The Beginner's Guide to Twitter for Business

The Beginner's
Twitter
Beginner's Guide
Twitter for Business
Guide to
for Business

http://markitty.com The Beginner's Guide to Twitter for Business Page 2
What Is Twitter?
Twitter is an online social network "that connects you to the latest stories, ideas,
opinions, and news about what you find interesting. Simply find the accounts you find
most compelling and follow the conversations."
• 500 million+ registered users
• 110 million+ active monthly users
• 1 million+ new registrations every day
• 50 million+ tweets every day
• 2 billion+ search queries every day
• 9,000+ tweets per second
Why should businesses and executives use Twitter?
1. Reach out to prospects and customers: Share information with people
interested in your products and services
2. Connect with experts and influencers
3. Listen to what your customers, competitors, and industry experts are talking
about
What You Will Find in This Guide
1. How to get started with Twitter
2. Who you should follow on Twitter
3. How to find people to follow
4. Mistakes you should avoid
5. Twitter for executives and entrepreneurs, in 15 minutes every day
6. Resources and tools
Market
Research
Branding Sales
Customer
Support

Getting Started With Twitter
Are you new to Twitter? Do you keep feeling you’re missing out by not being on it but
aren’t sure how to start? This post tells you what common Twitter terms mean, and
how you can make use of Twitter features.
The Basics
Your “Twitter handle” is your Twitter username.
When you tweet, it shows up on the timeline of everyone who is following you.
Tweets of people you are following will show up on your timeline in chronological
order. Most of the time you will only see the last few tweets, unless you scroll
down and look for more.
So, tweet at times when more of your followers are likely to be online.
If someone is not following you, they can still come to your profile and see all your
tweets (unless your profile is private).
You can add links or upload photos and use them in your tweets.
Retweet
You can retweet any tweet — you can see the “Retweet” button when you hover
over a tweet or click on it.
A retweet will show up in your followers’ timelines with the name (and profile
picture) of the person who originally tweeted it, with a note that you retweeted it.
Mentions
Using @<twitter_handle> links to that person’s profile. This is known as a
“mention.”
If you mention someone, that person can see your tweet under the Connect
menu, and depending on their Twitter settings might get an email and/or push
notification on a mobile app.

You can mention someone when you are tweeting about them or about things
they might be interested in. Be careful with this: don’t spam!
If you start your tweet by mentioning someone (@<twitter_handle), then that
tweet will show up only on the timelines of users who are following you both.
(However, anyone can come to your profile and still see that tweet, so it’s not
private.)
You can mention more than one person in a tweet.
Reply
You can reply to a tweet by hitting Reply on any tweet and that new tweet will
start with that person’s Twitter handle. In Twitter terms, this becomes a
Conversation.
Replying to a tweet is a good way to get into a conversation.
You could reply to any compliments or positive mentions with a note of thanks.

Direct Message (DM)
You can send a private message to anyone who is following you.
During a Twitter conversation, if you want to share personal information like your
email address or phone number, send a direct message instead of a tweet.
Many people don’t use this feature so don’t rely on this for any urgent
communication (or at least tweet to the other person that you are sending a DM).
There will be a small mark under the “Me” menu item when you have unread
direct messages.
Hashtags (#)
Add # as a prefix to the word you want to highlight in your tweet. It’s like tagging
your tweet — you’re telling Twitter what category your tweet falls into. For
example, we often use hashtags like #marketing, #SEO, or #Pune.
Don’t use spaces or punctuation marks in a hashtag, else the hashtag will be
broken.
Most events publicize official hashtags for the event. If you are attending an event
that has a official hashtag, you should include that in your tweet. Other attendees
or interested people are likely to search Twitter for that hashtag and you tweet
will be included along with others’.
Or you can follow a hashtag to see what others are tweeting on and reply or
mention those people to start a conversation.

Trends
Twitter publishes a list of top topics (global as well as region wise) based on what
people are tweeting about.
You can click on any trending topic and see what people are tweeting about that
topic. This is a good way to find people interested in that topic.
Too much? Don’t get overwhelmed: just start tweeting and you’ll figure it out.
We use Twitter to have conversations and to meet interesting
individuals and organisations that we might otherwise not have
come across.
I’d also say that Twitter has been important for us in securing
and maximizing press coverage. We share most of our reviews
via Twitter, and have used the platform to reach out to
journalists.
– Maegan Chadwick-Dobson of Tara Books
http://markitty.com/blog/publisher-tara-books/

