Tons of businesses are using Twitter as a marketing tool and having great success. If used properly, Twitter can be a useful tool for your business to get the word out to your fans about your products and services, news, business updates etc. That being said, there are things that you shouldn’t do on Twitter as a business:
- Talking too much about yourself: The purpose of Twitter is to build relationships with your fans and to foster communities of all sizes. Instead of simply focusing on talking about your business, concentrate on engaging with your fans and working together to build a community around their needs and interests. It is important to share news about your business and products but try not to spam your fans; think of creative ways to share updates while engaging your fans. Your customers are already following you which means they already have an interest in your business, reward them with great content and deals instead of pushing them away.
- Don’t beg for follows: The last thing you want to do as a business is to seem desperate. Instead of asking for followers, tweet content that gives them a reason to follow your business. Now it’s certainly acceptable to have promotional items that read “follow us on Twitter” around your business and on marketing collateral, but be sure to give them a reason to follow you. For example: “Follow us on Twitter to be in the know about discounts, free goodies, new products and contests that we are running!”
- Connecting all social networks together: Twitter is not Facebook or Instagram or any other social network. Twitter is Twitter. That being said, do not hook your tweets up to publish to Facebook or hook your Facebook posts to publish to Twitter. (This rule also applies to every other social network.) The problem with doing this is first, you are sending the same message on every social network at the same time and, second, most of the time the messages that work on Facebook will not work on Twitter due to character limits. The last thing your business wants to do is tweet messages that are cut off due to the character restriction. It’s good to repurpose content, but do not automatically upload identical content on multiple channels at the same time. Repurposing should include rewriting and reformatting for the platform you’re posting on. Don’t just copy and paste the exact same content on each of your social media accounts.
- Automatically following everyone who follows you: Your followers are important, but maintaining professionalism is also imperative for your business. It is important to return a follow, but you need to be careful about who you are following because that does reflect back on your business. Beware of users with illegitimate or inappropriate user names, avatars or accounts, especially the accounts that are obviously spam. Who you choose to follow is a reflection of your business. Remember your mom’s advice: “You are judged by the company you keep.”
- Don’t ignore complaints: If your business is on Twitter, you’re bound to find some upset customers will show up there to complain. Do not ignore these customers! Remember that Twitter is a public forum. It’s not only important to answer customers who are @mentioning your business for help, but it’s mandatory. This shows that your business is alert, is credible, and that you care for your customers. Also this gives you an opportunity to address and solve complaints publicly, which can in turn encourage future customers to do business with you. Like Bill Gates said, “your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.”
