Twitter for Business: Tweeting Basics

Now that you’ve determined that Twitter is right for your business, it’s time to learn some tweeting basics. Before we jump into mastering the 140-character message, we have to lay some groundwork.
Determine Your “Twitter for Business” goals. Most businesses think Twitter is merely a tool to reach customers, but it has the potential to be so much more. Remember your suppliers, competitors, contractors and employees may all be on Twitter. This means you can use Twitter for:

1. Customer service
2. Finding new employees
3. Communicating with current employees
4. Searching out new contractors
5. Promotions

Some businesses have multiple Twitter accounts to address all of these needs. Apple, for example has an account for Spanish users as well as English, another for news and yet another for ideas.
Who will do your Tweeting? Your tweeter should be able to capture your business in 140 characters, which means they need to understand your business well—from its values to its voice. As this person will likely do most of your tweeting, they should obviously be trustworthy, reliable and able to connect with people on the Twitter platform.
Know your Tweet Types. This is essential to knowing how to tweet.

• Tweet: a message you send out to all your followers.
• @Reply: Publically replies to a message sent out by another.
• Mention: Makes reference to another Twitter user.
• Direct Message: Private message you send to another Twitter user.
• Retweet: Message originally sent out by someone else that you send out again, usually as a show of support.

As an exercise, you should read over the tweets you’ve received. Read as many as you can and simply note which ones stand out for you. Why do they stand out? Knowing what draws you is the first step in knowing how to draw others. Here are the Tweeting Basics:

1. Twitter is all about simplicity. In fact, it seems the smaller your tweet the better. According to Buddy Media, Tweets shorter than 100 characters have a 17 percent higher engagement rate.  
2. Make your tweets engaging. The more users who interact with you, the better your Twitter presence.

Short, sweet and engaging. If you’re an ice cream parlor that wants to introduce a new flavor, tweeting “What flavor would you make, if you could?” to your followers is a lot more interactive and, therefore, engaging than “New flavor coming.” You’ll get customer input into your flavor creation and build anticipation for your new flavor.
Using @replies and mentions is also a great way to engage your followers. If your ice cream parlor uses coffee from a local roaster to make your famous coffee ice cream, use their Twitter handle to mention them: “Thanks to @CoffeeGuy for the great brew for our signature coffee ice cream.” This promotes both you and CoffeeGuy, and makes CoffeeGuy more likely to promote you in return.