This doesn’t mean that you need to be sitting in front of computer round the clock. It means having a presence on Twitter, monitoring keywords, sending out information and engaging with people. There are a number of ways you can do this such as automate you posts and split the time on Twitter between staf members.

You get out of Twitter like most things in life what you put in and by spending a small amount if time in the correct way the rewards of this 140 character social media website will come.

Tweet This Post 

You join Twitter to engage with people and use it as a networking tool that hopefully will increase traffic to your website but if you aren’t listening to what is being said then that won’t happen.

Here is an example. I have a client who sells bikes, now when I first met him he was only looking out for tweets that mentioned his company. This is good but he was missing out on so many other conversations with opportunities to engage with people. So we sat down and drew up a list of keywords that potentional customers would be using in their tweets such as shimano, campaq, raleigh etc. By monitoring these keys words he was then able to engage with people who had problems or needed advice and was communicating to a much wider audience than before. Within the first day of running this new process he had made contact with 50 new people and 3 had resulted in sales.

You need to understand just how powerful a tool Twitter can be and maximise on it.

Tweet This Post 

Tweet This Post 

Follow relevant people - Follow collegues, follow everyone in your industry, follow relevant brands, media and even the competition.

• Don’t use automated services - Churning out Tweets may sounds like a good idea because it will allow you to get on with other things but still give you a Twitter presence but you will come across like a robot.
• Take an interest in others - Don’t just post information about your business/industry, talk to other people on Twitter ask for their advice or even feedback on your product for example.
• Use Twitter to ask customers questions - If you ask they will respond. Use it to gauge how customers feel about your product range  find out what they would like to see for example.
• Give thanks - People are following you for a reason so thank them for doing so, without them you would be Tweeting to an empty room.
• Tweet Often - Don’t just tweet once a month as people will get bored and stop following you, 20 minutes a day is plenty.
• Don’t spam - From under tweeting to over tweeting, sending one every 20 seconds for an hour really won’t win you any friends. Don’t do it.
• Respond to direct messages - Don’t ignore DM’s, people are contacting you for a reason so respond to them, if you don’t you may find you end up losing a new client.

There will be more Twitter tips for businesses soon.Watch out for my new video posts coming soon!

Tweet This Post 

Chose a name that is relevant, personally I think your real name works best even if you are using Twitter for business. Now you need to enter some information in you bio. This is important as you want people to be interested enough to read your tweets. My advice is:

• Use a good photo - a real pciture of you works much better than using a company logo or an image of Batman. People like to see who they are dealing with.
• Well Written Bio - Add detail on who you are and what you do. Mine for example says ‘Helping businesses realise the value of Twitter for increased web site traffic and revenue. Self confessed geek, lover of blackberrys, ccling and blogs. This gives people viewing my Twitter page an insight into my business but also me.
• Website Details - Make sure you add these to your profile as this is essential.
• Background - Use a good quality background image that is either relevant to your business or give a professional feel to your Twitter page. If you are not confident in creating your own there are plenty of companies out there who will do it for you.

Now you are ready to start tweeting.

Tweet This Post 

When you first run UberTwitter you will be asked a number of configuration questions on how you want to software to work such as enabling the location service, enter key for tweet submission and font size, these are simple so the installation won’t take to long to get through. My advice on the network selection is leave it on’Auto Network’.

Once up and running you are presented with the timeline screen which lists all past tweets plus replies and direct messages. Seeing tweets update like you were using Tweetdeck (for example) is nice although make sure you have a good data tariff or are using WIFI..

The menu button presents you with a vast array of options. The first two options New Tweet an Refresh are obvious and don’t need an explanation.  The next two options allow you to view replies and direct messages which is handy if you did not chose the option to merge them into your timeline or your timeline is very busy (which mine is).

The reply function in UberTwitter has a nice feature that allows a reply to all which is good for re tweets and or group conversations. This does eat into your 140 characters though.

Under that is Re Tweet and Direct Message which as a user of Twitter I am sure you know what that means but I find having these as menu options great in a mobile device Twitter client.

Get Link only appears when you highlight a link in the timeline and when selected will launch the Blackberry browser and connect to the site posted.

In the menu next is Block, having the ability to block Tweets whilst on the move or when I don’t have access to a workstation I feel is a good feature and hopefully something we all don’t have to use to often.

There are a number of timeline options the first being ‘My Friends’ this gives you a detailed view which includes their name, bio, pic and website information. Plus you can also view their full profile. The ‘My Followers’ provides bio information on all those people following you.

‘Everyone’ is an option I have avoided as it reads to me like everyone on Twitter and that is one timeline I don’t want to try and load on my Blackberry. The other Everyone option is the ‘Everyone Near You’ which list people in a local geographical area either located by GPS or by their own setting of the location.

There are a few other options such as copy tweet, search twitter but these are all self explanitory.

For me this has to be one of if not the best Twitter mobile client available, it is feature rich and it just works as it has been designed to. The only thing I will say is that it can eat battery life if left running for long periods of time, but other than that it is now my weapon of choice.

Tweet This Post 

If there is anything you would like to see in these video’s then please contact me and I will do my best.

Tweet This Post 

There are a number of ways you can search for people, you could do it via #hashtags for example but you could find you get a large amount of search returns of which a large percentage are not actually relevant. Bio’s are a great way of finding people that either work or have an interest in the topic you are searching under w’hich is where Tweepsearch comes in. A search tool that allows you to enter keywords and returns results of people who have them defined in their bio. With this information you can then follow these people, send them advise, links etc and generally increase your networking reach.

Twitter is a powerful search engine and if used in the right way with the right tools a great way of promoting your brand, gaining new clients and contacts. Tweepsearch is another string that you should add to your bow if you are serious about Twitter and the best thing is this search engine is free to use and indexing over 12 million users currently.

Tweet This Post 

Ok lets imagine that you have a thing for widgets, you know everything there is to know about them and run a widget support company. You have built up a following of people who like your Tweets about widgets, recommendations on suppliers, info etc. Once day you post for example:

‘There is a new widget available now that if you purchase xgrommet with ywidget you get ***’

One of your followers see this post and think that maybe his followers would be interested in this news so Re-Tweets your message. Suddenly your message has reached not just your own followers but also followers of a follower.

Not everything you post on Twitter will be Re-Tweeted but over time you will find that a higher volume of your Tweets will be.

There area number of Twitter etiquttes to Re-Tweeting that I advise:

1. Never pass off someone elses Tweet as your own, always put RT  in the message and @twittername.
2. Don’t ask for your Tweets to be Re-Tweeted.
3. Re-Tweet other people Tweets and don’t just expect your own to be.
4. If someone does Re-Tweet one of your messages, thank them for doing so. As they are driving more interest towards you.

So there you have it, Re-Tweeting is a good way of getting messages to more people on Twitter.

Tweet This Post 

Quality followers is the key to successful business relationships on Twitter. An example - I have a client who sells bespoke furniture now when he came to me for a consultation he had heard about the programs and services offered that will get you thousands of followers in weeks and at first he thought this was a great idea as it would push his brand. Crowded room syndrome, by searching for people interested in furniture, responding to tweets and offering advice his followers list grew but grew with people who wanted to read what he had to say and this following started to convert into additional sales.

The rules are that simple, big numbers don’t mean interest because there are alot of people out there who just want to play the numbers game.

Tweet This Post