Tweet Like This, Not Like That

Tweeting seems easy enough. You hop on, make some quick posts to be seen and presto you’re done. Not so fast. There’s a lot more to having a successful presence on Twitter than you may think. It’s no wonder that more and more companies are making the informed decision to hire a social media company who will manage and strategize all aspects of their social media marketing for them.

Being successful at marketing your business on Twitter requires some time and effort. Twitter is no doubt a very powerful, handy and entertaining tool… if you use it right. Here are some of the basic ways to maximize your impact and get the most out of Twitter marketing by building relationships and growing your network.

Space Out Your Tweets

Avoid being annoying on Twitter. It’s simple. Don’t send out tweet after tweet after tweet. If followers get bursts of endless tweets from you and it fills their tweet stream, they’re likely to unfollow you in a heartbeat. To maximize your Twitter marketing, make sure you create a presence by tweeting in reasonable intervals throughout the day.

It Helps to Be Creative

When it comes to tweets, the more the better is NOT the best strategy. People will just feel overwhelmed and tune out. Make your tweets count by being creative and catchy especially when it comes to tweeting URLs. Trying to get people to follow your URL requires a good, unique title to really draw their interest.

Be Sweet and Re-Tweet

In the land of Twitter, you’ve got to participate and be social with others if you expect them to be social with you. Ideally, you want as many people as possible to re-tweet your tweets in order to be seen by the largest audience. Do your best to show some love and re-tweet good posts in your feed. They’ll likely pick up on your sweetness and re-tweet for you in return.

Room for Re-Tweets

Write the content of your tweets needs to be written to allow space for people to include RT@. If they can’t easily re-tweet, they probably won’t take the time to edit text in order to do so. Remember to leave some space to keep it simple for your followers.

Make Your Feed Public

Unlike some other social media platforms, the privacy settings on Twitter are quite different. In order to maximize your Twitter marketing, make your feed visible by everyone instead of only those who are following you. You can do so in Settings/Account/Protect My Tweets. By unselecting the privacy setting you are allowing more people to see your feed.

It’s Good to Be a Follower

Everyone wants more followers. One of the best ways to get them is to follow others. The more you follow, the more exposure you’ll get and in return people will follow you. If you sit on the sidelines and do nothing but hope you’re noticed, you’re setting yourself up to sit on the sidelines for a long, long time. Get in the action and participate! This is called social media for a reason – it requires you to be, eh, social.

Explain Yourself

Don’t be vague. If you post something very ambiguous such as “I totally agree” and give no clue as to what you’re referring, you’re making a big mistake. People won’t know what you’re talking about unless you tell them. Add a link to the article/video/picture you’re referring to or briefly mention the subject matter so you make some sense.

Be Visible to Everyone

Train yourself to use .@ instead of just @. Why? If you are tweeting about a website or blog or whatever and use only @ then only your followers who also subscribe to their Twitter feeds will be able to follow the link. If you use a .@ then anyone can follow the link. Simple and can make a big impact on your Twitter marketing efforts.

Think Before You Tweet

You’d THINK this is the most obvious of suggestions, but THINK again…and again. Before you tweet, take a moment to really let it sink in. Remember, once you tweet, there’s no undo button. It’s out there in the social media world for good.