With the inclusion of social media into our worlds we’ve become introduced to a whole new vocabulary–friending and unfriending, liking, following, tweets—it can be a bit overwhelming. What social networking sites work best for your company?
Who do you follow and who do you want to follow you? They are legitimate questions yet some companies are afraid to ask them for fear of looking like a newbie in the realm of social media. Nonetheless you know you need a social media presence and right now Twitter is where you want to be.
Twitter is a social media platform that allows you to be heard in 140 characters or less. That message can be anything from a random musing to a sales message to a question thrown out into the wind. People share everything from jokes, to famous quotations to sales messages on Twitter and it’s amazing what kind of message can be delivered in the parameters of such restriction. That message coupled with the right audience, or “followers,” can bring about amazing results, coveted interaction and a bond of trust with customers. But remember the message must fit into those tightly confined parameters.
Brevity is an admired trait in the Twitterverse and the fewer characters you can use to get your point across the better. In essence, 140 characters or less is one succinct thought. Of course some are better than others at packing in depth to the allotted space and that’s where it pays to have someone skilled do your posting. When you have such a tight space to work with you want to make sure each word counts. So your message needs to get to the point without seeming terse. It needs to persuade followers to buy without loosing personality. Once you get the hang of it, however, 140 characters seems like a lot of space to work with.
Ready to give it a go? Think you can stand the challenge of promoting your brand by adopting a tight lingo? Well here are a few tips to get you started. First, don’t waste your time with a blatant sales message. Once you’ve got a significant following, it may be tempting to simply blast your latest sale: “50% off all solar products this week only, last chance” and then repost that several times. Twitter is not the place for blatant sales pushes and if you post that tweet (as messages on Twitter are called) then you may notice an immediate, sharp drop in followers. That’s because the average Twitter user isn’t there to be informed of the latest sales in their favorite shop. Well, some of them are, but most are there to be social. So while you definitely do want to advertise your sales you don’t want to make it a vehicle to announce sales and nothing else. Be ready to actually socialize with your followers interspersed with the occasional sales message.
That brings me to the next tip about navigating your Twitter account; make sure you know what your Twitter followers want from you. Of course, this is a tough one. If you knew exactly what your potential customers are looking for you’d win them all right? But you should have an idea of what they expect from you. Do they want information? For instance if you are a company that sells seeds, chances are your Twitter followers are going to be hoping for some tips on what to plant when and how to nurse that banana plant back to health and not just hear about your expanded line of offerings or your latest sale. (Although they will probably enjoy hearing that too.) If you can identify why your customers are following you, then you can fine tune your Twitter offerings without causing them to tune out, and unfollow you.
Say you’ve figured out what your customers want. Don’t think it stops there. Now you need to track what customers are saying about you and your industry. This is not because you want to spy on others. Instead you want to be able to interact socially. You can run searches for certain keywords and see what others are talking about within that topic. This is a great way to flex your industry knowledge. Search for help topics in your field and answer questions that random people have tossed out into the Twitterverse. If you can answer those questions and resolve their problems then you just may earn a new follower—and hopefully a new customer.
All of this can take a lot of time, skill and preparation. Exploring the Twitterverse can be fun if you are in it just to be social, but if you are looking to be social and spread a message about your company then it’s wise to have a plan. We can handle your Twitter setup, promotion and posting. You get the benefit of being a part of the biggest conversation going without the stress of trial and error. Contact us today and we’ll get you talking with your customers.
Marco Giunta
Latest posts by Marco Giunta (see all)
- Is Your Company Using Social Media Effectively? - January 28, 2013
- Approaching the Sales Prospect - December 19, 2012
- How To Listen EFFECTIVELY During Negotiations - December 18, 2012
