Twitter and it’s role in your SME’s online strategy

Twitter is a website which offers businesses a gateway to customers online, a social networking service which enables people to send and read messages - those 'tweets' you may have heard people chirping about. Twitter now has up to 175 million users, that's a growth rate of roughly 15 million users per month or about half a million users per day.

Time to invest. Increase your ROI by tweeting.

Using Twitter to implement your social media strategy is easy - business scope is borderless. Combine your online strategy with honest conversation and relevant chatter. Get social.

Twitter: Essential to your social media strategy

* Allows you to build and continue conversation with customers and stakeholders
* Provides a platform - direct customers towards your product/service (gain feedback too)
* Creates a hyperlocal sense to your business and online strategy
* Consumers and competitors both use Twitter
* Monitor behaviours and trends through easy accessible analytic tools.

Time to engage.

What’s happening while you are not tweeting?

Not on Twitter? Your business is being talked about. Online conversation of consumers occurs whether you are listening or not.

Twitter is a real time exchange of dialogue within a networked community. It’s all happening without you. Know what’s out there: make sure you know what’s currently being said about you.

Time spent reviewing or following brands that are using Twitter well is time well spent.

Tweets, trends and @mentions are something which on and offline businesses can no longer afford to ignore. Ignorance is bad for business.

Get started with Twitter

1)Tweet – 140 characters. Keep it social, short and sharp.
2)Retweet – regurgitate tweets that engage your followers and are relevant to your business. Echo your brand, purpose and interests. Share it with your network.
3)@mentions – tag your followers in a tweet. Direct tweets towards someone already listening. Ask questions. Manage conversation. Create Chatter.
4)#tags - create and follow trends on Twitter. #tags are meta data that connect tweets and birth trends across the Twitter platform.
5)#FF – Follow Friday. It’s nice to be liked. Build a network of like minded businesses and individuals with a digital salute.

Let’s talk shop

Twitter is a tool which is savvy and an enabler of community, embrace this and your community will embrace you. So...

* Follow - check out those that follow you, provide timely responses, participate in conversations keeping your business objectives in mind.
* Keep it social – got new stock this morning? Talk about it. Let customers know what is going on in real time.
* Keep it sweet – beware of language. Create a persona, be warm, be human.
* Build interest – promote with retweets of your followers. Invest time and effort to build a conversation.
* Plan - a content strategy will help focus your efforts on publishing content of value in a timely and relevant way.
* Location – add location data to tweets, push local business. Mobile usage of twitter means you can reach those listening for locations in real time.
* Analytics– third party tools for your twitter strategy. Keep an eye on your metrics.
* Trends - Twitter is always on, make sure you have someone to monitor conversations, competitors and trends.

Entice your followers with incentives and general conversation, get to know your market, execute searches. Dig in. Join in.


Want more?
Follow me @jessica_barlow


Useful links:
The @twitter blog
Twitter: On Track for 200 Million Users by Year End
Third party tools for you and your twitter strategy:
Hootsuite
Tweetdeck