Twitter is a simple social media platform. You follow people, people follow you, and you post 140 character updates called tweets. Really, that’s all there is to it. However, I believe that it is because of it’s simplicity that it is so difficult for people to figure out how to use it to their advantage, or even how to use it to begin with.
If you have set up a Twitter account for your business, you need to be using it and you need to be active on it. If not, get rid of it.
You should have goals for your Twitter account. In general, good goals for Twitter include growing a quality set of followers, as well as engaging and conversing with people on Twitter. Both are equally important. It does you no good to have a ton of followers and never talk to them, and it also doesn’t do you much good to talk to the same five people every day. Fortunately, these two goals are intimately linked and these three best practices will help you reach those goals.
Follow New People
If you want more followers, go out and start following the people that you want to follow you. Who is your ideal client or customer? Follow them. Who do you commonly partner with? Follow them. My only recommendation with this is that you don’t follow too many people before they follow you back. We always say don’t let the number of people you are following be more than about 100 more than are following you.
Join a Twitter Party
Twitter parties are great for connecting with new people. Try to find one that relates to your industry. Or, better yet, find one that relates to the industry that your ideal customer is in. What better way to start talking to your potential customers, than to join a conversation with them about a topic you are both interested in?
Connect With Your Existing Network
Seems straight forward, but it’s shocking how many people don’t connect with the people they already know! This is a great way to get you started on the right foot if you don’t have many followers already. Start talking to them and retweeting what they are tweeting. And, since almost everything on Twitter is public, you might find new people to follow or connect with just by looking at the people who you already know are connected to.
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