Twitter
- When I first began to use Twitter it was all very confusing to me. To
the younger generation it is second nature, but knowing how to use
Twitter was alien to me. The only tweet that I was familiar with was the
sound a bird made, Twitter was a succession of notes sang by birds, tag
was a children's game and trend was just the latest fashion item. Oh
how the world has changed!
Twitter - Many of you may still be asking yourself "Why use Twitter at
all"? However Twitter can be great fun to use both socially and from a
marketing point of view for your business. Indeed, using Twitter for
business is a must. Let's first of all clarity some points that you will
need to be familiar with before you get started:
Twitter
Twitter is the name of the social network that allows followers to share tweets (namely shortened messages) with each other.
Tweet
A tweet is a shortened message (similar to a text) that a user posts to be read by their followers.
The maximum amount of characters are 140 which also include those of your URL.
Followers
Followers are people who have agreed to follow your tweets. One of the
best ways to get Twitter followers at the beginning is to follow others
in the hope that they will start to follow you too. One way to try to
get more of your Twitter followers to follow you is by posting good
quality and varied content and by re tweeting or commenting on others
people's tweets.
Re tweeting
Re tweeting is when your post someone's tweet to your followers. This
can be beneficial to both parties. It can benefit you as it will help
you to connect with your followers by re tweeting their tweets. It can
also provide good content for you. It will help your followers as you
will be sharing their content with a wider audience i.e. your followers.
Connect
Connect is the most important section within Twitter as it will show you
details of people that have "connected" with you...namely people that
have started following you, re tweeted your tweets, mentioned you within
their tweets or favourited your tweet. This section will help you to
determine how powerful your content has been to others. It is always
beneficial to reply to the people who have connected with you in order
for them to continue to follow you and to distribute your content to
their followers. This is particularly advantageous to business owners
who want to promote their brand and products as it will help you to
market to more people.
Tag
A tag is when a follower mentions you within their tweet by inserting a @
symbol before your Twitter domain within their tweet (ensuring not to
leave any spaces in between.) Again this can be very powerful in helping
you to reach a wider audience.
Favourite
A Favourite is when someone likes you tweet and they press the
"favourite" tab. This is useful as it acts like a "like" on Facebook and
proves that your content has been of value to others.
Hash tag
A hash tag is a means of categorising messages and keywords by insert
the # symbol before your keywords (again without any spaces between the
characters.) Hash tags also help to create a list for followers to see
what is trending at that particular time.
Trending
Trending is where a list of the most popular topics being discussed at
that time, is displayed for others to see. Often people will then join
in by tweeting their own views on that topic by adding the hash tag.
One popular hash tag that is frequently used is #FF which is short for
follow Friday. This is where, every Friday, users recommend people that
you think others should follow.
You should generally not use any more than 2 hash tags per tweet.
Using # on Twitter can be particularly useful for businesses as they can
add a hash tag to categorise certain aspects of their business e.g.
#builderincardiff #landscaperinpontypridd etc.
Discover
The discover section highlights any current items that are featured within the news media that day.
To get the most from any networking sites it is important to inter link
them. For example you should always link your face book to your Twitter
account.
Despite my initial reservations about joining Twitter to promote my
business, I have to say that not only is it great fun but it is hugely
advantageous in promoting my services for free.
