Using Twitter effectively

[ReaderScars]

Has anyone got a good resource which will help me to use twitter effectively for business promotion or raising awareness of products without making a mess of it or coming over as an irritating spammer? Any help/pointers gratefully considered!

[Foliage]

As a small business without a dedicated social media team, id suggest avoiding it.

[ZDW]

We use it without a social media team for a small business and I'd rate it as being effective. Facebook and Instagram work too. We can measure that when people come asking about said post. Maybe it's industry specific for us.

My (limited experience, I'm no social media guru) advice: don't try and promote, advertise or sell directly. it's really annoying. Instead, try and find stuff related that will actually interest people and now and then fit you products/services in where appropriate.

Oh, if you do proceed, post/tweet on a regular basis - not doing so is a bit like a company who hasn't updated their website since 2000 and thirte... oh I've lost interest, they've probably closed down by now.. kind of thing

[andy-xr]

If you're a business and you want to show what you do, show what it does for people rather than how great your latest widget or amazing service is.

Make it less about you, more about your customers and how amazing they are. Follow/RT /comment on your customers when they're saying things that are relevant to what you do, because you'll interact with people better, and it'll have more context.

Tweeting continuous Today Only 20% discount messages doesnt interact with anyone and you get unfollowed pretty quickly

Make it fun, make it relevant and make it about others not you

[ReaderScars]

Thanks for all suggestions so far guys. Any pinters on how to actually use it? eg, if I search for a particular hashtag does that mean I see everyone's tweet which uses it, or do I see the originators tweets with it?

Any pointers to a particulary good starters guide, maybe?

[ZDW]

this looks fairly beginner friendly:
https://blog.bufferapp.com/twitter-tips-for-beginn...

Just start tweeting and you'll pick it up. it's about engaging rather than overt selling.

[944fan]

I head something that you have to post one thing on average something like 8 times for the majority of you followers to see it so if you find something you want to post that is interesting to be afraid to re post it again and again (obviously leaving gaps).

OP - Twitter now gives you some details on your reach, i.e. how many saw a tweet, who re-tweeteed etc, how many looked at your profile after. But there are other apps and platforms that provide a lot more information so worth having a look for those. Not straight away of course but once you have found your feet.

It takes a lot of effort to really get the benefit. In an interview with the body coach (built his business via social media) he said he had to make about 20K posts across all the platforms before he made any money out of it.

[ReaderScars]

ZDW said:

this looks fairly beginner friendly:
https://blog.bufferapp.com/twitter-tips-for-beginn...

Just start tweeting and you'll pick it up. it's about engaging rather than overt selling.

Thanks very useful link; although at the moment I'm not quite ready to start tweeting but hopefully that'll change before too long - want to have actual content which hopefully will end up on other platforms like Instagram or Pinterest etc. If I start now it'll just end up as noise, so to speak.

Edited by ReaderScars on Friday 15th July 18:44

[ReaderScars]

944fan said:

I head something that you have to post one thing on average something like 8 times for the majority of you followers to see it so if you find something you want to post that is interesting to be afraid to re post it again and again (obviously leaving gaps).

OP - Twitter now gives you some details on your reach, i.e. how many saw a tweet, who re-tweeteed etc, how many looked at your profile after. But there are other apps and platforms that provide a lot more information so worth having a look for those. Not straight away of course but once you have found your feet.

It takes a lot of effort to really get the benefit. In an interview with the body coach (built his business via social media) he said he had to make about 20K posts across all the platforms before he made any money out of it.

I've signed up and created a profile of sorts in order to go through the various settings etc. It's pretty comprehensive as you've said and I haven't looked into whether there are additional plug ins so to speak, if that's what you were referring to when you mentioned apps/platforms.

What I want to minimise is receiving notifications unless they directly relate to interest in a business activity, rather than than someone showing an interest in something I may have retweeted. Thanks 944, good stuff!