Who to Follow on Twitter
Twitter is a tricky medium for small businesses. You will find a lot of people saying it’s a
waste of time and enough people who swear by its benefits. You need to build your
following, but when you start out you have to focus on following the right people.
Here is a quick guide on what kinds of people you should follow.
1. Customers – Current Customers or People in Your Target
Customer Group
You should follow your customers to see what they are talking about — what they are
interested in, what products/service they like, and what they are complaining about.
This is a also good way of letting them know that you are on Twitter. If they are
interested in what you offer, they might even follow you back.
But don’t start selling to them on Twitter, not yet. Listen, engage, and offer help, but
don’t be pushy.
2. Industry Leaders and Domain Experts (Including Competitors)
You probably know a few people in your industry whose views are well respected.
Follow them and learn from what they are talking about and look for opportunities to
participate in conversations.
You can retweet some of their insights and content. Thank them when you find their
tweets useful or ask a question they might want to answer.
Apart from the actual message in their tweets, keep an eye on hashtags they are using,
events they are attending, or links they are sharing.
3. Influencers Like Bloggers, Journalists or Analysts
These are people who may not be directly related to your business or industry but
might be influential in the broader domain or local community. Just as for #2, follow
what’s they are talking about, participate, or just retweet content that might be
interesting and relevant to your business.

Following these people will help you learn more about your customers and engaging
with them will help build credibility. And down the line, they might be able to help you
with that PR break you need.
4. Local Celebrities and Influencers
These people may not be related to your business, but it’s good to engage in topics that
are important or interesting to your customers. This will help your brand get a more
human face.
There could also be opportunities to associate with these individuals. Who knows, a
mention or a retweet from the drummer of a popular band might give just the visibility
you need in your early days.
5. Friends and Other Personal Connections
These are the people who will engage with you, and retweet or share your content in
the early days. Engage with them but be sure to not get carried away — the majority of
your tweets and people you follow should still be relevant to your business.
But don’t sweat it: go out and follow as many people as seem interesting and relevant.
You can always unfollow them later if their tweets don’t work for you.
For news sites like ours, Twitter is king. Twitter lends itself to
alerting people about new articles. Also, Twitter is simple and
easier to learn than many other sites... Plus, you can pretty much
see who’s doing what on Twitter, making experimentation and
measurement much easier to do.
– Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends
http://markitty.com/blog/anita-campbell

Find the Right People to Follow
One of the common questions business owners using Twitter ask us is “How do I find
relevant people to follow?”
1. Twitter Advanced Search
A useful but rarely used feature of Twitter is Advanced Search.
Using different filters you can narrow down your search results to relevant people.
Search results will by default show Top Tweets, so click on People on the left to see
Twitter users who match your criteria.
2. Hashtags
This is probably the most obvious way to search for people but many of us don’t use it
as often as we should. Click on a hashtag or a trending topic to see who is talking about
it. Twitter by default shows you the Top Tweets for that hashtags and that is a good way

to find influencers. But you can click on “All Tweets” to see the latest tweets and find
other relevant people.
3. Lists
Once you find a few people who are relevant, you can check if they are part of any lists
created by others. For example, if you found a blogger who writes for Mashable,
chances are someone has that person in a list of “Mashable Bloggers” or “Social Media
Bloggers” and you can find others included that list easily.
How do you find this? Go the Twitter profile of the person, then click on Lists. By default
Twitter will show you the lists created by that user, but click on the link “Member of” to
see which lists that person is part of. Once you get to the lists you can see all the
members of that list.
4. Conventional Sources
Email signatures or business cards of your customers, suppliers, or industry experts
might have their Twitter handle. Don’t forget to look through that. You can go to a
business’ website or refer to other promotional materials. Or search by the business
name or person on Twitter. And sometimes we miss the obvious — just Google it.
5. Third-Party Tools
There are third party tools that provide more advanced search options than what you
can get from Twitter. For example, FollowerWonk lets you search bios.

http://markitty.com The
Twitter will suggest you more people to follow, but it will learn from the people you
already follow or engage with. So the more relevant your first few followers, the better
Twitter’s suggestions will be.
Twitter makes meeting new people and establishing relationships
so simple.
The Beginner's Guide to Twitter for Business
Twitter’s suggestions will be.
– Bhaskar Sarma, B2B Marketing Consultant
http://markitty.com/blog/bhaskar
Page 11
Bhaskar Sarma, B2B Marketing Consultant
http://markitty.com/blog/bhaskar-sarma

Twitter Mistakes You Should Avoid
Twitter is a tricky medium to get right, and many, many brands make a few simple
mistakes.
Not Following Anyone (or Following Too Few People)
Twitter is a social medium. If you’re not following anyone, that tells me you’re not
interested in listening, only talking. A big brand with tens (or hundreds) of thousands of
followers, you can get away with this, but small businesses can’t.
Not Tweeting
Listening’s necessary, but why are you on Twitter if you’re not tweeting?
No, tweeting once or twice isn’t going to help. If you are on Twitter, you need to be
active, which means send out a few tweets at least every couple of days.

