A Twits Guide to Twitter Promotion… 10 Top Tips

If you are not using Twitter effectively, you are missing out on a serious opportunity for promoting your business. For those that do not already know, Twitter is an online service, designed to let family, friends and workers chat and stay in touch. Twitter famously asks the question; “what are you doing?”

As well as being a great place to socialise, twitter can be an amazing tool for promoting your business, but only if you know how to work it… here is a mini guide to working with Twitter. The first few tips are about how to get started on Twitter, and then we move on to how to get followers. Finally, we look at what to do with the followers when you have them. We assume you guys and gals are capable of actually registering for an account at twitter.com yourselves.

1) Be Human, and promote interaction. If you already have a few friends on twitter, be sure to instigate communications. This doesn’t have to be something relating directly to your business, remember, the more your ‘friends’ feel that they can chat with you, the more responsive they will be to your business in general. If you are stuck for something to say, ask for advice. For example, opinions of your website, what new laptop to buy or other such subjects usually get a quick and good response.

2)Make sure you know when your business is mentioned on Twitter, and respond if it would look good (It usually does, it shows you as being an up to date and responsive user). Twitalert is a good service to use, as it will email you if your Twitter ID is talked about. Another technique is to Google this query: (site:twitter.com “you name or business name”) - without the brackets. This will use Google to search the twitter site to see if you or your site is mentioned.

3) Create a good profile, and don’t forget to make a nice background for it! Having an up to date profile, with a decent background made specifically for your profile page can help as it looks more professional. Try Twitter Backs (Google it) for assistance making your Background. Alternatively, there’s plethora of websites that will offer to make you a professional background for twitter.

4) Promote your feed… Why not put your twitter badge in your signature on any forums you use (so long as its within their terms) and also make sure you put your twitter badge on your own website (Presuming you have one). Another option would be to use your badge in your email signature.






5) Ping your feed. There are lots of websites out there that will allow you to submit RSS feeds. Google “RSS directory list” and you will find lots to get you going. If you have the funds available, there are many software programs out there that you can buy to ‘ping’ your RSS feeds whenever you have added more content.

6) Find twitter friends with ‘Twits like me’ (http://www.chrisfinke.com/twitslikeme/) - This neat little application helps you to find twitter members that have similar interests to you.

7) Find local twitter friends too! - Finding local twitter friends can be great, as you can arrange Twitter meet-ups. http://www.twitterlocal.net/ offers a great service to find local twitters within a distance range.

8) Hold competitions. Having a competition for people that follow you on twitter can have a massive affect on your number of followers! Make sure you announce the competition whenever you can. ‘Shoemoney’ (twitter user) is a good person to check for examples of how to do this well.

9) Once you have a nice selection of friends, consider arranging an online seminar. There are plenty of seminar hosting services out there (again, Google is your friend!). This can be especially useful if your business is a service type setup (SEO or web design, for example). A free online seminar can be great for getting attention to your business.

10)Finally, try not to use Twitter solely for promoting your business. Ensure you keep in touch with people frequently, NOT just when you want to market something… If people are used to reading your feed, and find it interesting, then they will be a lot more attentive and responsive to your promotions when you have them.

This concludes this 10 point mini guide to getting going with Twitter.