Living Entrepreneurship Blog / Babson Entrepreneurs

Twitter Basics for Businesses

Many people when they hear of Twitter associate people posting details from their personal lives. Over the last couple years, startups have found that Twitter can be used as a powerful marketing tool to gain new customers. As a startup, having a free marketing platform can bring a lot of return when cash is tight.

twitter-business-card1image from http://toolfools.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/twitter-business-card1.jpeg

When a startup tweets about their business, there must be a balance when it comes to content. Content can be broken into the following three groups: sales/marketing, company information, and general information about the industry. Balance is important because when people follow tweets, they are interested in the company as well as the industry. Regarding sales/marketing content, event sign-up, time-limited sales, coupon codes, website specials, and store/service specials often attract consumers. For company information, product pictures, staff, customer support, customer/client news, product tips, and press mentions are useful for the audience. Lastly in general information, tweets about industry news, re-tweets from other businesses, and requesting help/suggestions can be used for content.

For those that are unfamiliar with Twitter, when you tweet, your followers see the tweet. In order to attract twitter followers, you should

1. Include Twitter URL everywhere as much as possible

2. Write about your Twitter feed

3. List yourself in Twitter directories

4. Get re-tweeted

5. Add linked Twitter badges to your websites. You can extract Twitter buttons from https://twitter.com/logo

By following other people, you can get more information about your industry. When you search a keyword, Twitter lists people or business that have tweet about the keyword. For advanced search, go to https://twitter.com/search-advanced and customize your search. You can benefit from following customers, staff, colleagues, vendors, journalists, social influencers in the field, and competitors.

Once you start tweeting on a consistent basis, you can integrate Twitter feed into your website. Click “Widgets” from http://twitter.com/about/resources. You will be able to get a code for your Twitter widget that can be customized.

Twitter is an amazing resource that can make your business viral. If you haven’t used it or explored all functions that Twitter can provide to you, try it and see if its works for your venture.