“Tweeting” is the new email. With smart phones in abundance, millions are using Twitter to communicate around the world and even to people sitting next to them. How can you use this great communications tool to benefit your business?
Using Twitter to market your business in 140 characters or less can be very challenging. Given that you may want to share a link and add a few hashtags, your message will be greatly shortened. So what can you do to make sure your tweet is read and re-tweeted? You need to be very creative and selective about the words you use.
Your Headline
Using techniques like the ones provided below can definitely draw attention to your tweet:
- Don’t Make These Mistakes on Twitter or Do You Make These Mistakes on Twitter?
- How to Attract and Influence People on Social Media (or replace the words Social Media with Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn)
- How to _ [blank] __ on Twitter
- Little Known Ways to _ [blank]_____ on Twitter
- _[add a specific number]_ Ways Twitter Can Help _[add a subject]__
- [blank] Ways to Get the Most Out of [blank]
- [blank] Reasons Why [blank]
- Last Chance to ___[blank]
Attaching a Link
Twitter links to your blog and news stories can be long. If so, to get the most out of your 140 characters, you should use a URL shortening service. URL shortening is a technique on the World Wide Web in which a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) may be made substantially shorter and still direct users to the required page.
A few of the services available are:
- Google – http://goo.gl
- Bit.ly – http://bit.ly
- Tiny Url – http://tinyurl.com
- Ow.ly – http://ow.ly/url/shorten-url
If you decide not to use a shortening service, Twitter will use its own which could leave you with less characters with which to work. See Twitter announcement here. https://dev.twitter.com/blog/upcoming-tco-changes
Adding Hashtags
Keep hashtags short. There is no need to overwhelm the reader. Pick one that best fits your blog and headline so that it reaches your target audience. Don’t use a lot of random words that mean nothing to your message.
Twitter can be a great business tool if used properly. Make sure you are following businesses in your industry and others that are complementary.
Try it and document your results. Let me know what happens…