You’ve heard all the buzz and you’ve signed up for a Twitter account, filled out your profile and created a background.  Now what? So many people ask me what is this Twitter thing all about? Many people just don’t get why you would, and I quote “Want to tell people that you are stuck in traffic right now.”  And, though Twitter’s question in the update box would lead you to believe that it’s simply about “What’s Happening?” There are many great ways that using Twitter properly can improve your sales, marketing and branding goals.

What to Tweet? I always recommend the third, third, third rule.  1/3 Sales & marketing, 1/3 Company info and 1/3 General info.  This way you are providing valuable content and engaging with peers and potential customers while not being spammy.

Sales & Marketing

Remember that even though your goal here is marketing or selling something to your audience that what you offer still needs to be relevant and of value. 

Possible Tweets:

• Event Sign Up
• Time Limited Sales
• Coupon Codes
• Website Specials
• Store/Service Specials
• Contests

Company Info

Remember back in the day when you used to go to the corner store or the mom and pop shop to pick up that toy or that pint of milk? Well social media has provided us with a way to get that feeling of knowing the people you are purchasing from back.  And, who are you more likely to make a purchase through, someone you know or a faceless organization?  Who are you going to trust more, people you know or a faceless organization? The people you know of course, so by providing your potential clients/customers with info about yourself and your company, what you are doing and even personal information you are giving yourself a leg up on the competition. 

Possible Tweets:

• Staff info
• Pictures from Company Events/Holiday Parties
• Customer Support
• Customer/Client/Company News
• Product Tips
• Product Pictures (Twitpic)
• Press mentions
• Blog posts

General Info
General info can be anything from responding to another tweet, retweeting, asking questions, polling people, talking about current events or top tweets and anything and everything in between.  This is where you are not just tweeting something out you are trying to tweet some engaging content so you can have conversations with your followers.

Possible Tweets:

• Industry News
• Re-Tweets
• Questions (polling, multiple choice, short answer questions so they can tweet in 140 characters or less)
• Help Requests/Suggestions
• Personal Info (if you want to put a person with a brand, can be what you are doing at the moment)

I would recommend tweeting at least 3 times a day and if you are following the rules above you can generate one tweet per category.  However some people may find it difficult to tweet 3 times a day.  In that case I would say you can either tweet once a day and simply rotate through the different categories above, or you can schedule your blog posts that fall into the Sales/Marketing or Company Info sections.  You can use different applications to help you schedule your tweets, two of my favorites are Tweetdeck and Hootsuite.  I would recommend if you are going to tweet a general info type of tweet, such as a question you would want to be on twitter so that you can engage with those that may tweet you back or re-tweet you.

In Summary:

• Make your posts valuable to your followers
• Mix it up (1/3, 1/3, 1/3 Rule)
• Schedule your Posts to save time

And, lastly at the end of the day, we want Twitter to actually do something for us. Whether it be driving people back to our website, someone signing up for an event or webinar or making a purchase.

Check Google Analytics to see if visitors are coming from Twitter. If not? Try making your tweets a little more exciting and interesting so that people click the link. Still not getting the traffic you’re looking for? Maybe you just need to reevaluate whether your audience uses that space or not.

Photo Credit: Carrotblog.com

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Maine SEO