If you are a small business owner who wants to maximize exposure for your business without spending a fortune, social media can be a lifesaver.
One of the best social media sites for building a following and creating brand awareness is Twitter.
When utilized correctly, this website allows you to effectively network with others within your niche and bring in steady traffic to your business.
On that note, let’s discuss a strategy that will help increase your presence on Twitter and establish a following.
1. Consistent Posting – don’t skip on this one
Perhaps the most important thing to do is post excellent content on a consistent basis.
Whether you are tweeting about your business or retweeting a post from someone else, you need to try to post every day and make sure that it provides real value for your followers and try to post every day.
While it’s fine to promote your products or services, you shouldn’t go overboard and come across as overly salesy. Instead, you should use your common sense and be responsible when promoting items.
How many times per day?
You should also try put up four or five posts throughout the course of a day.
Doing so is advantageous because it should keep people interested in your page and often appeals to search engines because of the fresh content.
When is the right time to tweet?
Another trick is to make sure that you tweet between 1 to 3 p.m. EST Monday through Thursday. Posting after 8 p.m. should be avoided.
Added Bit.ly in a blog post: “Specifically, don’t bother posting after 3 p.m. on a Friday, since as far as being a gateway to drive traffic to your content, it appears that Twitter doesn’t work on weekends.”
On the same token, you need to prevent overwhelming your followers by posting a surplus of information. This means that it’s usually best to space out your posts and not put them all up at once.
2. Interact with relevant people in your industry
Along with a steady posting schedule, you need to interact with other relevant people within your niche. One of the easiest ways to initiate interaction is to follow relevant people and leave thoughtful comment on their tweets.
In many cases, people will return the favor by following you and leaving comments on your tweets. If you want to streamline your efforts, you can also use a software program such as Tweet Adder to find relevant people in your industry.
Besides this, you can also retweet content that others have shared.
Since the whole emphasis of social media is to be social and interactive, this is vital to building a following.
While it does take some time and effort, it’s well worth it when you create positive Twitter karma and bring exposure to your business.
3. Reveal yourself to make it more personal
Another part of optimizing your strategy is to let people know who you are and what you’re about.
While Twitter allows you create a bio page, you might want to also link to your “about me” page from your primary website.
This is because you are limited to only 160 characters on your Twitter page, but you can provide much more in depth information when linking to your main website.
People just like pictures
You should also include a nice head shot of your face so people can get a feel for you and hopefully become comfortable with you.
Being transparent is important because it makes it easier to establish a sense of rapport and lets people know that you’re not a spammer.
Do you have a twitter strategy? Are you communicating with your followers on a daily basis?
Share your experience with us and leave a comment below.