I’m fairly new to Twitter myself, but luckily I’m surrounded by a team of Twitter veterans (well, as long as the social site has been around) who have been able to give me some handy Twitter tips and tricks to help me in getting going and making the most of this awesome social and business tool. This article takes a look at the 5 Important Twitter Tips that will help you make you presence known in “Tweetville!”

THE 5 MOST IMPORTANT TWITTER TIPS

Twitter Tips 1: Personalize your profile

When you set up your Twitter profile, be sure to make it personal and human. People really want to connect with other people, that’s what it’s all about. If they get the feeling that they’re simply interacting with an anonymous business owner, or a few different people operating a single business profile, they’ll be less likely to interact. This is one Twitter tip you don’t want to forget. In your Bio, promote yourself rather than your SEO Agency. You can always promote your business this personal profile.

Having said the above, having a strictly brand related profile is sometimes a good idea, but only if you have a personal profile of your own to go with it. If people come to know that you are CEO of a company and that you also have a business profile for your company itself, they will be more likely to want to follow both of your profiles. Having a business profile allows you to enable all your employees to communicate information from different departments of the business through one profile. Remember that when implementing this Twitter tip, you need to keep tweets personal and human, people want to know that if they reply to one of your business’ tweets that they are indeed replying to a person who will be able to reciprocate the gesture.

Twitter Tips 2: Provide value to your followers

Every person who chooses to follow you does so because they are interested in what you have to say and really value your opinion on things. Whether you’re a social media guru, a professional sportsman or an SEO specialist, people want to hear what you have to say and want to share information that you think is valuable to yourself and your followers. Having a good balance between personal and informative tweets is essential. People want to know that you’re human and they want to know what you’re up to, but they also want to learn from you, especially when it comes to business related information in your industry.

Another useful Twitter tip is to remember that your followers, as much as they want to hear what you say, won’t be online all of the time and therefore won’t see every tweet that you post. For this reason, it is a good idea to retweet or own posts a few times at numerous intervals – this maximizes the chance of your followers seeing any particular post.

Twitter tips 3: Check out your competitors

This is one of my “twittering” tips for beginners – If you’re just starting out and obviously don’t yet have any followers, you need to look in the right places to find people who will be interested in what you have to say. A great place to start looking is to check out who is following some of your closest business competitors. Obviously, your competitors will be in the same industry as you and therefore their followers will be interested in your view on the industry. Start following them and you will see that on average 30% of them will start following you in return. This is a great way to get started in building up your own Twitter community.

Twitter Tips 4: Track your profile’s performance

Use Google Analytics or sign up to a bit.ly account to track your posts. Tracking how much traffic your site or blog is receiving from your Twitter account is important. As time goes on, you will learn which posts are most effective and use this to your advantage. A bit.ly account enables you to track exactly how many times any shortened URL that you create has been clicked which is always handy.

Twitter Tips 5: Abide to Twitter Etiquette

  • When you’re getting started, it’s important to make a good impression, provide good information and treasure every mention you get from one of your treasured followers. If somebody mentions you or RT’s one of your posts, send them a DM or public post thanking them for taking the time to RT your post.
  • It is possible to automate responses to certain actions on Twitter, such as a thank you message everytime somebody follows you, but this is not advisable. People can tell when a message is automated and if this is the case, it lacks the personal touch that only a human response can provide. This is an important Twitter tip to remember if you don’t want to offend any of your followers.
  • Avoid political, religious or any other sensitive topics that could offend your followers. Unless your niche is to be controversial, there is no need to risk offending your followers who are following you for your valuable opinions on your chosen industry.
  • Always give credit to someone who tweets a good post. Never retweet someone’s post without actually referring to them in your post. This is one of the most important tips for Twitter than I can mention.
  • As funny or necessary it may seem at the time, never tweet when you are drunk, angry or overly emotional about something. Think carefully about each and every tweet and remember why people are following you.
  • Keep private conversations short. Twitter is not an IM service and spammy private conversations that go on too long can be annoying to your followers who are not interested in what time you are meeting @daveackermann for lunch.
  • Use keywords in your posts and highlight them with a “#” in front of the keyword. This helps people to track relevant and useful information.
  • Never promote a blog or a post in a DM to all your followers. Reserve this for thank you messages and private conversations. This is a great twitter tip as people do not want you flooding their DM inbox.

Twitter Tips: BONUS Tip

The most important of Twitter tips that I can give you – HAVE FUN!

Do you have any useful tips you’d like to share? Please do so in our comments section!

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