SMB Technology

16 tips to increase business presence on Twitter

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by Keris Lahiff

Though you may have signed up to Twitter, fleshed out your profile, and followed more users than you can count, how can you build your reputation within the 175-million strong Twitter database?

Here are 16 tips to gain a foothold and increase your business’ presence on Twitter:

Share links and news of value to your community of followers.
Don’t solely promote your products and brand – give followers information of value that will keep them tuned into your space.
Get involved in trending topics and comment on big news developments to stay on top of people’s feeds. However, don’t go overboard and flood theirs all day, every day.
Adopt a genuine, direct and friendly tone. Twitter should promote your business’ personality, rather than solely trying to make sales.
Offer exclusive offers or special discounts to followers.
If providing a link, give incentive to click through. Flight Centre, for example, does this well, such as when it posted ‘Would you walk on an active volcano?’ before linking to an article on a travel destination in New Zealand.
Provide helpful hints and tips to establish your business as an authority in the field or industry. For example, Bacardi often tweets recipes for cocktails.
Ask questions to gain insight on the opinions of your followers.
Or foster a community discussion on a certain topic of interest by asking questions.
Follow and retweet interesting posts by other Twitter users of interest.
Comment on others’ tweets of interest – these activities will help build your presence within the community.
When promoting your products or brand, don’t simply spruik. Provide advice or a call to action that will benefit your followers and increase clickthroughs.
Balance your business’ promotional tweets with promotions for other brands and companies that could be complementary to your own offers.
Frequently Twitter Search mentions of your business or brand and topics relevant to your industry. Then, where appropriate, reference or participate in the conversation.
Use TinyURL or other similar sites to shorten the length of URLs. This will make links within posts more user-friendly and manageable.
Photo-sharing sites such as Tumblr, TwitPic and Yfrog allow you to easily share photos with your followers.