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Over the last 2 years twitter has become a buzzword amongst newscasters, politicians, pro sports players and online marketers alike. It seems like these days everyone from President Obama to my 13 year old son is on twitter. But what are they doing? What is this tweeting thing really all about? From a first glance it seems like twitter is just used to update people what your having for lunch in 140 characters or less, right? WRONG! Twitter is a great way to communicate with your customer base and gain brand loyalty and recognition at a very low cost. Before we go into the ways to use twitter for your business lets dig into some definitions.

Tweeple- Twitter users
Tweet- A message sent out on twitter.
Followers- Twitter users that have made an active decision to follow your tweets
DM- Direct Message (A tweet sent directly to an individual user)- Be careful using DM’s in your business as sometimes they can come across feeling spammy by the end user.
RT- Re-Tweet, When a user shares someone else’s tweet to all their followers.

Now that we have the twitter definitons down, lets get the twitter ball rolling and go through the sign up process.

1. Sign Up Form

This section is fairly straight forward. When picking your username, there are a couple of options. You can either use the brand name that you are representing or you can make it more personal by entering your name plus the brand name (ie Reborn_Paul). This really depends on the branding strategy that your company is going for, do you plan on having your staff tweet for you? If so then we recomend going with a straight forward brand name and creating a second profile for yourself. If you are a one man (or woman) operation and want to have a personal touch with your marketing then we recomend using your name and the brand name.
2. Choosing your Avatar.

Many people are hesitant to follow anyone they don’t know who doesn’t have an avatar. This can be your real picture, a logo, a stock photo or anything else. Just make sure you don’t leave your avatar blank. When using your real picture, people will feel more comfortable following you back, but you can use any picture you like.
3. Design your profile.

Recently twitter profile’s have become more and more personalized. This allows you to continue your brand strategy throughout your online precense. There are options out there to allow you to build a twitter background with stock backgrounds (click here for a great one) Reborn also designs custom backgrounds to allign with your online presence instead of using stock options. This is important for your followers because you want to ensure a consistent design everywhere your brand is represented, to encourage brand loyalty.
(For more information on twitter background design CLICK HERE for our contact form)

4. Fill out your profile

Another reason twitter is great for your online brand is it allows you to link to your website. This link is followable by search engines and will help out with your Search Engine Optimization (SEO). To start filling out your profile go to the following  link . Make sure to include a short bio of your brand with words that you think your customers are searching for.

5. Start Following People

Now it is time to start following people. If you are in any kind of forum for your business, there will be many users who are already on twitter, so start following them. If you know anyone who uses twitter, follow them. Then, if you need help finding new people to follow, simply use the search function on twitter and search for people based on keywords. For example if you are a writer type in “writer”. If you are a programmer, type in “programmer” or you can type in your towns name to try to find local people or even your state’s name. Another great way to find more followers is once you have a follower or someone you are following, click on their followers. Then start following everyone you are interested in. The majority of these people will follow you back and you can have a lot of new followers in just one day. The majority of people you follow will follow you back. Some people have their accounts set to automatically follow everyone back. Some people review their new followers to see if they want to follow them back or not. Make your account so that people will want to follow you back. If you have no avatar and no tweets, then nobody will want to follow you back. Start making tweets, even if you don’t have any followers yet or just a few. Nobody wants to follow someone who has no tweets at all. They know nothing about you. Introduce yourself to your future followers. Talk about your business, post your website link, ask any questions you may have, and tweet that you are looking for new followers. After you have followed several people, you will probably start to get people following you. Follow them back. A few tweeple are nothing but spammers, so if you end up following blatant spammers, you can remove them

6. Tweet- Socialize & Interact, DON’T SPAM!

Be sure to use twitter as a combination of socializing and marketing so you don’t look all spammy. You can market and find traffic and customers, but still find some time to socialize. If one of your twitter friends posts-Busy day today, ask them what they are busy with. If someone tweets about their children, ask them how old their kids are. People will usually respond and you’ll build a relationship with them and people will start asking you questions themselves. Instead of just an anonymous business out there amongst many on the internet, you will now be an online friend and a “real” person. Automatic DM’s are direct message that are automatically sent to new followers. If you choose this, be sure not to make it look spammy. A great automatic DM message to your new followers is something along the lines of “Thanks for following me, I look forward to your tweets. To know more about me visit (insert link)

Also make sure to post multiple times per day. Most of your followers are following hundreds of other users and will only check their twitter 1-2 times per day. There is a good chance your tweet will go unseen if you are not sure to post your offers multiple times per day.

Twitter Tools

There are a number of great twitter tools for small business owners and bloggers alike. For a list of tools available today Click Here

If you have any questions regarding twitter and how to use it for your business, or need help setting up your twitter account, feel free to comment below or send me an email via the contact form. You can also follow me on twitter @ twitter.com/Reborn_Paul or twitter.com/RebornCreative