Quick Start Guide for Small & Medium Business Users of Twitter – Part 1

Today I attended a Business Link Southampton and Isle of Wight Peer Group Learning presentation and networking session on Social Media, given by David Vane (@DavidVane) of Workzsmarter.com, which had a very enthusiastic reception from the audience.

David’s introductory presentation stimulated a raft of practical questions from people new to twitter or people who have yet to see the potential value of twitter in helping their business.

This has prompted me to collect my thoughts and answers to some of the questions into a quick start guide aimed at the new or sceptical business users of twitter.

So lets get started…

How do I get started on Twitter?

Very easy just go to twitter.com and sign up – its free and easy.

tip1: If you use Skype, LinkedIn or other online networking or social media sites I recommend you use the same or similar username / id to maintain brand consistency.

tip2: If you are signing up as your business use your business name or keyword as your twitter brand.

tip3: You can have more than one twitter account. So if you want you can have one for your ‘professional’ self, one for your business and one for your personal stuff. However I suggest just starting with one for your business / professional persona and see how things progress.

OK… but I don’t know / have nothing what to say?

Well the common answer is ‘Just write about what your doing’ or ‘Write about what your interested in’. Whilst this is fine I wouldn’t (and didn’t) go about it this way!

Instead think about what you want to get out of twitter for your business…and follow some people who tweet on stuff relevant to your business interests

Well fine but how do I find people to follow?

Whilst you are thinking about this , I suggest you search on topics / phrases / key words that interest you and your business try: twitter search or if you use a twitter desktop client (more on these later) try using the search function in that.

When you find ‘tweets’ that are of interest to you simply click follow – to start following these people – it you find out later that they aren’t that interesting then you can just unfollow them – its that easy.

Then once you are following a few twitter users (tweeps) have a look at their profiles and look at who they are following and also who else is following them – you are sure to find some other people that have interesting profiles and tweets.

Then wait a few days and see how twitter works and what people tweet. You’ll soon see the sort of tweets that a) interest you and get you to click links and b) which tweets get ‘re-tweeted’ (RT @username …) because people find it interesting or worth repeating to their followers.

Now – how should you go about tweeting for your business?

Successful businesses users are tending to take 3 main approaches with twitter;

1. As a promotional tool (Marketing) – making tweets that stimulate interest and drive traffic towards company websites, blogs or other call to actions, whilst growing their number of followers.

2. As a method to connect with their customers (listening) – following their customers, partners and prospects. Also checking out competitors and following their followers and looking for other key influencers their marketplace.

3. Following key thought leaders and business peers (networking) – selecting people with similar interests or domains of expertise as well as leaders and influencers – following and participating in twitter exchanges and chats on key subjects.

Most successful business users of twitter employ a blend of all 3 ways with the balance determined by what they want out of twitter.

Attracting Followers

You’ve started building up a collection of people you follow – and probably a few of these have ‘auto-followed’ you in return. You now want to build a collection of useful / influencing followers.

In the same way that you found people to follow above – you need to make yourself ‘findable’ and ‘attractive’ . To do this remember it is the content of your tweets that people will find in search engines and also key words in your twitter profile using the twitter find people search engine.

So for approach (1) tweet on key phrases that your customers use in reference to your businesses product or service. Think about what valuable outcome your customers obtained or what key issues you solved. Be pithy and stimulating in you choice of words and remember a call to action – i.e. include a link to your bog post, website or other internet content – could even be a link to a webinar or other event for instance…

For approach (2) the principle is similar but content should be more about empathy and pointing to solution to problems or inviting followers to join community of interest sites relevant to your business such as a Ning site or your support forums etc.

For approach (3) your tweets should be challenging, stimulating and thought provoking – comment on other peoples blogs, express your opinion on key issues within your domain of expertise, re-tweet people whose tweets interest and stimulate you. Also look out for twitter chats on that you can join and participate in – there is no barrier to joining in and most would welcome valuable contributors – for instance I find great value from #smchat which happens every Wednesday at 17:00 GMT.

OK I think that’s enough for Part 1.

In Part 2 I will comment on tools and websites to enchance your twitter experience and make your more effective at tweeting and I will also give my views on good tweeting and bad tweeting as well as some guidance on business risks related to tweeting.

Feel free to contact, comment or follow me;

@PaulEllisUK