Social media sites are designed to help individuals and businesses network. The most popular—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and others—offer their own advantages, and an Internet-savvy business owner can benefit from all of them.
Main Features of Twitter
One example is Twitter, which can be used in conjunction with other sites to maximize your marketing campaign. Twitter was designed for users to create and share brief messages—Tweets—containing no more than 140 characters. A Tweet can start a messaging and commenting thread with the followers you approve. The discussion can be expanded with the use of a hashtag—a word or phrase preceded by the # symbol that shows other Tweets containing the same keywords.
Twitter helps users “get to the point” fast. For business, comments about quality of service, types of equipment, customer care, pricing, and more are all Tweet-worthy— they drive home the message in little space with little time. And Tweets can include photos, polls, links, and more. Plus, in May, 2016, Twitter announced it would be adding media and content features to enable people express more without sacrificing characters.
You can also use Twitter with your YouTube channel by Tweeting a link to a video showing you explaining or demonstrating your service. Your followers can read your Tweet, watch your video, and go to your website—then Retweet (share) your post, expanding your audience.
5 Tips for Effective Using Your Twitter Account
- Keep your brand image consistent. Use your company name as your Twitter username (handle) for enhanced visibility of your business: @xcelcpa for XCelCPA.com, for instance.
- Avoid using punctuation in your username. To facilitate typing and searching for you on mobile devices—which account for roughly half of social media users—keep your username brief and simple: @firecleanup instead of @fire_cleanup_restore, for example.
- Use your company logo as your profile picture. Your business identity will appear beside every Tweet.
- Use a background image that matches your brand. For example, if you offer writing services, you could include an image of a computer, typewriter, or quill pen.
- Complete your Twitter profile. Fill in all applicable fields, including business names and professional titles, office location and hours, contact information, etc. so users can easily learn about and get in touch with you.
By using Twitter with other social media, you will increase traffic to your website and increase your conversion rate—the number of visitors that become leads, as well as enhance your search engine optimization (SEO)—which helps you rank higher in search results.
