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Twitter is the second most visited social networking site in the world and has millions of users worldwide.

I’m using Twitter with good success here, on Monetize.info and on other sites to bring traffic to my articles but most important to get in touch with people from the industry.

This guide has three parts and I encourage you to read them all to understand all the benefits of using Twitter for your business and how to make it work for you.

1. Benefits of using Twitter for your business

Twitter provides huge opportunities for any business to get their brand in front of people they would never have had the opportunity before.

You can literally grow your followers from just a few too many valuable contacts, influencers, and prospects in only a short space of time.

[tweet_box design=”box_02″ float=”none” excerpt=”Twitter provides huge opportunities for any business to get their brand in front of new people via @monetizeinfo”]Twitter provides huge opportunities for any business to get their brand in front of new people[/tweet_box]

1.1 Lead Generation

The main goal of any business is going to be to generate leads for conversion. On Twitter, you have access to literally millions of users and the opportunity to find new prospects is enormous.

Twitter offers a very informal way of making contact with people and makes it very easy for you to gain attention by simply following users. As long as you have a lead generation and capture system in place your business can benefit hugely from Twitter.

1.2 Connect with your customers

If your customers are on Twitter it is very likely that they will want to follow you, and Twitter offers you an excellent way to engage with your customers.

By staying in contact with them you can continue to build loyalty, communicate new offers and when they start interacting with your brand their followers will hear about your brand too.

1.3 Branding

You no longer need to be a big name to build a brand on Twitter. Twitter has evened out the playing field and has made everything possible for businesses both small and large and you can literally get your brand in front of thousands of people. 

Once you are connecting with customers, providing them with valuable information, answering their questions and taking notice of their comments and complaints you can start building relationships and brand loyalty. 

You should also read our article: Five Social Media Marketing Tips From Professionals

1.4 Drives Traffic to your website or blog

By sharing and posting links to useful content videos, blog articles and other useful information you can drive traffic to your website or blog which can drive sales and generate leads.

1.5 Promotions, offers and contests

Promotions are a very effective way of building brand awareness and also building your opt-in list. Word can spread very quickly on Twitter so it’s an obvious choice to use this platform to publicize your latest special offer.

1.6 Introductions to new contacts and networking

The potential for growing new contacts and connecting with thought leaders in your industry is huge. Twitter’s search facility makes it incredibly easy to find people who may be interested in your product or service.

1.7 Faster Customer service

Twitter is a great way for your customers to stay in contact with you and because so many people have smartphones and can access the internet it is often so much more convenient to contact a business via social media.

Whether you use Twitter for customer service or not will depend on whether you have the resources available to offer to respond to customers quickly. Many businesses use a separate Twitter handle for their customer service.

1.8 Boosts your visibility on Google

Twitter profiles are highly ranked on Google for both businesses and individuals, this is probably because the content is current and Google loves fresh content.

Publicize Testimonials If anyone says anything good about your business or brand then retweeting this is great way of spreading the word about your positive testimonials and you can also save them as your favorites.

1.9 Helps you keep up to date with news and trends in your industry

Twitter is used massively by the media in all types of industries for finding and publishing breaking news, so it is the perfect place to find out about the latest news and trends in your industry.

1.10 Spy on your competition

What better way to spy on your competition! Following your competition is probably the fastest way to find out what is going on in your market and keeping up with trends in your industry.

Search and follow profiles of your competitors to stay informed on what products they are launching and how they handle their businesses.

Part 1 Wrapping up

In a nutshell, these are the most important benefits of using Twitter for your Business. Once you are aware of these, you need to think hard about what you want to achieve and what your main goals are for your Twitter campaign.

This is incredibly important when it comes to setting up your profile and when you start posting content.

Here is how you can get started with it.

2. How to manage a Twitter profile with great success

2.1 – Signup on Twitter

The first step is to visit Twitter signup page, and get started with creating a profile for your company or website. There, you have to personify your company and fill in all the fields correctly.

Try to use a sensible handle and it is best that you mention your company name as the handle. The idea is to make it as easy for your audience as possible to reach you and access your twitter account and website.

You have to make your profile as interesting and engaging as possible if you wish to get more and more people to like and follow you. You should use Canva.com or any other tool to design a nice cover photo and an avatar (profile picture).

2.1.1 Twitter account creation checklist

1. You have a cover photo and a profile picture
2. You added a nice account description
3. You added an website url
4. You added your location including town and country
5. You setup a custom color theme or selected a predefined one
6. You added and confirmed your phone number

Now that you confirmed all these steps we can go further.

2.2 Send your tweets to the world

You have to post your tweets and also your pictures. Here, you have to again keep it really interesting for your audience. They should understand all your “schemes and the products and services that you have an offer for them.

This step will be a little different from Facebook as the descriptions that you add to each post will be limited to 140 characters. It is best that you draw out the gist of the topic and then post the tweets.

