Have you met Larry? Ok, we’ve all met Larry! Larry is the little blue bird in Twitter’s logo. The question is can Larry’s platform, i.e. Twitter, help your small business? And the answer is yes, and here’s how you can do it:
Number 1 – Show up
Twitter is a very fast-paced space so your business needs you to show up again and again. If you post on LinkedIn, it might still get talked about and shared a week after you posted it, that’s not going to happen on Twitter. If you don’t get engagement, Twitter will stop showing your post in people’s feeds after about two hours. On most platforms, I would recommend posting about three times per week, but for Twitter I recommend taking that up to at least five if not seven.
Number 2 – Stay relevant
Everything you post needs to have a point. Does it make your followers want to buy from you? Does it benefit your followers? Does it help your followers relate to you? In a funny sort of way, this actually goes for Retweets more than posts.
Posting about unrelated things now and then to show who you are when you are not a small business superstar can be a good idea. For example, I often tweet about my walks with Patch in the beautiful mountains I live in. It might seem unrelated to a social media marketer, but actually, it might encourage nature lovers to follow me or even work with me.
However, retweeting loads of posts about Snowdonia would be unrelated and would likely annoy my followers, and could even lead to some unfollowing.
Number 3 – Don’t be spammy
If you #write a post full of #hashtags to increase your #reach and get in front of a more #diverse #pool of #people, it #doesntwork. It’s just hard to read. Twitter is actually quite good at joining posts that talk about the same things without the use of hashtags.
I’d recommend a maximum of three hashtags per post. And yes, a post with no hashtags at all can have its benefits too!
Here’s an example of what I might use if I were sharing this article:
#socialmediaforsmallbusiness #twitter #socialmediatips
The first one shows what I do, the other two show what the post is about. I would then choose my words in the post carefully to help Twitter join my post with others without me having to use more hashtags.
Also, just to go back to Retweets for a sec, don’t retweet too much. If you get people to go and see your profile, you don’t want them to have to scroll through a seemingly endless feed of other people’s posts. You need people to see your posts.
Number 4 – Network
Remember how you are now posting at least five times a week? One, if not two, of the posts want to be in a Networking Hour.
First, you need to find a Networking Hour that is relevant to your business and where your ideal client might be hanging out.
When the time comes, go onto Twitter and search for the hashtag that the Networking Hour uses and go over to ‘latest’. This is where you are going to sit for the next hour.
When you post your posts, make sure to include the Networking Hour hashtag and address it to that group of people specifically. If you wish to reply to people, also include the Networking Hour hashtag.
I would definitely recommend trying #SMESupportHour on a Wednesday evening and, for my fellow Welsh businesses, #NWalesHour on a Thursday evening.
Number 5 – Do nothing
Obviously, I don’t mean ignore your account and hope for a miracle. I mean get someone to do it for you – someone like me. Enjoy all the benefits of expanding your network, getting awesome reviews and having people talk about your business without actually having to do the work yourself.
