Promote Your Business with Twitter
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Twitter is a relatively new tool on the Internet, so before we talk about how to promote your business with it, let’s first learn about Twitter. Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users' updates. These updates are known as tweets. They work similarly to Text Messaging or SMS activity on cell phones. Tweets are text-based messages (also called “posts,” like a posting on a bulletin board) of up to 140 characters in length which are:
When you initially set up your Twitter account, your tweets can be read by anyone. You can restrict delivery so that only people you specify can read your tweets – like a private messaging service. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. Now that you understand the basics behind Twitter, we’ll learn how to use this tool for your business.
You should keep your business Twitter account separate from any personal Twitter accounts you have. Keep your business profile professional, with no personal communications.
When you create a Twitter account, the account name will form your account’s Web address (URL). When choosing the account name for your Twitter account, enter a username that uses your business name or your website’s address. In this example, the site address is: We chose the twitter username:
Describe your store’s niche and focus in the One Line Bio box. People who come to your Twitter profile will read this to learn about you – sound interesting to your niche! Tell people where you’re from – this is especially attractive to local followers.
Upload a picture for your
You can also configure your mobile phone to send Tweets to your profile on the Devices tab. Use the Notices tab to change what events you wish to be notified about – e-mailed when you get a new follower, or when someone sends you a direct message, for instance.
Follow Twitter Accounts
To Follow an account, go to the Twitter profile page for that account, and then click Follow under their profile picture. This is what other people will do to Follow your Twitter account. When someone wishes to follow your Twitter updates, they will sign in to their Twitter account, visit your profile, and click Follow.
When you become a follower of a Twitter user, you will see their tweets when you log in to your Twitter account. The tweets won’t be visible to your Followers (people who Follow your account), only to you. When you follow someone who appreciates the same interests you do, they may follow you back. When you follow each other, they will see your Tweets when they look at their Twitter home page, and you will see theirs. Theme and Messages
On the same token, make sure that messages you send through your Twitter account are interesting to your target audience. Repeatedly stating that they can get free shipping or sending a 20% coupon code won’t help if they aren’t interested in the products and the niche; rather than going to your site or buying products from you, they are more likely to stop being your Follower – meaning they will no longer see your Tweets. Look at your Twitter channel as a way to advance your niche, not to sell products. Followers who read your Tweets with interest are more likely to respect your messages than those who are annoyed by constant sales talk.
Followers
There are many ways you can find followers, or that followers can find you. They might find you using Twitter’s search function. Be sure to include effective keywords in your Tweets so that searches can find you, and so that people who read your Tweets know what it’s about. Rather than saying, “Check out this link,” consider saying, “Great article on how to decorate your home in creative ways.” The second Tweet lets readers know what it is before they click. People interested in home decorations are much more likely to click the link, and to stay and read the article. People not interested in home decorations won’t click the link – you wouldn’t want them clicking the link anyhow, as they won’t stay and read the article. Also, the second Tweet is something people can find in the Twitter search. If they type “decorate home creative” they can find you recent Tweet.
More on Tweet Content
To present yourself as an authority on a topic, as opposed to a self-promoter, Tweet about your own content 20% of the time or less. The rest of your Tweets should be about other content related to your niche. This means that less than one in every five messages should be about promoting your own business, four of five or more should be about your niche, and should not mention your business. For an example, let us pretend if your niche is “home and garden.” Send Tweets with decorating advice, timely tips (such as “Mother’s Day is around the corner; home decorating is a group project, spend a day decorating with mom!”), references to new articles on sites like Better Home and Garden, and other messages that show you to be truly dialed in to your niche. Then, when you give a Tweet about new home decorations you just added to your site, it will get a much better response.
Sending Messages
A counter above the box tells you how many more characters you can type. If you go over 140, you can delete some to make room.
In this example, you can see how long ago each message was sent. A Tweet will only stay on someone’s home page until they receive enough new Tweets to push it off the bottom of the page.
Sending Tweets to Specific People
A @mention works similarly to @reply, but it is used anywhere in the message.
All three @names listed in the Tweet account will see this message on the @screen of their Twitter account.
Click the Reply button on the Tweet:
People consider it a sign of brand trust when many of your followers Re-Tweet your messages. Meaningful, funny, or useful messages will get Re-Tweeted. Followers will ignore advertising and spam will.
Brand Trust and Brand Advocacy
When you construct your Twitter profile and think about building up your Twitter following, carefully consider what kind of message you want to get across. What is your main topic? What makes you special within that topic? If you were watching a television channel about your niche, what kind of information would interest you? If it were a radio program, what topics would get your attention, and make you share the program with others? If your Twitter channel were a printed newsletter, what topics would be useful? Form your content with this in mind if you want people to respect your brand. Brand advocacy happens when followers are excited about your brand, and recommend it to others. Twitter is a special place because it allows you to witness brand advocacy. When people Re-Tweet your messages, or make their own mentioning your @profile or your website, you have achieved a level of brand advocacy.