It is not such a good idea to post a string of tweets on the same product or promotion as your audience will begin to lose interest in.

2.3 Engage your friends and known ones

The next step is to check if everything that you have added in is correct and in its place. You should share the link with a few friends and family members or staff members and ask them to suggest any changes that you might have to make to make the page look any better.

As you just signed up on Twitter you will not have many followers but we will fix that by following your acquaintances. Twitter allows you to add your Gmail and Outlook email accounts and it will automatically look for contacts that have a twitter account and you may follow them. Hopefully, they will follow you back.

2.4 Follow some folks

You should follow people and businesses that you think will leverage your own company’s account. You have to identify these key people and start following them.

You should also retweet what they are tweeting in order to draw your own audience’s attention to it and remain in the good books of those whose tweets you are retweeting.

Twitter Advanced search is your best friend when it comes to finding really targeted accounts to follow. I’m not going much into detail using Twitter Advanced search. Here is a tutorial that explains everything step by step.

Many businesses start by indiscriminately following as many people as possible in the hope that they are going to catch some potential customers.

This way, they end up running into a twitter follower limit with a following of people who are not in the slightest bit interested in what they have to say or sell. Twitter lets everyone follow up to 2000 people.

After reaching that number the number of people you are allowed to follow is largely dependent on your follower / following ratio. Another reason it is so important to follow the right audience is that if you decide to promote your account with Twitter, advertising suggestions are based on the types of accounts that you follow.

2.5 Use hashtags

Learn to use the hashtags in order to participate in any of the trending topics. You have to know when to use the hashtag to use to your advantage. As you know, the hashtag needs to be used to signify a topic on which you are voicing your opinion.

Now say for example you are a T-shirt company and wish to sell your Christmas T-shirts. You have to promote the products by ending your posts with a #merrychristmas or #christmasgoodies or whatever the trending topic is.

This will help you remain on top of all the different search engines and can, in fact, start a viral post if you have enough people reposting it for you.

2.6 Connect with influencers from your niche

You have to try and have tie-ups with influencers. These are companies or people that have a lot of followers. If you get them to promote your company then it will only work to your advantage.

Even if they are charging you a small sum for it, it will be well worth the effort as you can considerably increase the number of followers that you have.  Besides, it will be a one-time payment but the audience that you will get to garner will be for a lifetime.

2.7 Leverage on News

Try to be a news breaker. It does not really matter what the news is about. Everybody likes to retweet something that they think they saw first. So if you quickly tweet something that you know will attract an audience then you can successfully get many to retweet you and garner an audience for your company and products.

These are the different steps that you need to adapt in order to get your twitter account to get your message across to your audience.

2.8 Twitter Analytics is your best friend

Twitter analytics tools allow you to analyze that data and measure your performance for Twitter metrics over time, so you can learn what works, what doesn’t, and how to get the most from the time and resources you put into posting on Twitter.

Twitter analytics provide great marketing intelligence that will allow you to hone your Twitter campaigns.

• Learn about your audience
• Find out what content resonates with your audience
• Post at optimal times
• Determine if ads are working
• Replicate your successful campaigns

Check the Twitter analytics guide created by HootSuite team.

2.9 Use Twitter Management Tools

As you may know from my previous posts, I’m a great fan of Twitter Automation Tools and I could write a book about all tools I’ve used and I’m still using to get the job done. Here is a list of Twitter automation tools you should try and use.

However, in this guide, I will focus on another tool that will help you manage your Twitter account effectively. It is called ManageFlitter. With ManageFlitter you can simply log in with your Twitter account, authorize the app and you will have a complete overview of your account.

You will discover who you are following and are not following you back, accounts without a profile picture, no English accounts, or people that you are following but they are not active anymore.

Another great feature is the Account search. Account Search helps you search through 140 million Twitter bios in seconds.You may add a term you are interested in like pizza or SEO. Then click Find people button to start the search.

If you decide to go with a paid plan you will have access to more features like Account analytics and power posts which will analyze your account and followers and decide the best time to schedule and post your tweets.

2.10 Hire a social media management team

Just like with Facebook pages marketing, you may have to employ a team that is specifically dedicated to Twitter marketing services. You have to find those that are adept at knowing what the latest topics are and can easily update the page.

Here, they might have to engage in a little trial and error to find the best time when they can update the tweets. They have to post the promotions during different times of the day and find the best time when most traffic occurs on the website.

3. How to promote your Twitter profile

The opportunities on Twitter to build your audience are probably greater than on any other network and is easier to promote your twitter profile. Because Twitter is an informal social network you can grow your audience very easily. When you follow someone on Twitter it is more than likely that they will follow you back. 

However, because the audience on Twitter is so enormous it’s even more important that you are very specific about defining who your audience is so you can build a highly targeted following.

