Building an Engaged Audience on Twitter
Twitter is one of the most powerful social networking websites, and it is also one of the most effective ways for you to get the word out about your business to a wide pool of people without having to pay for advertising space. Twitter is free for businesses and individuals, and at this time there are over 974 million active user accounts. Once you master using Twitter to your business’s best advantage, you’ll be on your way to building a much larger audience that will convert into sales.
Find Your Target Audience
There are thousands of people on Twitter who are looking for exactly the products and services you are offering, but how do you find them? The majority of Twitter users will check out your profile before they will follow you, so it’s crucial to create an eye-catching profile that will make people want to hear more of what you have to say. Research has shown that people respond more positively to a photo of a smiling face than to an impersonal corporate logo, so it’s important that you include a photo of yourself looking your best if you want to be seen as a person they will be interacting with rather than a potential source of spam from a faceless corporation.
Create Content that Matters
Twitter users can be fickle, and if your posts aren’t engaging they will quickly move on to something else that does capture their attention. When you Retweet posts, add your own comments to make yourself an active part of the content instead of just passing it along as-is. It is also helpful to Retweet your own content, as Twitter moves so fast that many people on your list of followers probably missed your Tweet the first time around. You’ll notice what type of content is resulting in positive interactions and Retweets through trial and error, and eventually you will be able to pinpoint the type of content that is working the best for you.
Link to Your Twitter Account
Twitter offers users a number of ways to easily add links and buttons to other blogs, websites, and social networking sites you may be using to promote your business. You’ve spent time building a following on other sites, and now is your chance to use your existing audience to your best advantage of Twitter. By linking your Twitter account to your other online accounts, you’ll increase your exposure across the board and draw people who are already following your posts on other sites to your Twitter account so they can see and potentially share even more of your content to their followers.
The Etiquette of Tweets and Retweets
You can enter search terms that are relevant to your business into Twitter’s search function to find posts from users that are related to your products and services and then join in the conversation by mentioning the original poster. This will connect you to their follwers and to other users who may be looking for the same topics. Reposting other people’s posts is also a great way to get people to repost your content. When you are actively engaging with other Twitter users, you are maximizing your opportunities to exposure to new followers who may also repost you to others if they see you practicing reciprocal posting as well.