Twitter is an excellent network for building brands and getting quick wins in your social media efforts. You can share and curate content to add value to your followers – establishing credibility within your industry and become a go to resource for your followers. As with all social media marketing, creating an authentic feed that continuously grows organically comes with its own set of rules for businesses. In this post I’ll review 12 Twitter for business do’s and don’ts.
12 Twitter for Business Do’s and Don’ts
THE DO’s:
1. Optimize your profile
Fill in your biography, choose a profile image and create a header image for your profile. Be sure to make your profile more searchable by using keywords in your biography and use the link in your bio to promote specific posts or landing pages.
Twitter gives you one link space and you can always sneak one more link into your bio, so use these to your advantage! When you have a new product, blog post, or landing page to promote pop your link in your bio with a call to action. If you have folks clicking around your profile this can be a great way to generate a little more traffic.
2. Post consistently
Social media marketing is a commitment! Post consistently to stay in front of your audience’s eyes and keep growth going. Try starting at 3 posts a day and go up from there. Remember to share content from other leaders in your industry, customers or resources. Snap some photos of your desk, take us behind the scenes at your awards ceremony – just let your audience in on content they wouldn’t otherwise receive – and another reason to follow your Twitter account. To help things go a little smoother you can schedule retweets and share relevant articles with Buffer. You can also use Hootsuite to schedule tweets going to older blog posts, web or landing pages, your other social networks etc. Test different times to find when your tweets get the most engagement.
Speaking of engagement, are you looking to get a little more engagement out of your audience? Don’t be scared to ask a few questions. Let your audience weigh in on a new product color, or what your next e-book could be about. You may not get an answer right away- but don’t get discouraged. You can even use Twitter Polls to get people to interact. Keep your posts brand centric, or closely related to interests of your target audience (and followers). Context is everything – so even if you are going for more of an engaging post, remember to tie it back to your brand.
3. Plan
Your Twitter account is an extension of your brand. Just as you would carefully plan any other initiative, plan your Twitter posts and images. Keep track of relevant hashtags, test different captions, and be mindful of how you are scheduling tweets so you don’t overwhelm the timeline.
4. Use Twitter lead cards and Twitter ads
One of my favorite things about Twitter is the advertising capabilities. You can get super targeted and market to those using specific hashtags, competitor followers, etc. Twitter also has a handy set of “lead cards” which allow you to give consumers access to a download or to subscribe to your list in the click of a button.
5. Engage with others
There are so many ways to engage with others on Twitter. Join in on Twitter chats, look up and follow event hashtags, and join in on trending topics. Interact with other’s tweets by liking, retweeting and responding to posts – get to interacting with others on Twitter to get your engagement going.
6. Use Visuals
Visual content is important on Twitter. Be sure your images are sized correctly and create a signature look and feel for your account. This is great for engagement and attracting eyes to your posts in an ever cluttered feed. Decide how you want your account to come across visually. This means choosing colors, specific filters and giving photos a consistent look.
7. Use industry relevant hashtags
Hashtags are such a major part of Twitter – I mean they were invented on this network. Hashtags are used for searching, which means an opportunity to get in front of new eyes. When you choose hashtags for your next post, think about how people are searching for your content topic. Also consider how saturated a hashtag may be – targeting is the name of the game. The Twitter rule of thumb is to use no more than 2 hashtags per tweet – so using them strategically for growth is essential. Weave hashtags into the context of your tweet.
Here are 2 of my posts to help you out with hashtags:
Learn how to find the right hashtags for your business.
Discover how to use hashtags for social media growth.
8. Pin Posts to Your Profile
Pinning posts to the top of your profile is a great way to get more eyes on your content. You can create a newsletter sign up, a tweet linking to your product landing page, or any piece of content you need to drive more traffic to. Pinned tweets remain at the top of your profile until you take them down.
9. Analyze your account
Stay on top of your Twitter analytics. Keep track of followers, engagement rates, retweets and more with one of Twitter’s very own analytics dashboards.
Twitter already offers deep analytics via analytics.twitter.com – but the new Twitter Dashboard, gives you a nice overall snapshot of your account (in 1 -week, last 30 days and last 60 days intervals) covering your mentions, tweet impression, profile visits and more, while also letting you know if activity is up or down. Twitter’s new Dashboard seems like a great starting point for anyone who may be new to analytics. For more advanced analytics seekers I’d say stick to the analytics.twitter.com dashboard for more in depth analytics about your audience tweets, and account. Clicking on “view tweet activity” for an individual tweet will bring you to the original analytics.twitter.com dashboard.
Learn more about the new Twitter Dashboard here.
What KPI’s should you track? That depends on your goals. I keep track of everything – but the metrics I pay attention to are follower growth, engagement rate, link clicks, retweets, impressions, retweets, and likes. I like taking a look at how everything correlates to each other (for example a peak in impressions or engagement because of a specific tweet). You can find all these in your Twitter analytics dashboard – you can even download the data and create pivot tables and other ways to visualize the info.
I’d also keep track of top performing tweets in order to tweet the same content with different messaging or replicate the “formula” for a new tweet.
THE DON’Ts
10. Tweet about yourself only
Just like any other network you don’t want to annoy your audience by only posting about your brand. It is important to retweet others, and share articles that your fans can relate to or will find useful.
11. Use auto-commenters
Generic auto comments are so annoying, and social media users are savvy to these interactions. You risk looking spammy, therefore deterring some folks from following you.
12. Tweet without investigating the trending topic
I mentioned hoping on trending topics – but please remember to do your research before you put out a tweet. The last thing you want is to seem insensitive about a serious issue or seem like you are just jumping into the conversation for the sake of doing it. Make sure trending topics are about what you think they are, and make sure they are relevant to your brand!
Bonus Twitter Tip: Learn about Twitter’s under-used features
Twitter has some features that can be overlooked but can drive extra engagement. These include Twitter Lists and Twitter Collections. You can learn about these 2 features and more in my post “5 Under Used Twitter Features to Help Your Business Stand Out Online”
Homework!
This time I’m leaving all of you with a little bit of homework. After reading this post, go on to your Twitter account and run a quick audit to determine where you can improve. You can download my new 15 Minute Twitter Audit checklist by clicking here. I hope these tips and the checklist can help you sort out the “Twitter for business” world a little better. Let me know if you have any questions in a comment below :)
This article was originally published here.