In order to create a nice active audience on Twitter for your content, you have first to build a list of followers. When you just started this is pretty difficult as you’re not a recognized authority nor a big shot (brand) in your niche. But here are ten easy methods to promote your twitter profile.

3.1 Post your Twitter Profile URL on all your sites

Make sure your Twitter handle link is on all your marketing material: your website, blog, Facebook and LinkedIn page. Twitter provides code for buttons at this URL: publisher.twitter.com

There are also third-party developers that create plugins that can be integrated into your page, they also offer plugins for multiple social platforms. I use Monarch from ElegantThemes (10% discount here) to see my social network followers and social media share URLs.

3.2 Embed a timeline into your website

You can easily display your recent tweets with images on your website or blog by visiting this page. It’s really tempting for your website visitors to press the follow button if they can see how interesting your tweets are.

You can also embed public tweets from any user on Twitter, favorites from any user, lists that you own or subscribe to and customized search results.

3.3 Add your Twitter handle to all your promotional information

Make sure you add your Twitter URL to any marketing literature like business cards, brochures, your transport, product packaging, storefront, receipts or anywhere you promote your business.

3.4 Invite your followers

Invite your fans and followers from other social networks like Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook by posting an image, invitation, and link.

3.5 Add your Twitter link to your email signature

Adding a link to your Twitter page on your email signature is a really effective way of gaining followers.

Especially if you give your readers an incentive or reason to follow you by offering them something of value like a digital course, a discount coupon or inviting them to join for a competition or sweepstake.

3.6 Follow those that follow your competitors

Make a list of the accounts of your competitors and check them regularly. Then you can follow those Twitter accounts that follow your competitors.

This way you will be sure that you follow active accounts and highly targeted to your niche.

3.7 Leave comments on blogs and articles

Leaving comments and a link to any of your related content and your twitter handle can be a good way of gaining followers who are interested in the same things as you.

Instead of adding a link to your website which may be seen as a spam signal by many plugins like Akismet you can place your Twitter profile.

3.8 Write articles for other blogs

Many bloggers are looking for other bloggers to write guest posts, this is a good way of getting in front of a new audience who may have similar interests.

When you submit an article for guest posting include your social media profiles in the bio. Some WordPress themes have custom fields for social media accounts while others don’t but you can link them inside your bio text.

3.9 Follow your target audience

One of the most effective ways to build your audience on Twitter is to go out and actively find your target audience and then follow them. You not only draw attention to your profile when you follow a user but they are very likely to follow you back if they find your bio interesting.

Once they follow you back you will be able to start building trust and building a relationship with your followers.

When they start engaging with your content, retweeting, mentioning you and favoriting you, this will naturally increase your reach.

For that, you can use tools like TweetAttacksPro (our favorite), MassPlanner and TweetFull. In conjunction with this tool or if you prefer to follow accounts manually, you should use ManageFlitter and remove accounts that don’t follow you back in a timely manner like let’s say 7 days.

3.10 Hire a social media management company

Social Media Management companies can help you reach new audiences pretty fast. That’s because most of them have a lot of knowledge on what works and what doesn’t on Twitter so it will save you some time and money on your trial and error campaigns.

3.11 Leverage Conferences and Webinars [2020 Update]

I’m going to show you a method that I’ve used to get 90 really targeted followers in a couple of hours using Twiter conference hashtag. SEMrush [review and deal] organized the 1st 24hours digital marketing online-only conference and they used two dedicated hashtags on Twitter to engage the audience and keep it connected.

During the conference, I’ve interacted with people that used the hashtag by liking their posts, comment and retweet the one with quality intakes. Also, I’ve followed some of the folks that I was interested in it (speakers and attendees).

It’s important not to become spammy but to provide real value to other users that are watching that hashtag. You could provide support, answer to questions, post intakes, etc.

After the conference was over I was happy to count around 90 new followers which are really targeted to my niche and my interests. It was fun and productive.

You could use this method for both life and real-life events which are using hashtags or an app that lists the attendees.

Part 3 Wrapping up:

Check our social media expert roundup to find out some out of the box strategies that will help you promote your Twitter account with ease. If you need help with your Twitter account marketing check our social media services page as we will be happy to help you.

With these ten super easy methods you can kick start your twitter profile and build a nice audience of your business.

What other methods are you using to build your Twitter audience?

Conclusion

There you have it. This is our complete Twitter marketing guide that’s showing you step by step, why you need a twitter account, how to create and manage it successfully and how to promote it to reach a big audience.

We presented most of the things we’re doing for our customers, while we also kept some gems for us and our customers but overall you have a blueprint for Twitter account management.

More on Twitter marketing:

• Twitter automation tools you should use
• The Growth Hacker’s Guide to Twitter Marketing
• The Best Ways to Encourage Consumer Interaction on Twitter
• Facebook page marketing
• Instagram marketing guide

If you have questions or suggestions please let me know in the comments form below.

I’d love to read them.