Saucy Twitter Tips
If you’re feeling a little intimidated by the seemingly non-stop calls for your business to get into social media marketing and to do it quickly – before you lose all of your customers because of your absence on Facebook, say goodbye to any prospects as your competitors hoover them all up on Twitter, and before you shrivel up and disappear down the plughole of anonymity as your business fails to capitalise on LinkedIn and Youtube – then I sympathise!
Digital Marketing Specialists
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years since we first got involved with social media marketing in our capacity as digital marketing specialists, it’s that it’s all too easy to jump in unprepared – and to make a hash of it, only to see zero results (what a surprise!) and to give up dispiritedly as you drown in the ocean of emails, tweets and campaigns from every conceivable angle, that keep shouting at you to get on board the social media steam roller.
As with most new toys on the block, it beckons to many of those who’d like to make a quick buck. There are those who perhaps are very good at telling you how to do things – look at some of the Life Coaches, Business Consultants, Marketing Experts, Social Media Gurus you meet – have you ever scratched the surface only to find they don’t have any “previous”? That they don’t have either experience or social media case studies and success stories with other clients that prove they can deliver? – and there are those who have testimonials and documented results that illustrate real practical metrics and goals reached.
Getting Results on Twitter
Well, as part of our quest here at Saucy Horse Social Media, we are up for giving you the first few small steps in bitesize chunks, so that you actually stand a chance of taking some action and getting some results.
So, first things first –
Advice for new users of Twitter
- Create a Twitter account or get someone to do it for you. Tweak your Twitter bio so that it’s meaningful and useful to those that look you up, and start to listen for your business name, your competitor’s names, keywords and terms that relate to your business. It’s the first step in our (borrowed) mantra – Listen, Learn, Care & Serve.
- Add a profile picture. Stay “dark” until you’ve done this – the world of Twitter has enough “eggs” already. You’ll see what I mean as soon as you get going…
- Start by talking to people about THEIR interests. Yes, I know, this does not sell more of what you make or do (not immediately anyway), but I promise it’s the only way to be allowed to stay at the party. If you persist in mouthing off about your own interests all of the time you’ll be ejected from many people’s space (timelines and tweet streams) or even worse, you’ll be ignored!
- Converse about the wider subject matter around your business sector – not just YOUR business. @ClasswatchUK do this well in their space (educational) and talk about a wide range of issues that are pertinent to their target audience of Headteachers and educationalists.
- Share links to interesting and useful things in your community. Witness @GreenEnergyHero talking about everything under the sun when it comes to Renewable Energy technologies and issues.
- Don’t sell your product or service continually – in fact if you can avoid it, you’ll do better in certain circumstances – as many of our case studies show.
- Be human and talk about things other than business sometimes. Have an opinion (although best to avoid aggression and profanity – unless that’s key to what you do 😉
- Grow your following organically – you don’t need a gazillion uninterested followers who don’t engage. You need followers who find you because your content is relevant to them in some way. If that means 200 followers for a while then so be it – the thousands don’t mean anything unless those who covet them are actually increasing their meaningful reach by doing so.
It’s not normally the case.
For more advice and regular tips click this link & say hello here and we’ll keep in touch
And for more great advice on using Twitter read Chris Brogan’s article here