Social Community
For example, if they are interested in your niche of home and garden, show them articles that you have written, and then offer to help them. Maybe you can help them decide how to decorate their home, or perform gardening tasks, or how to find decorations on a budget – perhaps that will lead to you offering a discount on your site. After you help a person, they are very likely to recommend that other people follow your Twitter channel. When you get a new follower from a heartfelt recommendation, that new follower will be more loyal and pay more attention to what you have to say. The person you helped is also more likely to
Gaining New Followers
Think about the tactics that you will use to attract new followers. There are plenty of automated programs to help you gain followers – avoid these, as Twitter is a social community, and people feel that it is very impersonal to use an automated tool to handle your social interactions. It is obvious to other Twitter users when you use an automation tool, and is a serious turn off. People might Un-Follow you just because of an automation tool, such as an Auto Follow or Auto Reply tool. Following other people is a good way to gain Followers. More than 50% of Twitter users tend to Follow Back – that means to Follow you in return for Following them. While this might mean that if you go out and follow 1,000 random people, you will gain 500 followers, keep in mind that those are unlikely to be quality followers. Instead, search for other Twitter users who have the same interests as you do, and follow them only. That way, if they find you interesting enough to follow back, they will be a quality follower, more likely to be interested in your message. You can also run contests to gain new followers. For instance, you could announce that your first 50 followers get a free $10.00 gift card. Since they can only use this gift card on your store, you got yourself 50 new customers in return for signing up as a Twitter follower. You will contact them through Twitter and ask for an e-mail address you can send the gift card number to, giving you another means of contacting them. Keep in mind, though, that if the person asks you to stop contacting them (either through e-mail or Twitter), you should. You can also ask for referrals from people you know on Twitter. For instance, if you are good friends with someone who has a large number of followers, they can endorse you. They can send a message like: This type of message tells other people what to expect from you, and why they would want to follow you. If someone is not interested in gardening or decorations, they wouldn’t follow you; that’s fine, because you wouldn’t want a follower who is not interested in your niche. If someone sees that topic and is interested in decorations and gardening, they will be a new quality follower for you. Mention your Twitter profile address everywhere you can. It should be on receipts, in every e-mail you send, on your business card; use every opportunity to let people know you are on Twitter and how to follow you.
We have reviewed several tools and give information about them on the Twitter Tools page.
We also tell you how to use them to help your business. If you do not have a Version 9 or if your site does not include some of the mentioned features, give us a call at (888) 806-2081 for information on getting these features. As always, if you have any questions please contact Technical Support via e-mail at techsupport@emerchantclub.com by going to Live Chat Technical Support at http://www.emerchantclub.com/support.html or by calling (877) 384-4691. Thank you, Your eMerchantClub Team Click here to return to main contents page Click here to view previous newsletter articles
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Create a Twitter Account
You can only have one Twitter account per e-mail address, so we recommend that you use your business e-mail address (your eCommerce site’s main e-mail account) to create the business Twitter account.
The Twitter account’s username samplev9site makes the address read:
Configure Twitter Account
Enter your website’s address in the More Info URL box.
account on the Picture tab of the Settings screen. This can be your business logo, a picture of your store, of you, or of a product. Remember that you are not just presenting your store and products, but your niche – the picture should represent the interests of the followers you wish to attract.
On the Design tab, choose a new theme for your page. You can also experiment with uploading different background images – if you don’t like the result, you can remove the background image.
Next, find some existing Twitter accounts which discuss your primary business niche. For instance, if you specialize in home and garden decor, find some Twitter accounts which discuss that topic, and Follow them.
Once you become a Follower of a Twitter profile, the button changes to say Following, and confirmation text below it states:
You can send messages directly from twitter.com as long as you are signed in to your account. Simply type your message (limited to 140 characters) in the What are you doing? box, and then click update.
Your message will appear as in this example on your own Twitter home page. It will also appear on the Twitter home page lf all of your followers.
@reply is a public way of sending a message to a person. To use @reply, place the @ symbol (called an “At” symbol when spoken aloud) next to a person’s name at the beginning of a Tweet. When someone sends a message with the @ next to your Twitter account name, you can find those messages by clicking on the @ line on the right side of your Twitter home page.
Use the @mention function to get the attention of people on Twitter. For example, if you know of a few followers who would be particularly interested in a Tweet, you can include their names with the @ symbol in a Tweet. It will show up on their @pages. An example Tweet containing several names:
Re-Tweeting
which copies the message into the What are you doing? box. Now, add RT to the beginning of the message, and people who see the message will know that you are Re-Tweeting the message.
A Re-Tweeted message carries more weight than the original message alone. This is because a Re-Tweet is like the Re-Tweeter’s way of saying that they like the message.