What is Twitter?

Twitter is a one-to-many social-networking site set up in 2006. Users send messages (tweets) up to 140 characters long to answer the question ‘What are you doing?’ These messages are seen in the timelines of the user’s followers and, if the profile is public, can be viewed by anyone.

By far the most chatty of the social networks, Twitter can help a business build up strong relationships with people you may otherwise have no way of getting in touch with. For best results, it’s recommended to have both a Twitter and a Facebook account (but to send different messages on each), it’s okay (but not required) to send a few tweets a day, and that you should vary your tweets between promotional, industry comments and conversations. If all you do is send messages about yourself and your news, sales and products you start to be seen as a spammy account and in turn you will begin to lose followers.
Self-serving links are okay if used sparingly but the SEO value of these links is debated. The majority of Twitter’s core pages are set with the ‘no follow’ tag, so no link juice will follow naturally. No follow links do still seem to provide some value, but obviously not as much as the do follow ones. There is also the chance that your tweets will be taken away from Twitter (such as in an RSS feed) in which case the new site may allow links to be followed, thus giving you some SEO value.

Benefits

Twitter is a useful way to build relationships with people or businesses you normally wouldn’t communicate with. Useful connections can include customers, journalists and industry experts.
Having a Twitter account is a good way to build a community around your brand; to keep in touch with existing customers and make new ones; and to announce special deals, sales and company news. It’s also a good way to keep track of what’s happening in your industry and to see what competitors or similar companies in other cities or countries are doing.
With the right mix of messages, you can build up a reputation of being an expert in your industry. Helping users with problems, giving tips about the industry and sharing relevant news stories (with a short summary of why they’re useful) will see people following you to see what you’re saying about your area of business.
Using the trending topics or the search function you can find out what people are talking about. This is a good chance to help and share your expertise which could end up in more business. Don’t be too pushy or salesy and don’t get distraught if you don’t get any business from it, Twitter’s more about building a profile and a reputation.
Twitter can be a useful marketing tool. Announce to people why your site is currently down or hold a contest that involves users retweeting your message or brand. Some companies have made the trending topics through this method.

Risks

Many companies have made mistakes through Twitter that have seen them receive publicity they’d rather avoid. Furniture retailer Habitat abused the system by adding hashtags of trending topics, completely unrelated to themselves or their industry, to announce a sale. The company blamed the mistake on an intern, but nevertheless received a lot of bad press. Skittles briefly allowed tweets with #skittles to appear, unedited and unchecked, on their homepage which led to scurrilous claims about the effect of Skittles on the human body to appear on their official site.
It’s easy to come across in a negative way: too many tweets (especially with links back to your own site) comes across as spammy, too many irrelevant messages and you might lose business followers, automated tweets can lose personality and give a very robotic appearance to your account.
A whole new vocabulary has sprung out of Twitter (often words beginning with ‘tw’) which can bamboozle many newbies. Twittonary.com has a pretty substantial list of these.

Tools

There are a plethora of tools available to help use Twitter in a more efficient way. Desktop tools allow you to keep track of your account, giving you alerts whenever you receive an @mention or a direct message, phone apps allow you to update your status on the go, monitoring tools can keep track of conversations that mention you or your products and automated tools can be programmed to send out messages at certain times of the day, week or month.

Twitter Bird Icon

If you take your business marketing strategy seriously, you probably already have a Twitter account. That’s a good start, but do you really know how to promote your business in 140 characters or less? Twitter is fun, Twitter is challenging, Twitter can be dead annoying (info overload!) but it’s without a doubt an amazing tool for direct marketing.
The following Twitter Rules are a guideline for the small business owner who wants to make it on Twitter. Some of them refer to the Twitter etiquette, some explain common Twitter terms and some offer a better understanding of Twitter as a marketing tool.

1. Tweeting Ratio:
Tweeting like crazy every few minutes will not only be frowned upon by the community (especially when tweeting for your business), it will also be completely counter-productive. Each new tweet that you post replaces your previous tweet on your followers’ timeline. Tweeting too often will reduce your tweets’ actual reach.

2. Hashtags:
Marked by the symbol #, hashtags turn certain terms and keywords into (searchable) tags . By adding the hashtag #camera, for instance, you increase the chances of your tweets being seen by people who are interested in photography and cameras. Using multiple hashtags in one tweet is considered spam, so use them scarcely and wisely.

3. Check Out The Competition:
Use Twitter to find out what’s going on with your competitors. You don’t have to follow them as a Twitter user, but you should follow their activity. It’s a priceless insight – for free!
4. Trending Topics:

The 10 most tweeted terms at any given moment. To see a quick snapshot of the most tweeted-abot topics, look to the sidebar on the right of your Twitter homepage. Spammers will tweet about trending topcis like crazyto increase their reach but moderate use is harmless. Keep track of Trending Topics (in short: TT) and if they ARE relevant to your business, join in the conversation by adding relevant tweets.

5. Analyze Your Work:
Every tweet should be examined – did it generate replies? Was it retweeted? How many people actually clicked on the link you tweeted? How many new followers were gained in a day? These things are all easy to track and they will help you measure your success and see your weak spots.
If you want to delve into your stats more seriously, check out these Twitter Management tools:
-Commun.it
-Twitalyzer
-Twitter Counter
-Klout
-Twitter Effect

6. Twitter-Talk:
The 140-characters limit requires a lots of creativity. Tweeple (people who use Twitter) have created a whole new vocabulary that you need to familiarize yourself with. A few examples:
RT – Retweet. The act of sharing someone else’s tweets in your stream
MRT – Modified Retweet. An RT that was altered by the Retweeter
DM – Direct Message. Private message between users who follow each other
FF – Follow Friday. Tweets marked with FF recommend to follow certain users
Spitter – A Twitter spammer
Tweed – A Twitter feed
b/c – Because
w/ or w/o – With or Without
RTHX/TQRT – Thanks for the Retweet
Dweet – A drunken tweet

7. Be Social:
Communication and interaction in Twitter are very versatile. You can follow tweeple, retweet their content, mention them (by tweeting “@username”), send direct messages, or credit them for content that you tweet (by tweeting “via @username”). Use these tools to keep in constant contact with followers and potential followers. It’s vital that you interact with people and not just shoot general tweets into the air.

8. Links:
Businesses often tweet links, as part of their promotional efforts. Keep in mind that adding more than one link in one tweet can harm the clicking rates. When you tweet links, use a link shortening service that will be able to track the number of clicks.

9. Attractive Content:
You need to make it worthwhile for users to follow your Twitter feed. Use original content, creative incentives and relevant information to get as many people as possible to click “Follow”.
Twitter tools like TwitPic, TwitVid, TwtPoll and others allow you to tweet non-textual content as well. Depending on your type of business, they can be awesome for maintaining an interesting feed.

10. Be Patient:
Twitter has its own dynamics. It takes time to develop a faithful and growing following, but if you’re persistent it will pay off. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, but don’t fail to learn from them!