tweeting, following and interacting with your twitter community you can look at setting up profiles for your employees as well and get them to promote your company brand. Some wagons are meant to be jumped on – Twitter is one of them! If you still don’t get the whole Twitter frenzy just check out the Twitter in Plain English youtube video which will explain everything in a short and easy way.
Yolandi Janse van Rensburg writes about social media, marketing, life and, of course, cars. We say “of course” because Yolandi is nuts about anything on 4 wheels. Besides moonlighting as the Heavy Chef girl at World Wide Creative, Yolandi runs Autofemme, a blog about cars, as a business on the side. View more articles by Yolandi.
Tags: Twitter, Twitter for Business
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