If you use twitter, chances are you’re following a company’s account: your favorite news outlet sharing their news articles, that one fast-food chain that’s always making jokes, or a very serious account that only tweets about their products. Social media is not limited to interacting with other people: We’re continuously interacting with everything we see on social media. This is why you should consider using Twitter as one of your primary tools to help promote your startup.
Twitter is a great way for you to start reaching your customer base directly. It will not only let you reach potential customers but also potential investors. With relatively hard work, you can turn it into a truly swiss army knife for gaining online visibility, influence, and more. The most important part is for you to connect to your particular audience.
Here’s a couple of tips for you to get the most out of Twitter:
- Have an easy-to-understand profile: When looking at your profile, people should be able to understand easily what your startup is about. Your bio has to be clear and concise, and your tweets must leave no room for confusion as to what kind of business you are in. It’s helpful to have pinned tweets about your startup so people can get all the information they need as soon as they enter your profile.
- Stay on topic: It’s important for you always talk about the topic that’s the most relevant to your startup. Always be sharing everything new and exciting; If you stay focused on your niche, an audience will slowly (but surely) build-up.
- Engage people: Followers won’t matter at all if you don’t socialize with them. Actively encourage your followers to interact by asking them to tweet what they like about you, or what they don’t like: make them feel like you’re part of their twitter community and vice versa. Like and retweet whenever they tweet about you so the rest of your followers feels encouraged to tweet about your product, too.
- Be likable: Your tweets have to be likable, retweetable: If people don’t find anything positive, funny or interesting in your tweets then you’re not gonna reach as many possible customers as you should be reaching. Whenever possible, add a personal touch to your tweets that make them funny, relatable or interesting. Liking and retweeting things that can be interesting to your customer base (followers) is a good way to get their attention.
- Be thorough: If you’re going to tweet at all, do so with care—It’s a rough world out there and twitter users are always looking to judge someone by their tweets. Don’t let them find anything remotely wrong or offensive with your tweets, you don’t want bad publicity. Be extra careful with what you say and how you say it, and confirm the veracity of what you share on twitter: that way people will learn to trust in what you say, instead of the opposite.
- Do not overdo it: Hashtags. They are vital to staying visible on twitter but, remember, more quality over quantity. We tend to avoid people who use more than a few hashtags on their tweets because we assume it’s either spam or something so impossible to sell that they’ll use as many hashtags they can think to promote it. Not to mention, it’s bad taste. Pick a few hashtags that you’re sure will keep you visible and relevant in your niche, and be constant with them.
- Don’t hesitate using third-party tools for twitter: This can make it much easier for you to promote your startup in a way that’s consistent and that does not require such an amount of time to be put into twitter. Some basic ones are Buffer, a tool that lets you schedule tweets and IFTTT.
- Create connections: If you play your cards well, you will end up with more than one person who is enthusiastic and excited about your company thanks to your twitter: these people are a great opportunity to reach more people because they will help you in promoting your tweets and word of mouth is one of the most contagious things on Twitter.
- Be competitive: Show people you are not afraid of a little competition- people love a good rivalry. You can be mindful of this without taking it too seriously: follow your competitors and interact with them, you never know when one of their customers is going to find you through them.
- Take advantage of Twitter Chats: The best way to expose yourself to a specific audience is to participate in Twitter Chats. People who are actively tweeting will attract the attention of more people, and as long as you are a part of the conversation, you have a good opportunity of gaining considerable exposure.
- Be approachable: While it is important to be serious about your business, twitter users like to engage with accounts that feel like they have a real person typing their tweets. Write in a way that shows your tweets are not just programmed advertising. Leave your DMs open and encourage people to reach out to you in private.
- Do your homework: When managing your startup’s Twitter, you must be aware of what accounts are the most relevant for you to follow, what hashtags are the most likely to get people reacting to your tweets. Engage with people who are more prone to expand your influence on Twitter and follow the people who you know are important to your market.
Be patient. A solid twitter account is something that takes time. You have to be consistent enough with the quality of your tweets for people to become familiar, active enough so the people who don’t follow you see your tweets often enough so that they decide that they should start following you. A big audience can be bought easily, but for your twitter audience to be good people who will actively help you promote your business is something else entirely. Hard work takes time.