Twitter Basics for Business: Learn to Use Twitter to Help Your Content Marketing

TWITTER BASICS FOR BUSINESS The ABC’s of Twitter for the Reluctant, Novice, or Simply Stubborn

Joan MuschampLemonZest Marketing

@jmuschamp

December 2012

WELCOME

Basic class to get you started

Takes time & a “maturity” process

It’s about relationships & understanding your strategy

Requires time & ongoing commitment

You “don’t have to” but it provides a lot of value in the web economy

Social media isn’t free-your time is valuable, so being strategic is key

Takes some trial & error

@jmuschamp

© 2012 LemonZest Marketing LLC

WHAT IS TWITTER?

Social network that is a micro-blogging platform

Share ideas, questions, articles, pictures, videos, promotions, contest—whatever you can think of that’s legal and not spam

Each post is called a “Tweet”

Every subscriber gets a “Twitter Handle”

Very “in the moment”

@jmuschamp


WHY SHOULD I CARE?

Study shows small business gets over 50% of traffic from social media

Twitter drives about 5%

You can be worldwide or hyper-local

Great mobile capabilities

Effective for trending topics & conversations

@jmuschamp


GETTING STARTED

@jmuschamp


CREATE ACCOUNT

@jmuschamp


GETTING STARTED

Set up your Profile

160 character limit

Include link to your website (or use company FB page or LI)

Short, easy to remember username

Use a real picture for your Avatar- use www.gravatar.com or upload your own

Customize background for business

@jmuschamp


http://www.gravatar.com/

LEARN & DO

@jmuschamp


TWITTER RECOMMENDED FOLLOWERS

@jmuschamp


CREATE PERSONA

@jmuschamp


Character countWho are you?

Real picture

CUSTOM BACKGROUND

@jmuschamp


BACKGROUND RESOURCES

Resources to easily and inexpensively customize backgrounds:

twitbacks.com

mytweetspace.com

fiverr.com

freetwitterdesigner.com

@jmuschamp


HEADER PHOTO

Allows you to use a more personal image

Find a photo image you can use royalty free & resize

Resize at PicMonkey

@jmuschamp


CHANGE HEADER BACKGROUND

Settings > Profile

Upload the new image

Twitter populates with your description & profile pic

@jmuschamp


UPDATE INFO & MAKE CHANGES

@jmuschamp


TWEET PRIVACY SETTING

@jmuschamp


HASHTAGS

Hashtags are keywords preceded by the # sign

Hashtags enable conversations among multiple users to feed into a single search stream

Twitter automatically highlights and links hashtags to their respective feeds

Make sure your hashtag provides context for your topic of conversation

Should also be unique if you’re trying to limit the stream to your conversation

@jmuschamp


ESSENCE OF THE FOLLOW

Need quality & quantity

200 is a good number to start having fun

Usually the more followers you get, the more active you are & social reach increases

@jmuschamp


GOOD FOLLOW KARMA Find followers who are interested in the

same topics

Follow those you know already on Twitter

Follow Back – Twitter etiquette is that you should follow back almost everyone. Note: block those who follow you who seem very sketchy or are pornographic, etc.

Don’t buy Twitter followers

@jmuschamp


KEYS TO GOOD TWEETING CONTENT

Provide meaningful content

Retweet others, especially those you want to know

Tweet your blog articles & encourage comments

Thank your new followers – if you get a few at once, do a group thank you-mix in with other tweets

@jmuschamp


MORE TWEETING TIPS

Tweet at peak times for content you want seen

Tweet in the moment- check trending topics, RT relevant tweets, Tweet news items

Remember Twitter is a social media channel—you are not just interested in one person, but those in their sphere of influence

Ask for help or be helpful

Consider what you are sharing as a helpful to others

Tweet your thanks to all responders, and if someone did a great job – tweet a kudo to them specifically, & start a DM conversation

@jmuschamp


RETWEETING

RT is a compliment, to you or those you RT

It can drive engagement from who are really looking for great relationships (hint: not the mega stars)

Standard RTs start with “RT @name” but you can switch the “meat” of the content to the front and put “via @name” after the content

@jmuschamp


FIND OTHER TWITTER ITEMS

@jmuschamp


LISTS

Create lists to categorize people

You don’t need to be following to add to a list

Can give a quick view by topic, so you quickly locate relevant content

Can be public or private

@jmuschamp


LISTS YOU’RE ON

View of how others perceive you

Gives you ideas how to classify

Others see where you put them, unless you make list private

@jmuschamp


LIST MINING

Find followers who are interested in the same topics as you

Look at lists of Key stakeholders – check out their members and follow their followers.

Good competitive tactic

Read others’ lists – you can see any public ones, & may find those you missed

Use Twellow.com to find targeted categories of Twitter users.

@jmuschamp


DIRECT MESSAGES

Twitter equivalent of email

Use for specific personal messages

Better for long Twitter conversations

Conversations for info you might not want to share

Can only DM folks you follow & who follow you

@jmuschamp


OTHER TWITTER THINGS

@jmuschamp


Trending Topics

Favorites

Blocking

Promoted Tweets

Images & Videos

Search

Tweet-Ups

Fail Whale

TOOLS TO CHECK OUTHashtags in use:

Twubs.com

Hashtags.org

Find targeted categories of Twitter users:

Twellow.com

Manage tweets, lists, hashtags, etc:

TweetDeck

HootSuite (has a link shortener)

Sprout Social

Link Shorteners:

bit.ly

tiny url

Background Resources

twitbacks.com

mytweetspace.com

fiverr.com

freetwitterdesigner.com

@jmuschamp


SEARCH TWITTER TOOLS

@jmuschamp


Bing

Google

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Tao of Twitter by Mark W. Schaefer (McGraw Hill © 2012)

Marketing Profs “How To Be a Twitter Superfly in 12 Simple Steps” (© Marketing Profs 2011)

Social Media Examiner – I read articles constantly & learn

Hubspot.com has a lot of free resources

Twitter – loads of info in their Help center

Tweets – GREAT source of articles on all sorts of topics

Watch, listen & learn – read your Tweet timeline and review articles (from links) that seem interesting

Try, try, and try again

@jmuschamp


THANKS FOR YOUR TIME!

Joan [email protected]/in/jmuschamp

@jmuschampFacebook.com/lemonzestmarketing


@jmuscham

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Twitter Basics for Business: Learn to Use Twitter to Help Your Content Marketing

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Transcript of Twitter Basics for Business: Learn to Use Twitter to Help Your Content Marketing