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31 Twitter Tips: How To Use Twitter Tools And Twitter Best Practices For Business GETTING STARTED 1. Decide your purpose. Why are you using Twitter? Some Twitter users utilize the social media site to build their company brand or generate leads. There are bloggers who use the platform to share ideas and articles and to see what others are writing about. Some people check Twitter for news, while others want to see what celebrities or friends are up to. Defining your purpose will help you decide who to follow and what kind of information to share. The Washington Post’s (@washingtonpost) purpose is to provide news updates. Their tweets are news related. Ashton Kutcher’s (@aplusk) purpose is to build a following. He provides his fans with updates and information he finds interesting.
My company’s Twitter account (@InsideSales) was designed to drive awareness and provide insight into the evolving world of sales, so companies know why they need our product, driving our company brand and generating leads. 2. Focus on your passion. There are millions of Twitter users tweeting thousands of pieces of information every second. It is easy to get overwhelmed by and lost in the noise. Rather than trying to soak it all in and repurpose everything, focus on your passion. Don’t be a jack of all Twitter subjects and a master of none. Tweets surrounding your passion are going to be stronger. Plus, you will attract users who have similar interests. My company tweets about inside sales, sales and marketing. That is our passion. People know when they go to our Twitter profile, they are going to get information related to improving the sales process. We do not tweet about celebrities or anything outside of our passion. We are focused. 3. Define your brand. Once you have zeroed in on your purpose and passion, decide how you want the Twitter world to view you. Do you want to specialize in one subject to attract a targeted audience?
Or do you want to be more general, tweeting about numerous topics? Do you want your tweets to be funny and casual or very professional? Is your goal to be a thought leader or celebrity? This will give you direction on who to follow and what to tweet. HubSpot (@HubSpot) is a provider of marketing automation software. Their purpose is to drive brand and generate leads, so they have branded themselves as the source to go for marketing information. Their posts provide marketing updates and tips.
Pepsi’s (@pepsi) purpose is driving brand. Their target audience is the average consumer. Their tweets aim to engage the consumer with their product. They are more casual, for example: “Show us your fun summer pics with #Pepsigram for a chance to be featured on our #Instagram page! pep.si/17tNh9f “ http://
“Weekends rock! Tweet us your best pics with #LiveForNow and you might see them on #PepsiPulse!” Guy Kawasaki (@GuyKawasaki) tweets about anything he personally finds interesting. He has branded himself a celebrity, and his posts are directed at drawing interest. They are not focused on one single topic or purpose, other than drawing interest in his feed. 4. Determine your strategy. a. Is your strategy to communicate? If your goal is to influence, promote or sell, your strategy should be communication based. You are going to want to attract attention. To attract attention, you are going to need to tweet, direct message, engage with other users and focus on getting information out in the Twitter world. b. Is it to listen? If you are using Twitter to keep up on news, learn, provide customer service or perform market analysis, your strategy should be to listen. You are going to want to decide who will provide the content you’re interested in and follow them. You will also want to learn how to utilize filtering tools, including hashtags and Twitter lists. 5. Learn how to use Twitter. Reading this article and articles like it is a good first step. However, to really learn how to utilize Twitter, you’re going to need to get your hands a little dirty.
Go to Twitter.com, and create a free account.
Learn Twitter terminology. When you post something, it’s a tweet. When you repost something from another user, it’s a retweet or RT. Trending topics, or TT, are topics discussed by many users at a given time. You can Favorite a tweet by clicking on the star. That is a great way to recognize someone for sharing your content. Explore. See who is on Twitter and what people are tweeting. Engage. Follow the guidelines in this article and become an active user.
6. Grab your name, brand or persona. (@KenKrogue) When you are signing up, you will need to decide your Twitter name, which is how people will tag you in tweets and ultimately how you will be known on Twitter. Mine is my name, @KenKrogue. Choose something that fits you or your business.
