Twitter is one of the most mobile and accessible social media platforms. It is also one of the most important platforms of the present times. This is especially true for small business. With 140 characters you can communicate, promote your products, help your customers and reinforce your brand. 

On the other hand, it can also spark controversies and cause conflict when things get out of hand.

If you are a small business, it goes out without saying that your posting strategy is important. Twitter as with all social media platforms are evolving and the more you use it, the more it serves you.

Hashtag it

Twitter is the forerunner of #hashtags. Hashtags is for both personal and business use. For businesses it is very important for you and your customers to keep track of a topic and promote your business and product to trending status. Using hashtags are easy. They involve using # and a string of words. However, for business you need to craft a hashtag that is unique but easy to remember.

1. Always look your hashtag up before using it. You want to use a unique hashtag to use for your brand so as not to confuse your customers.

2. Put in the name of your product or company in the hashtag. It makes the hashtag recognizable to your brand so when your customers see it they immediately think about you.

3. Keep it as short as possible. You can be creative and clever on your hashtags but make sure it is easy to read. There are no punctuations or emojis on hashtags so you have to rely on a carefully selected string of words to make it work.

Contests and promos:

If you’re a small business with a retail store here’s a tip for you. Im sure you can adapt this depending on the type of business you manage. Try using twitter in this fashion: Setup a Promo Sign in your store that says: #yourbiz or #yourproduct promo (something on topic that other followers will understand like #freefoxyshoes) that’s the hashtag topic that people will use for your business offer when they are commenting and also to keep up with that conversation.

Then give this suggestion:

“Tweet about your experience today in our store for a chance to enter this month’s giveaway of these foxyshoes!”

Tweet: “#FreeFoxyShoes have so many cool shoes I just hope I win the competition, I so love these new shoes”

That’s 100 Characters, still plenty of room for RT @adam_transeo, which is the preferred Retweet method. When a customer enters the store and sees the tweet promo, they’ll likely tell everyone they know about the FoxyShoes and how great they are and of course so they can enter to win those FREE Foxyshoes.

Then if they happen to win the giveaway for the month, its safe to say that you’ll most likely have a lot more Twitter followers than shoes on the shelf. Follow the conversations and engage with your new followers that favorite or retweet to gain entry themselves, then offer those new followers an in-store special for dropping by. You just might see how powerful social media can be when it comes to growing a crowd of loyal fans and happy customers.

Always engage

As your business grows, it may not be possible to reply to everyone and this is okay. Reply to tweets and direct messages that are relevant to your business. Respond to the ones that will help sell your product and those that will help your customers. Everyone is on social media right now and the expectations even for companies are pretty high when it comes to responding. You have to be selective and strategic in filtering messages that needs your immediate attention. Systems like Sprout Social will help you manage your tweets and engage with your audience.

When engaging, make sure to follow proper social media etiquette. To your audience, who you are online is exactly who you are in person. We have laid out the social media etiquette on this post, http://transeo.com.au/7-social-media-etiquette-rules-for-businesses.

About the Author

 

About Angelica Manlunas

Angelica lives off of coffee and pizza. She spends her time online tinkering on social media, watching short films and poetry slams. Her offline time is devoted to trips to the beach or spending lazy days indoors with a book in her hand. Also, she writes at least 1000 words every day. Email Angelica at angelica.manlunas@transeo.com.au and follow Angelica @ang_transeo.