If you answer “Yes” to the following two questions, you should probably include a Twitter presence in your marketing plan:
- Are you interesting?
- Are your customers on Twitter?
That is my basic litmus test to answer if a business or person should be on Twitter. More specifically, personalities, speakers, authors, thought leaders, news organizations, technology companies and similar groups should make room in the marketing budget for Twitter.
Who shouldn’t be on Twitter?
To effectively market with Twitter requires quite a time commitment– you have to develop a community of followers by engaging in conversation and keeping them interested. If your customers don’t use Twitter, don’t bother including it in your marketing activities. It’s OK to just say “No!” to any marketing activity that won’t help you reach your business goals.
What should I say?
Marketing on Twitter is less about what you say and more about how you participate. People use Twitter for news, stories, conversations, and to learn what others are thinking right this moment about important (and not-so-important) issues in their lives. No one uses Twitter to receive deals or special offers from businesses. Be friendly and join conversations. Consider Twitter the cocktail party of marketing more than a megaphone.
What about that Twitter vocab?
Here’s some Twitter vocabulary to get you started.
- Tweep – a Twitter user
- Tweet – What tweeps post
- # – This little guy is called a hashtag, and it allows tweeps to add categories to their tweets. For instance, #marketing would be a tweet about marketing. Usually, event organizers specify a hashtag to use when attendees are tweeting from the event, so people the world over can follow the happenings.
- RT – Retweet. Give credit where credit is due. If you repost someone’s tweet, credit them with RT @username.
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