7. Take a good picture. Use a closeup headshot of yourself or a logo of your business. This image will show up on your profile page and next to any comment you make on Twitter. You want people to recognize you. I use a black-and-white picture to stand out and match my company brand. Make sure the image is clear and well-lit with your face in the center. You want to avoid having other objects beside you in the picture. If you are using a logo, try not to make it too wordy, or it will not be readable at the small image size. Your image can be formatted as a jpg, gif or PNG. The size limit for upload is 700KB. Twitter reformats the image for the profile picture and the smaller image that goes next to comments. Changing Your Profile Image
To change your profile image, click on the gear icon located at the top of the page, and select “edit profile.” Next to “Photo” select “Upload photo” from the drop down. Upload your photo from your computer. 8. Find your keywords. Use the Google Keyword Tool to find the keywords that make up your industry or market. Remember to divert a river, don’t dig a well. In other words, tap into existing traffic rather than generating it from scratch. It is better to know about keywords than even about hashtags, because a hashtag is a keyword or a “theme” that can help amplify your exposure. How to Use Google’s Keyword Tool (Now Called Keyword Planner)
1. Search by keyword. Enter keywords you wish to analyze in the text box labeled “Word or Phrase” on Google’s Keyword tool website. For example, at InsideSales.com we might enter “inside sales” or “remote sales” into the keyword box. If you wish to compare multiple keywords, you can enter several keywords at the same time. 2. Search by URL. If you want to extract keywords from a website, you can enter the URL into Google’s keyword tool. 3. Filter the results by country. If you only want information from one country or a few select countries as opposed to data from all over the world, you can use “Advanced Options and Filters” below the text boxes. 4. Sort your keyword search results. To find the best keywords, you can sort your results by clicking on a column heading. 9. Research and identify your #hashtags. Hashtags are a tool to make words more searchable. To create a hashtag, place # before a word.
Hashtags allow Twitter users to tap into a Twitter-wide conversation. Discover the trending conversations, and decide which ones you want to be included in. This will also help you connect with users who have similar interests. When my company hosted the largest online event, the Inside Sales Virtual Summit, my team promoted the hashtag #SalesSummit, so participants across the world could see what other Twitter users were saying about the event. Use a maximum of two hashtags per tweet. Hashtags are a useful way to get your tweet out to people who are actually interested in its main subject, but too many hashtags in a single post can be overwhelming. #Hashtags can be a #useful #tool, but this is #toomany in a #single #tweet. #annoying #overwhelming Five Tools to Help Research Hashtags: 1. Twitter Toolbar: You can search terms, keywords and people by entering them into the toolbar at the top of the page on Twitter. For example, if you are in sales, try searching #sales and related keywords you have identified using the Google Keyword Tool. If you want to see tweets surrounding a certain topic enter that term into the search bar, and it will bring you to all related tweets. For example, if you wanted to see tweets related to the Inside Sales Virtual Summit, enter #SalesSummit into the search bar, and all tweets tagged #SalesSummit will show up. 2. Hashtags.org Hashtags.org provides research to help businesses improve social networking strategies.
3. Topsy
4. TweetReach 5. Social Mention (3-5 are social analytics tools that can provide analysis of your tweets and hashtags.) 10. Wordsmith your profile with keywords for search and fun facts for people. Once you have decided why you are using Twitter, what your target audience is and gone through the initial setup, now you want to show up in search. Include keywords in your Twitter profile. For example, my profile says that I like inside sales and lead gen -- which happen to be keywords that I care about. It’s also smart to add a human touch. Marketing strategist Shelly Kramer’s profile tells people that she loves Milk Duds and is a member of Oversharers Anonymous. 11. Publish your Twitter ID in your other media. I post my Twitter ID (@KenKrogue) in my email signature, at the bottom of articles I write and anywhere else I think applicable. This lets people know I’m on Twitter and helps them find me. A great way to grow your following is to start with people you know and connect with them in various ways. BUILD YOUR NETWORK 12. Use TweetAdder or Tweepi to target who to follow or who you want to follow you. Check out How to Build a Targeted Twitter Tribe of 100,000 on Jeff Bullas’ blog. Below you’ll find instructions for two useful tools: Tweepi and TweetAdder. (MarketMeSuite, Tweepi, Fanmachine [Facebook]) Tweepi How To 1. Go to http://tweepi.com/ 2. Choose your package. Silver $7.49 /mo vs. Platinum $14.99 /mo. (You can always try using Tweepi’s free package first. It’s limited compared with the Premium plans.) 2. Login via oath to start using Tweepi. Create a Tweepi account. 3. Under your “Manage Twitter” tab you can do the following: Flush the unfollowers: Unfollow people who are not following you back in bulk Reciprocate: Follow back people who are following you in bulk Cleanup People I’m Following: Unfollow people who are inactive and don’t engage in conversations. Cleanup People Following Me: Forces users to unfollow you. 4. Under the “Follow Tweeps” tab you can do the following: @user’s followers (people following a user): Generates a list of people following a specific @user. @user’s friends (people the user follows): Generates a list of people the @user follows. List members: Choose which @user and list you want Tweepi to generate and organize for you, and start following. Copy/Paste: Paste multiple @users and analyze loads of information about those tweeps.
