Twitter – What is it ?
This is a short post for beginners to Twitter. The Twitter platform is ideal for beginners in social media – it’s ultra laid back and open nature will appeal to most everyone. It’s easy to get started, you don’t need to be anyones’ friend or get invited to join you can just set up an account in minutes, take a look around and get started making connections – perfect!
When talking with clients on the subject of Twitter, I’ve always found the easiest way to explain one of the most popular social media platforms and how it functions is simply by referring to it as a waterfall – makes sense right? As a business owner your goal when looking at Twitter should in laymens’ terms be going fishing. As every good angler knows, there’s no point fishing without a hook & worm so in it’s purest form, every tweet you send should at the very least have some form of hook and nice big juicy worm on the end if you’re ever going to have any demonstrable success.
All too often, we see people on twitter (Tweeps) blissfully dishing out statements about themselves “Dear Diary…” style and that’s all well & good for them but honestly, do we really care? Remember, you can Unfollow someone just as quickly as you Follow them. Twitter really is probably the most laid back and relaxed social media platform there is. It also serves dual purpose in that it is by far the simplest way of connecting with another “Tweep” without ever having to arrange a meeting, cold call or get past an over protective secretary etc.. You can literally send a simple 140 character ‘tweet’ (basically 2 short sentences) off to anyone, anywhere, anytime as long as they have a twitter account. There you go, ice broken. It’s up to them if they want to respond to you but the ability to connect is right there at the click of a mouse just waiting for you to take advantage. So what are we doing wrong?
Followers generally leave or Unfollow someone due to one of 3 main reasons:
1) Off Topic Tweets – They used to like you but you no longer tweet about anything that originally interested them anymore. You’ve strayed off-topic and have now become useless to them as a resource. Remember Date Night? Gotta keep the love alive to keep your Followers – always try to give them more of what they followed you for in the first place.
2) You tweet a) too much or b) only about yourself and how truly great you are. Vis-a-vis you have officially become annoying to the twitter-verse. No-one wants their feed filled with what you’re cooking for dinner, the colours of your mismatched socks, your latest pair of shoes… Twitter shouldn’t be confused with your own personal Diary so if you don’t really have anything to say, it’s okay – don’t say anything! Don’t tweet just for the sake of tweeting – please.
3) You don’t tweet anymore. What happened? Twitter now auto-deletes accounts that haven’t tweeted in six months. Stale accounts will get Unfollowed pretty fast in general (auto. services will even do this for you). Let’s face it you’d only say Hello?? on the phone so many times before you hang up right? So make a point of tweeting on a semi-regular basis as and when you have something useful to contribute or you think your Followers would like.
As you start building your “brand” on Twitter, think about why people are following or talking to you. Are you an expert in a particular industry? Are you opinionated? Funny? Do you share great news articles or interesting photos? The bottom line is simply be authentic and true to your values and you’ll quickly become a valuable member of the Twitter community.
Twitter is an excellent tool for making connections and networking and should definitely play a role in your social media plan. You’ve got one of those right?
MAC5 Offers a full line of Social Media Management services including Research, Design, Strategy, Training & Execution – whatever your needs, we’ve got you covered. Give us a holler anytime if we can be of help.