Twitter – love it or hate it, you can’t get away from it. So why not learn how to use it? We asked Allan Pollett, social media consultant and the “SEO Guru”, to talk to us about stragegies for entrepreneurs to make Twitter work as hard for their small businesses as they do…and he didn’t disappoint!
Beginning with the Twitter Basics
Twitter is great, Pollett explains, because it lets us communicate with anyone in the world at any moment – no phones, no wait times for mail delivery, no need for even formal introductions. Twitter has a billion accounts, and you can send out messages, or tweets, to each of them from your Twitter account, with no charge per tweet.
You can put links, images, gif files, and videos in a tweet.
You can Like and Retweet tweets that other Twitter users have made.
You can track views of your tweets, engagement with them, and other analytic information.
Hashtag #Madness!
When you send a tweet, it shows up on the timeline of each person that follows you. You won’t have any followers when you join Twitter, and most people don’t have followers (although some do!) However, you can increase the potential audience for a tween by using hashtags. A hashtag looks likes this: #. When you add it to a word or phrase (like #ThursdayThoughts), then anyone who searches the #ThursdayThoughts hashtag, even if they don’t know you, will see your tweet and maybe interact with it. You’ve expanded your reach and joined the conversation about Thursday Thoughts!
Hashtags are a great tool for businesses, and Alan talks about a few great ways to leverage their power.
The 60-40 Rule
Because Allan is such a Twitter rockstar, he actually figured out that Twitter works best for businesses when 60% of their tweets are business-related (tweets about products, offers, sales) and 40% are other information that your customers might find useful – articles, resources, relevant humour. Great tip: People really like quotations by famous people, and tend to share them with others.
Growing Your Twitter Following
Call a tweet to someone’s attention by tagging it with @ and their twitter handle:
Hey @businesssolver! Love your webinar series!
(I guarantee that if we saw this, we would like it, retweet it, and follow you! Just saying.)
When you tag someone in this way, you leverage not only your audience, but theirs too. If their audience is very big, that could be very good for you!
Alan has a technique for finding and growing an audience that’s truly interested in you and what you have to say. Check out the webinar to see what it is! (Here’s a hint: Follow your competitors’ followers!)
Final Things to Consider…
- Keep your tweets engaging.
- Use hashtags that reach a large audience (3 or 4 per Tweet)
- Jump right in and make yourself part of the conversation! It’s not that scary…really!
Thanks so much to Allan Pollett for helping us out today! You can learn more about Allan and the services he offers at his website.
This is our last webinar for 2019! We’re busy getting the line-up for 2020 together, so please let us know if there’s a topic you’d like covered. Happy Holidays!
