Small-business owners, local businesses and startups of all stripes are embracing social media marketing with gusto. Signups on Facebook and Twitter are soaring. Business owners see these platforms as free marketing that may be tricky and unknown, but well-worth a shot.
The lure of social media is strong with its relative ease, low cost and low entry barriers. And while Facebook is king, Twitter has seen tremendous growth from local business owners and professionals who aim to build awareness for their products and services – as well as themselves.
If you’re giving tweets a try, here are some vital tips and strategies:
• Choose a good Twitter “handle.” This could be your own name or your business name, a variation or abbreviation of your name or business name, or a combination. Make it easy for others to recognize who you are, and connect you to your business, product or service. Avoid cutesy, random or made-up names that have nothing to do with you or your business.
• Set specific business goals for being on Twitter. For example, you can use Twitter to help position your name or brand, communicate with customers and prospects, announce events, point to articles, videos or other content on your website.
• Hone your profile. A Twitter account lets you create a brief but highly visible profile, so don’t blow it. I’ve seen many lame profiles that include mundane personal traits or meaningless information.
• Avoid pointless tweets. Concentrate on providing useful information. Promote things you have on your own website, or point to someone else’s content as a useful resource. Concentrate on specialized knowledge your business has and can share with others.
• Hop onto hashtags. Hashtags are used to organize tweets around categories, themes or topics by adding the pound sign (#) before a word or phrase, like #smallbusiness, #entrepreneurs or #startups. When you use a hashtag in a tweet, it is automatically posted to that category in addition to your basic tweet stream.
• Point people to your website. Tweets are a great way to get people to visit your website. Perhaps you have a whitepaper available for download, some interesting photos, a new video or some other type of content. Don’t be shy. Tweet about it with a link back to your site. But use a URL shortener to avoid filling your entire tweet with a long link. Two popular services where you can do this in seconds for free are http://bit.ly and http://ow.ly. •
Daniel Kehrer can be reached at
editor@bizbest.com.
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
