Twitter For Your Business

Twitter for Your Business

I've taken this information from the chat and contains advice from yourlittlemonkey.

Setting Up A Twitter Account

First thing you need to do is set up a Twitter Account, which is really easy to do! PROMISE!

Just go to the create account page - https://twitter.com/signup and all you need to enter is your NAME (you can put your businesses name here if you wish), USERNAME (Use your business' name so people can find you), PASSWORD and EMAIL ADDRESS.

AGREE TO TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND CREATE ACCOUNT.

Comfirm your account by accessing your email and clicking the link given to you by twitter.

Basic Settings

Now, Login and on the right-hand side you'll see your username, click it and on the drop down menu, choose settings.

The two main tabs you need to pay attention to here are ACCOUNT and PROFILE.

In ACCOUNT, make sure all your information is correct. DO NOT PROTECT YOUR TWEETS otherwise people won't follow you so much and you'll lose potential business.

Save any settings you have changed.

Now go to the PROFILE tab.

PICTURE - Use your logo here, so people recongise the business!

Enter your LOCATION, this is important information for potential customers! Even if you just state the country your in.

Now enter your WEBSITE, where you sell from, where people can find more about your business.

On to BIO, make sure you keep this quite short but get some good keywords in that describe what you sell, what your business does.

Click, Save to save these settings.

Now your all set up!

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Using Twitter

Think of twitter, like facebook only you can only post short statuses. Not so scary now is it?

So, get yourself logged in and you should come straight to your homepage, this is where you'll see what all the people who you will follow are saying/doing.

You'll see a small box underneath the writing "What's Happening?", here you write your status update. Don't tell everyone what you had for breakfast on your business account. Tell them about new stock, new products, and all that.

REPLYING TO PEOPLE - Bit different than facebook, but still really easy. Either hover over their update, and click reply (this will generate a @USERAME in the update box), or type @USERNAME yourself and your reply. (USERNAME being replaced with the persons username).

Make sure you interact with people, you don't have to be on twitter 24/7 just check in a few times a day!

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Finding People on Twitter.

There are a few ways you can find people on twitter.

Login. And click "Who To Follow" and you'll notice there are 3 tabs. VIEW SUGGESTIONS won't be of much help right

now but once you start following people and getting followers, it will be more helpful to you as it will show you

people with the same interests as you or your followers. All protential customers!

So lets move on to BROWSE INTERESTS, click that. You'll notice that there are some categories you can browse

through, these are usually quite well known people so have a browse! When you've found a similar company, supplier

or potential customer click the "FOLLOW" button next to their name. Now there updates will show up on your home

page. You can also use the search facility (the WHITE one to the right of the Who to follow text) , using keywords

of your business such as "handmade" "jewelry", whatever is associated with your business and this will bring up

people who have listed it in their bios.

Last but not least click FIND FRIENDS. This is where twitter will show you who has a twitter account from your

email contacts, this makes it particularly easy to find supportive friends of yours!

Another method is to use the search facility which is in the navigation bar at the top between the twitter logo and

"home". This will show you tweets about your keyword. (NOTE FOR LOCAL BUSINESSES - Use the TWEETS NEAR YOU TAB to

find people talking about your keyword that are near you!)

[More to be added!]