9 Twitter tips for small business

Follow industry influencers and friends/colleagues/stakeholders
Theses are typically the people who post very often and have the most followers. If you want to increase your twitter following, research how the influencers post and when they post so that you can achieve the same results with a similar strategy. It can also be useful to interact with them as they may follow you or engage with your account, which in turn should increase your following.

Update your profile with a profile pic
This is usually a head-shot for most people – make sure it’s a good one. Be sure to include a header banner for your profile; you can use this to advertise your products or services – get creative! And remember to put your website address and contact details in your ‘about’ section – that way you can send followers back to your website.

Include key people in your tweets by using their handle (e.g. @examplehandle)
This is usually colleagues, clients, stakeholders or influencers. Make sure to include them in your tweets if you want them to see what you’re writing on twitter. On top of that, it will give them a chance to reply to your tweets.

Add images to your posts to increase engagement
Images with text almost always get more views that just text alone so be sure to include a picture, especially if you’re talking about anything visual.

Participate in large conversations by using hashtags (#) and tweeting about what’s trending
There is always a list of what’s ‘trending’ on twitter. You can view this on the left hand side of your twitter account. Each topic or phrase will be preceded by a hashtag (#). Use the same hashtag if you want your tweet to be included in the conversation. Then, everyone in the world who is viewing that hashtag will have an opportunity to see what you wrote, regardless of whether or not they follow you.

Create lists to follow influencers and potential clients
Go to your profile page on twitter, then click ‘lists’. This will give you an opportunity to create a new list based on who you want to follow closely. It’s a good idea to break these lists down into different lists, rather than just having one big list. Try using categories such as: clients, partners, experts, or what ever else you deem suitable. Remember that everyone can see your lists unless you make them private!

Check your Twitter analytics to see what content is performing best
There are different ways of viewing your analytics page, but the easiest way is to go to the page: analytics.twitter.com when you are signed into your account. Here you can view your account performance on a month by month basis and your top performing tweets. Very useful information.

Monitor your notifications daily to find out what people are saying about you
There is a notifications tab on at the top of your account and on your mobile twitter app. Monitor this on a daily basis to find out what people are saying and where you have been referenced. It will give you updates of who has started following you, but it won’t tell you who has stopped following you!

Advertise and use twitter cards to gain larger audiences
Advertising on twitter can be useful if that is where your audience is. Also, remember that a lot of the media and independent journalists use twitter to find and develop stories. Therefore, advertising on twitter can often be a good way to get their attention. An advanced adverting function is twitter cards – these allow you to put multiple images on the one tweet and to measure the performance of your campaign. This is a good feature to have but it’s probably best to start with the basic advertising and then move on from there.