Twitter Guide
Twitter for Business
Twitter is one of the world's top social media platforms and with a vast number of daily users it is an effective channel for communication. Many businesses are using Twitter is an easy way to market their services or product and in turn this helps their business to grow. According to Lyfe Marketing “twitter is one of the top 10 social media sites for business” [1].
Advantages of Twitter for Business
Connecting with customers
Twitter being such a popular and well used social media platform results in it being one of the best places to look for potential new customers as well as keeping in contact with current customers. Current customers have an easy way to interact with the business and see how the business is developing.
Marketing new products
Connecting with new customers can also be achieved through marketing new products. Once a business profile is achieved on Twitter you can use it as a fast and easy way to introduce and market products to current customers who follow you and then news can travel fast and be retweeted or liked and accessed by new customers.
Keeping customers informed
News tends to travel faster nowadays via social media outlets such as Twitter. You can keep customers informed by making any important announcements and sharing any news that customers should know. Whilst you can also do this with adverts on Tv or the radio by doing it on twitter it is simple, free and does not take a long time to carry the message forward.
Interaction with customers
Interacting with customers is a key part within any business and twitter is a great tool for providing this service. You can follow customers interactions and conversations with regards to your product via comments made on posts that you have made as well as by simply searching for key words in the search bar or hashtags. If you have anything specific that you want to find out, you can tweet your question or you could also provide a poll for customers to undertake.
Disadvantages of Twitter for Business
Time sensitive
In order to gain the most traction with your tweets you need to make sure you are tweeting at a time when many of your customers would be online and browsing. If you get the time wrong, your tweet could be quite easily missed and overlooked.
Customer Criticism
Negative comments about your business’ products or services would largely be public and this would reflect badly on your business. However, this could be turned into a positive by responding well to customer criticism, therefore having a positive impact on your business’ reputation.
Resources
Having a presence on twitter requires several things. A time commitment to keep everything up to date as well as the staff in charge of the account having the correct skills and training. Without the correct skills and training the advertising side of the business could see a downturn as people will not be drawn in by the tweets posted on the account.
References
[1] Digital Marketing Blog. (2020). Top 10 Social Media Sites for Business - LYFE Marketing. [online] Available at: https://www.lyfemarketing.com/blog/social-media-sites-for-business/ [Accessed 24 Feb. 2020].
Set Up An Account!
Step 1- Sign up
Go to twitter.com and click the sign-up button as shown above. You then provide your full name which will be used as your display name, you will be able to change this further down the line if you wish.
Step 2- Authentication and verification
You then get the choice between entering your phone number or email address as a form of authentication which will be used to recover your account if you need it in the future as well as needing to verify your chosen method.
Step 3- Customise your experience
You now have the choice to let others find your twitter account via your phone number as well as having adverts personalised towards you. You can tick or ignore the boxes and click next.
Step 4- Password
Choose a password and make sure that it is secure! You don’t want to pick a password that is easily guessed, and twitter requires it to be 6 characters or more.
Step 5- Pick a picture
Twitter provides you with a default background picture. However, you can change this to something that you would like to. Just select the camera on the picture and then choose a picture that you would like to choose. Once your account is made you can change your picture whenever you want too.
Step 6- Write your bio
Time to write your bio. Depending on what you plan to use twitter for will depend on what you want to include here. Think of this as a short blurb that other users will see when they access your twitter page.
Step 7- Interests
Choose your interests. You do not have to fill this out and you can skip this. However, if you fill it out twitter will give you suggestions of people to follow based on the interests that you list.