Twitter for Small Business: Are You Using Twitter Marketing Correctly?

Twitter for Small Business: Are You Using Twitter Marketing Correctly?

You know that social media is critical to your success as a small business.  And you already use Twitter for Small Business Marketing.  If not, what is stopping you?  You are leaving serious dollars on the table.

Twitter for Small Business

by Rosaura Ochoa under CC BY
Twitter for Small Business

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But, given the above two facts are true, are you using Twitter for small business marketing in the right way to guarantee your business success?  Are you gathering leads, boosting your SEO and engaging with your community?

These days, most small businesses have a Twitter and other social media accounts.  It is just becoming part of the business landscape.  But, unfortunately, when using Twitter for small business, most businesses are going about it all wrong.  Fortunately, there are three simple (but not necessarily easy) ways that you can ensure that your small business is using Twitter in away that ensures your success.

Excellence

The first thing you need to ensure when using Twitter for small business, is that your company embraces excellence.  That’s easy to say, but what does excellence mean.  Excellence simply means that you are actually providing value.  Many small businesses use Twitter for nothing more than spamming their latest sale, or thousands of links about their products or services for sale.

Excellent means meeting your customers where they are at.  Finding out what their problems are, and then solving them.  Yes, your product may solve their problem, but more important is how it solves it.  What is the best way to use your service to solve the given issue?  Or is there a solution that your customers can do on their own?  Your product or service may make it easier, but you can talk about that later.

Authenticity

Even when using Twitter for small business, it is is about people, and in order to connect with those people, you need to be yourself.  If your potential leads, are seeing one person on your website, and another in Twitter, and another in person, they are going to figure out quickly that you are not who you are saying you are.

People can sense that you are not being authentic a mile away.  You want to be yourself, and be real.  When using Twitter for small business, you do not want to come across as a phoney.  It might work for a while, but long term; it is going to blow up in your face.

Engagement

I left the most important rule to creating your small business Twitter presence until last.  That is engagement.

And the first step to engagement is to listen.  You need to listen to what your followers are talking about.  What their problems are?  And, what they see as possible solutions.

Then you need to engage and help solve those problems.  Twitter marketing, and social media marketing in general is about a conversation.  No one wants to listen to you give a sermon from your soap box.  And they certainly don't care about your latest sale.  At least not until you have been engaged with them for some time.

Join in on the conversation and be a part of it.  Outbound marketing in social media is dead.

By taking a step back and evaluating your Twitter presence to ensure that you are aiming at excellence, while being authentic and truly engaging your audience, you are going to see an increase in leads for your business.  Its going to take you some time, but without embracing those three fundamentals, Twitter is never going be a key to your long term business success.

So, if you haven't been seeing the results you want with your Twitter account, evaluate those 3 items.  And if you want to learn how to use social media to completely dominate your industry and crush your competition, sign up for our free Social Media for Small Business Webinar.  You will learn seven secrets to social media, including Twitter, success.

Social media is critical to success in small business today.  Using Twitter for small business marketing is an important part of that landscape.  Start staking your claim today.