Tweet Search: Search for a hashtag or any keyword. Great tool for finding users talking about a specific term around the world. User Search: Search for public Twitter users by topical interest, full name, company name, location, or other similar criteria.
Tweepi Premium Features- Below is an example of the additional tools that Tweepi’s premium features include:
Tweepi is a management tool that helps you make sense of your Twitter social graph with statistical data. For additional tips, go to: http://tweepi.com/help TweetAdder How To 1. Go to http://www.tweetadder.com/
2. Purchase full activation keys for Tweet Adder. (1 Profile $55, 5 Profiles $74, 10 Profiles $110, Unlimited Profiles $188) 3. Download the software on your computer (Mac, PC, and Linux) 4. Features: Send automated Tweets, Retweets, thank you messages, DM’s, and follow people back who follow you first. Location Search: You can specifically search for @users in a certain location and follow/tweet at them. Find out who is not following you back and who unfollows you. Group Twitter profiles by @users who don’t have a profile picture. This tends to show you which people have fake profiles or are inactive on Twitter. Group users with high ratio of followers vs. following to see if you have a good chance of a specific @user following you back. You can filter which @users are active on Twitter vs. non-active. Set up an RSS feed for automatic tweets. For additional questions, visit TweetAdder’s Q&A here: http://support.tweetadder.com./support/home 13. The follow-first rule I follow you, you follow me. This is by far the most common way to get followers. Twitter puts limits on how many users you can follow. Here are the guidelines: “Every account can follow 2,000 users total. Once you’ve followed 2,000 users, there are limits to the number of additional users you can follow. This number is different for each account and is based on your ratio of followers to following; this ratio is not published.” 14. The favorites-follower rule I click “favorite” on your Tweet, then you follow me. Just click the word “Favorite” or the star symbol on any tweet to favorite it. It’s a good way of getting somebody’s attention because it shows you are interested in this person’s tweets.
15. The offer-follower rule You follow me, I give you something: information, ebook, etc. Make sure to give away something that your target audience will value. Make it easy for people to claim their reward. 16. The fan-follower rule You follow celebrity types to keep up on their tweets. Alyssa Milano has been one of the most prolific celebrity tweeters and she’s built up a following of about 2.5 million. Kim Kardashian has more than 18 million followers while Barack Obama has close to 35 million.
17. Choose your lists Twitter lists allow you to listen to relevant conversations, identify influencers and filter out the noise so you can focus on the people and topics you care about. Follow these steps to create a Twitter list: 1. Sign in to your Twitter account and click the Lists link near the upper-left-hand corner of your profile. 2. On the Lists page, click Create List. Give your list a name and a brief description. Choose whether you want to make your list public or private. 3. Add industry thought leaders to your list. Go to another Twitter user’s profile page. Click the gray icon with the image of a person that’s next to the Follow button. Select “Add or remove from lists.” Check the box next to your list to add this user. 18. Two ears and one mouth rule Listen (and research first) before you speak. 19. Listen with Topsy.
Topsy.com is a Twitter search engine that let’s you see if anyone listens or cares. Let’s you see the latest Twitter results in the past hour, day, week, 20 days, month or all time -- with a cool trending graph. Topsy How To 1. Go to http://topsy.com/
2. Use the free version of Topsy or upgrade to Topsy PRO ($12,000 for an annual subscription. Includes unlimited data and standard email support.) - Compare here: http://about.topsy.com/products/ 3. Social Search: Search and analyze the social web. Choose a keyword. You may analyze everything or specific links, tweets, photos, videos, experts, or what's trending about that keyword. Check for latest results, past 1 hour, past 1 day, past 5 days, all the way up to the past 30 days, or all time. Toggle for the keyword search between Google+ or Twitter. Within Topsy, Reply, Retweet, favorite and see the conversation on a specific tweet. Create email alerts with specific keywords. 4. Social Analytics: Search and compare up to 3 queries. You may search by domain.com, @username, or keyword. In the example below, the terms “insidesales.com”, “@insidesales”, and “Inside Sales” were compared.
