Digital Empowerment – What is Twitter?

Twitter has come a very long way since its beginning in 2006. At the start, it was just people informing others what they were doing right at that very instant. So you had useless information such as “just had breakfast!” and “going out to work soon!” But today it has become so “mainstream” that large global information organizations such as CNN and the BBC are using it to gather information.

More importantly, many Small to Medium businesses are using Twitter to engage with their audience and keep them updated on new products & services, promotions, announcements, etc.

So what exactly is Twitter?

A Twitter page is a web page where you can keep information snippets each up to 280 characters long for other individuals to read. Think of it as the on the internet comparative of delivering a cell-phone SMS. The information will immediately appear on your Twitter page with newest information at the top going down to earliest at the bottom.

If individuals like your ‘Tweets’, they will ‘follow’ your page, after which any subsequent Tweets you make will appear on the ‘Home Timeline’ of their own Twitter page – this is good marketing, because if these individuals have ‘followed’ you. They are keen to hear more of what you have to say.

Benefits of Twitter for your business organization

Twitter is a highly effective tool. Every week immeasurable Twitter posts circulate through Tweets about every possible topic. A wide range of individuals, companies, big and small, local and worldwide — all use Twitter posts to make their existence known.

1. Generate Traffic for Your Website and Local Store/Branch: By using Twitter, you can capture your customer’s attention through special offers or announcements of online or offline events like openings or contests. You can point people to your local store or website to sign up, get more info, leave feedback etc. For example, if you sell catering equipment online, you may offer promotional discounts for your new equipment line.

2. Increase Customer Satisfaction through Improved Customer Service: Business updates can be followed by your existing or potential customers in real time from your Twitter account. This gives you a valuable opportunity to adjust or tweak your business activities immediately as per your customers’ reactions. This ability alone can give you a significant advantage over your competitors who not yet aware of the power of Twitter.

3. Strengthen Your Connection with Members of Your Local Community: If you have a local business or a local branch, you can mention this location to your tweets. You can also share useful local information, suggest solutions to local social issues and support local events or causes. All these efforts put together will create awareness for your local business and strengthen your connection with people in the local community.

So how can you start taking advantage of Twitter for your business?

Your clients are already on Twitter posts. Don’t miss the opportunity to be part of the discussion. Learn how to use Twitter posts successfully to fulfil your business objectives.

Setting up your own Twitter account is very simple. Once you go to Twitter and find the sign-up box enter your full name and email address and choose a password. Click Sign up for Twitter. On the next page, they will ask you to choose a username. Usernames are unique identifiers on Twitter.

You can either pick your own username or choose one suggested by Twitter making sure that the username you chose is available and not being used by someone else. Click “Create my account” and you are done. You should get a confirmation in your email box, and instructions on how you can confirm your Twitter account. For more help on this, please follow their support page.

Engage your audience

Make sure your speech forms the online identification of your company. ‘Tweet’ about the ideas, concepts and value of your company. Discuss hyperlinks and images with your clients. Let them see what happens behind the curtain.

Below are few points:

Tell your Story: Your interaction with your potential customers should be at a personal level. People would rather follow a person than an entity. People want to hear a personal story more than the company.

Increase your followers: By increasing your network, you are able to Direct Message with your followers. This way you get your message across quicker.

Follow your true friends: Once you have plenty of followers, track your true followers and filter through the potential noise by creating a Twitter list. This way you can track your say 100 true followers or so.

Post Links to your website: Every post that you make must be linked to your website. This kills several birds with one stone by bringing more traffic to your site and also increasing your page rank.

Share your experience and more: Twitter has become News Source for many. So do not hesitate to share things that you might have found interesting and express your own opinions about it.

Amplify  your impact

The more individuals who talk about your company on Twitter posts, the more followers (and customers) you will get. Concentrate on actions that enhance your @username and increase your company. To follow others, you must click the follow button next to a user’s profile photo or page.

You can also click the “Follow” button next to any of your “Who to follow” suggestions, next to user search results, or anywhere else you see the “Follow” button on the web. So this is quite simple. When you people click the follow button on your profile or next to your name, you get followers.

If individuals like your information, they can select to “follow” you by simply clicking an option at the top of your information (they can “unfollow” you later by simply clicking the same button). By following you, your information will appear in your followers’ Timelines and if you select to follow back, their information will appear on your Timeline.

Anatomy of a Tweet

You’ll be amazed by how much you can say with 280 characters or less.

1. Hashtag

A hashtag is any phrase starting with the # sign. People use hashtags to organize interactions around a particular subject. Clicking on a hashtag takes you to the search result for that phrase.

2. Mention

Sometimes you want to carry a Twitter to somebody’s interest, but you still want all of your supporters to see the concept. So instead of a reply, use a mention. Include the @username of whoever you want to carry up on your Twitter page, and it will appear in the ‘Refers to’ area (in the Link tab). All @username mentions are clickable and backlink to the described person’s information.

3. Reply

You can reply to a Twitter by striking the reply option. When you respond, your response is displayed publicly and will appear in the ‘Home timeline’ of the person to whom you are replying.

The reply will also be noticeable in the home timelines of people who follow to both you and the individual to whom you sent the reply. Significance, someone not in the discussion has to follow to both of the people replying to be able to read both factors of the discussion.

4. Retweet

You can repost and pass along somebody’s Tweets by “Retweeting” it. Just hit the “Retweet” button to deliver the original message to all of your followers.

5. Links

Twitter’s link-shortening function allows you to insert a web link of any length into the Tweet box and it will instantly be shorter to 19 characters.

This creates it easier to fit lengthy URLs into the 280 characters restrict. A Direct Message (DM) is a private message. You can only deliver a DM to individuals you follow who also follow you.

We hope this article has been useful to you and you are more empowered and equipped to increase your business’ digital presence. If you liked this article, nothing like sharing your joy by clicking on the Facebook Like button below! We would also love to hear your feedback and questions in the Comments section below.