This is a basic presentation on how to use Twitter in your small business. If you are unfamiliar with Twitter, this presentation will walk you through the basics. We also cover strategies to attract followers and increase engagement on the network.

1. How to
Tweet:
For Small
Businesses
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2. Why Tweet?
Twitter Will Be More Valuable Than
Facebook, Says Industry Expert
Why Twitter Is a Big Win for Small
Businesses
Why Twitter is great for small business
Twitter Beats Facebook (And
Everyone Else) As The Most Popular
Social Network Of 2011
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3. Why Tweet: Loyalty
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4. How does it work?
 140 characters
 Messages are:
 Public (although you can protect your tweets)
 Indexed
 Rank very well
 PC & Mobile Phone (Remember, 43% use their
phone)
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5. Terminology
 Tweet - an individual message limited to 140
characters (can also be used as a verb)
 Follow – to subscribe to somebody else’s messages
 Direct Message (DM) - a private message to a fellow
Tweeter
 Retweet (RT) - repost a valuable message from
someone else and give them credit (RT@username)
 Trending topics - the most popular terms on Twitter
at any given moment
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6. Syntax
 140 character restriction
 @username - a public message referencing another
individual on Twitter (often used in conjunction with
RT to quote other Tweeters)
 #term – a hashtag followed by a term included in a
Tweet is a way of categorizing all posts on a particular
topic
 Bit.ly/Tiny URLS (Shortened URLS)– necessary to
fit links into the short messages (Links are important)
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7. Anatomy of a Tweet Name & Twitter handle of
the person posting
A retweet from KenE3C
Hashtag to categorize the
tweet
Options:
Reply – sends a message back to the author of the tweet
Retweet – sends the message to all of your followers
Favorite – saves the tweet in your favorites folder
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8. Before You Tweet
 Create an account
 Fill out profile completely before connecting
 Change default logo & background
 Listen (http://search.twitter.com)
 Company name
 Key topics in the industry
 Competitors
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9. What to Tweet
 Inform
 Interesting stories
 Exclusive deals (be sure to include promotional code for
tracking the effect of Tweets)
 New products
 Ask questions, float ideas, solicit feedback
 Link to interesting information
 Events
 RT
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10. What to Tweet
 Respond to everything (http://search.twitter.com)
 Questions
 Comments
 Praise
 Jokes
 Complaints
 Or just say ‘Hi’
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12. Best Practices
Tips & Tricks Don’t Tweet
 Set metrics  Spam
 Unique coupon code  Impersonable
 Separate landing page  Unfriendly
 Tally of response Tweets
 Negative comments
 Be on time!
 Real-time interaction
 Respond quickly
 Build relationships
 Casual, friendly tone
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13. Get Followers
 Cross promotion
 Facebook, Website, Business Cards, etc.
 Make Tweets useful resources
 http://twitter.com/ASBTDC
 http://twitter.com/knightenASBTDC
 Interact with people you follow & don’t follow you back
(Yet!)
 Send Tweets to reporters you follow that helps stories
they’ve posted
 Send DM to reporters of newsworthy information
 Register for WeFollow.com
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14. Follow Others
 Reporters
 Influential leaders in the industry
 Twitter elite in your area
 Hubspot Twitter Grader (
http://twitter.grader.com/location)
 Follow people your followers follow
 Don’t follow everyone
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15. Cool Tools
 Tweetdeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com)
 Desktop dashboard to set up searches
 Twellow (http://www.twellow.com/)
 Yellowpages for Twitter
 Searching
 Twitter advanced search (
http://search.twitter.com/advanced)
 Tweepz (http://tweepz.com)
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16. Creativity Counts
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17. Amazing Tweeters
 Respond to concerns people Tweet about
 http://twitter.com/ComcastCares/
 Alert customers
 http://twitter.com/DunkinDonuts/
 Tell about sudden changes
 http://twitter.com/JetBlue/
 Surveys, coupons, cross promotion, etc.
 http://twitter.com/TastiDLite
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