Using Twitter for business

Tips of Using Twitter for Business

Twitter has been around for a while now and has established itself as a major part of the lives of citizens the developed world, in everything from communicating with each other to disseminating news to promoting products and services.

But there are still plenty of sole traders and small businesses who are unsure of how to use Twitter for their business, or even if they should be on it at all. In this article, we'll try to explore some of the issues, and give some hints and tips about how Twitter can become an asset for your business.

Decide if you can afford it

Some people say Twitter is free, so it’s a no brainer to use it. However, it’s only free if your time is worthless, and anybody in business should know that that’s not the case. So decide whether you have the resources available to dedicate some time to your Twitter profile, because if you don’t, a bad or outdated profile could do more harm than good.

Brand your Twitter feed

You can take advantage of the customisation options on Twitter to brand the page and add your logo. This will solidify your brand impression with visitors.

Keep a professional tone

For individuals using Twitter for fun, they can put whatever they like about what they ate, or the most mundane thoughts that occur to them. As a business you need to be a bit more discerning. This means making sure any tweets you put don’t undermine the professionalism of your business – for example, no bitching, swearing or commenting on how ditzy you are.

Offer useful information in your tweets

If you can offer useful information in your tweets, that gives people a reason to follow you and keep following you, and possible even recommend you to their followers. Useful information could be tips, or links to interesting articles, instructions or other resources.

Don't spam

Spamming is bad, whatever form it takes. Sure, you want to promote your business and let people know if the benefits of working with you, but if you’re flooding their feeds with promotions they’re likely to be turned off and unfollow. Keep promotional, advertising tweets to a limited number and make sure far more of your tweets are giving to the community, rather than expecting to be given something.

Use a scheduling service

Constant interruptions from email, colleagues and the phone are a huge obstacle to productivity (turning off Outlook auto-receive and only checking your email once a day is probably the most effective single change you can make to your working day), and Twitter just adds to the fray. However, you can use scheduling services such as Tweetdeck to set up a bunch of tweets in advance, and then get on with other work. 

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