Twitter so simple
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One quick and easy way to promote your business is through using Twitter. Lately I’ve been talking to a lot of people who run their own businesses who either haven’t thought about how useful Twitter could be to their business promotion, or have started a Twitter account but not gone through with it because they haven’t had time to sit down and figure out how it all works.
So here I am going to explain what it’s all about.
First of all, where you can find it – http://www.twitter.com
Twitter, like many websites on the internet, can seem a bit overwhelming at the start. But the thing I love about Twitter is that it’s so simple.
In this four part ‘how to’ I will be talking about how Twitter works and what it can do. I will give a walkthrough on how to set up Twitter for your business, the benefits and uses of Twitter – what you should be Tweeting about, and how to use Twitter even when you think you are too busy.
So what is it and how does it work?
Basically Twitter is an updatable announcement (called a status) which gives you 140 characters (including spaces) to let your clients, fans and anyone else watching know what you are up to. People can follow you and see what you’ve posted so you can keep them up-to-date with all your business news and promotions, and you can follow other people, allowing you to see updates from friends, family, other people within your industry, or suppliers.
You can ‘theme’ your page which means using your own logo and corporate colours to keep in line with your business identity.
You can link to other websites, so if you have an update in your blog or a new product for sale you can link directly to it.
You can’t include images in your status updates, but Twitter has a sister site called Twitpic which allows you to easily upload and link to an image in your Twitter status.
How to do each of these will be covered in a later entry.
Twitter isn’t just confined to Twitter.
Your clients don’t have to have a Twitter account to be able to read what you’ve posted, anyone can visit your Twitter page to see what you’ve written. You can also embed your status updates into your website, one website I’ve done this for recently is http://www.serendipitydogbeds.com. Each week they let clients know what market they will be at, when new bed colours are available and any other updates on their website.
If you only have one attempt at online marketing this year, try out Twitter, it’s the most simple, easy and effective way to promote your business online.