To learn more how to use Topsy, go to http://about.topsy.com/category/blog-usingtopsy/ 20. Use Tweetdeck or HootSuite to listen to the conversation about you, your company, or your industry. Serious listeners step up to Radian6. Tweetdeck How To
1. Go to http://tweetdeck.com/ and create an account. This is not the same as your Twitter account. 2. By default you will have a Timeline, Interactions, Activity and Messages column. 3. The search button on the far left hand column can search for words, hashtags, and specific users. 4. Once you locate what you are looking for, you may add a column with a stream of tweets that match the searched term. 5. You can modify, create, and add people to one of your existing lists on the far left panel. 6. Other ways to use Tweetdeck: Schedule Tweets Edit & RT a Tweet instead of Retweeting. Add multiple Twitter accounts - Great for choosing which account you want a retweet to originate from. Engage in multiple conversations in one window. Answer questions and reply to customers quickly. For additional info on getting started with Tweetdeck, visit: https://support.twitter.com/groups/54-mobile-apps/topics/226-tweetdeck/articles/20169620getting-started-with-tweetdeck HootSuite How To For a complete guide quick start guide on HootSuite, visit: https://help.hootsuite.com/entries/21626925-Quick-Start-Guide Start Communicating 21. Create and tweet great original content that fits your purpose. Create content that is informative and entertaining. Write about industry news, especially if you’re in a position to break the news. Stay on top of trends and provide commentary that adds context. If somebody releases groundbreaking research in your industry, write about this research. But don’t just regurgitate it. Use your own expertise to explain why this research is important. Show others in your industry how they can apply it to their work. Use a combination of short-form content, like tweets, and long-form content, like blog posts, to establish yourself as a thought leader. 22. Summarize and curate great content that fits your purpose. Share facts, insights and statistics in 140 characters or less. Try to keep your tweets to about 100 characters to leave room for links and hashtags and to increase the likelihood that somebody will retweet your content. Use your Twitter lists to curate relevant content. Set up keyword searches to track content by keywords.
Follow these steps to save a keyword search: 1. Go to the Search bar at the top of your Twitter profile, near the middle of the page. 2. Type a keyword, like “social selling,” and hit Enter. 3. Click on the gray gear icon and select Save Search. 4. Access the latest tweets about this keyword by navigating to the search box and selecting your saved search from the drop-down menu. Pro Tip: As you’re sifting through the tweets in your Twitter lists and saved searches, click the Favorite button on any tweet to save the best content for later sharing. Access your saved Favorites by navigating to your profile page and locating Favorites in the upper-lefthand corner of the page. For more curation tips, see How to Consistently Out-Curate Your Competitors. 23. Spend your time on really great headlines with keywords.
Your headlines have the greatest impact on how many people share and read your content. Here are some proven headline formulas: Lists: Headlines with numbers in them consistently perform well. Example: 7 Undeniable Reasons People LOVE List Posts. How to: “How to” titles promise a benefit to your readers. Example: How to Use Sales Data to Increase Sales Productivity. Target a Shark: Refer to a shark, which can be an important company or person in your industry. This allows you to feed off the shark’s popularity to call attention to your content. Example: What Steve Jobs Can Teach You About Startup Success. Include Keywords: If you want to be known for sales motivation, make sure to include that keyword phrase in your headlines. Example: 6 Insanely Useful Sales Motivation Secrets. For more headline tips, see How to Write Magnetic Headlines. 24. Keep tweeting -- Resend tweets with different angles.
Some social media experts recommend that you send the same tweet four times to cover all four U.S. time zones. If you want to mix things up, here are some different angles you can take: Use statistics to show significance: 90% of your sales come from 10% of your list Address tweets to the individual by including the word “you”: Why You Should Focus on 10% of Your Prospect List Throw out an eye-catching quotation: “Our sales quadrupled over night once we identified our ideal prospects,” Larry McLarryson says. Same content, different angles. See how that works? 25. Alternate tweets by time of day and day of week. Social media scientist Dan Zarrella says that the best time to tweet if you want to be retweeted is on Friday at 4 p.m. EST. That’s based on aggregate data he has analyzed for millions of retweets. The engagement levels on your Twitter account may vary based on your industry and other factors. Use Buffer to schedule your tweets. Test different days and times. Monitor engagement by using Buffer’s Analytics tab. Identify patterns among your Twitter followers. Schedule your tweets for your optimal days and times. Don’t overlook weekends. Some Twitter users see higher engagement over the weekend. But the only way to know is to test and monitor your results. 26. Bridge Twitter with other media.
