I know from talking to a few small business owners and solopreneurs recently that Twitter seems to confuse a lot of folks. They don’t understand the technology, they don’t know what to say on Twitter, they can’t make sense of that odd Twitter lingo, and they’re not sure maintaining a Twitter account will have any value for their business to begin with.
I have been there! I remember how I felt when I first started using Twitter. It was frustrating, because in some ways it felt like conversing in another language, I couldn’t wrap my mind around what to “tweet,” and I wasn’t sure exactly how it was going to be beneficial to me.
But now I’m a complete Twitter convert. I have been to the well, and I see how effective it can be for marketing, especially if you’re a small business or a solopreneur. : )
So the best piece of advice I can give you for using and understanding Twitter is to just to get out there, set up an account, and start using it. Everyone who uses Twitter effectively now starting out not knowing how to use it at all. Remember that. Because that means you can learn how to use Twitter effectively too.
If you need a little inspiration to get over your Twitter fear and just set up your account already, then consider this your push off the ledge.
9 Reasons to Get Over Your Twitter Fear and Set Up Your Account Today
1. Twitter is great for the small business or solopreneur because it’s a way to extend your brand and your marketing, for free.
2. Once you build up your audience of targeted followers, you can get in front of these people on a regular basis, all at once, for free, and many of them will spread your content/messages/deals/specials to their followers as well.
3. Twitter is all about your audience, so if you give them what they want, they will reward you with retweets, their business, their friends’ business, and so on.
4. Twitter is a great platform for bringing your company’s or brand’s personality to life. (On social media, people engage with real people, not companies per se, so don’t be afraid to show your personality.)
5. Twitter adds another layer of customer service to your business. And being super responsive to your customers is great for word of mouth, and will get shared on social media, meaning you will get more business as a result. With all the wretched customer service out there, great customer service will make you stand out, and it’s easy enough to implement this on Twitter.
6. You can use Twitter to drive traffic to your website.
7. You can use Twitter to monitor what people are saying about your business – and your competitors’ businesses — and what works and doesn’t work in your niche or industry. Free market research, anyone?
8. You can use Twitter to network with others in your niche. I simply love Twitter for this.
9. Twitter gives you instant access to thousands of people and the ability to track trending topics in your industry and your niche, all at once.
I can’t stress this enough: You can use Twitter to get in front of your target audience, all at once, for free. Can you do that with a yellow pages ad or an ad in a glossy print publication or a piece of direct mail? Nooooooooo.
Are you convinced yet? ; )
Now, if you don’t have your account set up yet, no worries. Here’s a link to very easy to understand instructions for getting your Twitter account set up, with screen shots of exactly how to do it, step by step. In fact, the link here will take you to a fantastic site that has everything you could possibly want to know about all things Twitter!
In a future post I’ll talk about what to tweet, what kind of content mix to use,what ratio of your stuff to others’ stuff to post, and so on – your basic Twitter content strategy.
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