Create a dynamic experience for your Twitter audience by including different types of media, such as images and videos. Here are some tools you can use:
Twitpic: Go to Twitpic.com, create an account, upload photos and easily share them on Twitter. Yfrog: Yfrog is another popular photo-sharing service. YouTube videos: Simply paste a YouTube video URL into a tweet. Your followers will be able to view the video right in their Twitter stream by clicking on the “View Media” link that appears in your tweet. AudioBoo: Use AudioBoo to share audio files. Once you have an account, sharing an AudioBoo link is super intuitive. 27. Retweet great content. When you see something worth sharing in your stream, retweet it. This means that you are sharing somebody else’s Twitter content with your own followers. Retweeting somebody else’s content accomplishes two things: 1. It helps you make friends with other influencers on Twitter. 2. It shows your followers that you’re an active member of your online community. Retweeting is simple. Here’s how: Click the Retweet button on any tweet. This will publish the original tweet in your followers’ streams. The tweet will appear exactly as it did when it was first tweeted, meaning it will appear to come from the person who originally tweeted it. A message will appear at the bottom of the tweet telling people that you retweeted it. Or you can retweet the old-fashioned way. When viewing a tweet, click Reply. Copy and paste the original message into your tweet box. Place the letters RT in front of the original tweeter’s Twitter handle, or @ sign. Click Tweet. The post will be published in your followers’ streams as if it came from you. Many users prefer this method of retweeting because it’s better for building your own brand. 28. Send direct tweets as a great form of communication. Direct tweets are one-to-one messages as opposed to one-to-many. So, these tweets are more personal by nature. Use direct tweets to build strong relationships and to communicate important messages. There are two types of direct tweets: 1. At-replies: Send an at-reply to another Twitter user by hitting the Reply button on any tweet. Type your message into the box that pops up and click Tweet. Your at-reply will show up in this person’s Interactions stream, which means it is more likely to be seen than a regular tweet. Just remember, your at-reply will also be visible to the public as part of your general Twitter stream. 2. Direct messages: If you don’t want anybody but the intended recipient to see your tweet, use a direct message. Click on the gray gear icon at the top of your Twitter profile. Select
Direct Messages and create a new message. Once you submit it, it will appear in the recipient’s inbox. 29. Use your #hashtags.
Hashtags categorize your tweets, which makes it easier for others interested in your topic to find them. Turn the keywords you want to be known for into your hashtags.
Create a hashtag by placing the # symbol in front of your keywords. For example, #insidesales, #sales and #salesdata are popular hashtags in the sales space. Find existing hashtags by searching for them using the Search Bar at the top of your profile. View a list of related tweets by clicking on a hashtag inside a tweet. 30. Leverage your tweets in Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs. Share your Twitter content with your audience on other networks by reposting your tweets on Facebook and LinkedIn, when appropriate. You also can embed a tweet into your blog or website. Click on the date in the upper-righthand corner of a tweet. Then click More and select Embed Tweet. Copy the code and add it to your blog or website. SEE IF IT’S WORKING 31. Check where you stand on social media tools, like Klout.com, Peerindex.com, Kred.com, Wefollow.com. Your influence on social media matters. The higher your score is, the more influential and relevant you are to others in the social media realm. One of the most popular tools is Klout. See how it works below. Klout How to 1. Go to http://klout.com/home 2. Sign in with Twitter or connect with Facebook. 3. Connect your social media networks so Klout can analyze your influence in each network. 4. Choose the topics you care about. 5. Add “Influencers” to your influencers list. 6. Invite your friends to join Klout. 7. Klout gives you an Influencer score from 0-100. The higher the score, the more influence you have across the social media channels that you connected your Klout account with. 8. Compare your Klout score with your friends. Find out more about Klout here: http://klout.com/corp/how-it-works You can find out which types of tweets get retweeted the most by using a free HubSpot tool called RetweetLab. Just log in with your Twitter account, and RetweetLab will tell you:
Which day of the week do you tend to have the highest average retweets? During which hour of the day do you get the most retweets? What are your most retweetable words? Do your tweets that include links get more retweets than those that do not? And other information about your Twitter account.
Use these Twitter tips to help you build your business.