Only Scheduling Tweets
Brands that tweet once every hour. Others that tweet a few times during the same time
every day. This tells me you’re scheduling tweets and are not coming to Twitter at all. So
again, you’re not interested in listening, are you?
Not Participating in Conversations
Look again at the picture above. Not only are there regular tweets with pictures, there
are… no replies, i.e., no tweets starting with @someoneelse. Just hashtags for Nokia
phones.
Do you think no one’s mentioning a brand like Nokia? If you do a quick Twitter search,
you’ll find many tweets about Nokia, some of them positive reviews of Nokia phones.
But no thanks, no retweets. (You might find a few if you scroll down enough, but still.

If you don’t listen, don’t reply, don’t engage… you’re not social.
Auto DMs
We’ve all seen this: the automated direct message that comes in as soon as you follow
someone. Don’t do this: it’s spammy and makes you look stupid.
What you can do instead is engage with new followers by sending them a friendly
welcome tweet or starting a conversation on something they’re interested in (that you
can tell from their bio or their recent tweets).
Directing People to Other Contact Info
What’s even worse than an auto-DM? An auto-DM that tells you to like the brand’s
Facebook page or send them an email or call them. Hello, I just connected with you
here. Now you’re telling me this is worthless and I need to go connect with you
elsewhere?
Spammy Tweets
Have you seen those brands who mention people and ask them to buy or like
something? Or who insert themselves into a conversation and ask you to buy
something? It’s really annoying.
Instead, reply with a suggestion. If someone’s complaining about their frizzy hair and
you’re managing the Twitter account of a hair salon, offer a suggestion (if possible,
without naming a specific brand of product). Say, “Have you tried this?” not “Buy this!”
Only Tweeting Self-Promotional Links
So many publications have Twitter accounts that just have links to their own content.
No retweets, no replies, no conversational tweets. HBR can get away with broadcasting,
but you can’t.

Pepper your tweets with links to other interesting stuff and general observations, don’t
just push users to your site.
Automated Cross-Posting
Twitter and Facebook are different platforms, and different things work on each. Why
would you post exactly the same thing on both sites? You end up with a too-long
truncated tweet that makes no sense.

Markitty Pro-tip:
Twitter in 15 Minutes a Day
Think you don’t have enough time for Twitter? If you have 15 minutes in the day,
you can do this.
Day 1: Sign up and Create Your Profile
Choose a username that is as close to your name or your business name as
possible and is easy to remember. For example, we didn’t get markitty, so we got
markittyapp.
Make your profile description interesting and snappy. Don’t just copy your
boilerplate company description. Make it clear what your business is about or what
you stand for; people should be able to look at this and figure out what you tweet
about and whether to follow you.
Done? That’s it for today.
Day 2: Start Following and Tweeting
Let’s keep it easy, since it’s only your second day. If you know of any friends who are
on Twitter, find and follow them. You can put a name into the search bar on top and
search for it. To filter by location, try advanced search: https://twitter.com/search-
advanced.
To keep it really easy, find five people you know: friends, business contacts,
competitors, employees. Follow them. Tweet directly at them by putting their twitter
handle (e.g., @markittyapp) at the beginning of your tweet. Say hi or that you’re glad
to connect with them or something else that’s polite.
And remember, your tweets aren’t private (unless you make your account private,
but you don’t want to do that if you’re using Twitter for marketing).
Day 3: Create and Upload a Cover Photo
The ideal size you need is 1252×626 pixels but you can crop it after uploading it.

Your profile info gets imposed on top of it, so if you use any text it should be on the
top (but not in the top center, where your profile pic goes) or right at the bottom.
Day 4: Follow “Celebrities”
Search for influencers in your segment and see how they tweet. If you like a tweet,
you can share it with your followers by clicking on the Retweet link, or paste their
tweet onto your tweet editor and add “RT” and a space before their username (RT
@whatever).
Day 5: Make Sure You’re Checking Who’s Interacting with You
Click on the gear box on the top right and go to your Settings. Make sure your
notifications are set to email you when you are mentioned or retweeted or
someone sends you a direct message.
But don’t just rely on the email notifications: start every day by checking for
mentions (by clicking on the @Connect link on top) and direct messages (click on
the gear button for the option). Thank people for retweeting you and reply to
mentions; Twitter is no fun without conversations.
Day 6: Follow Your Customers
Do you have a client list? Maybe a mailing list? Get hold of it and start following your
customers on Twitter. Either search for them on Twitter or go to their website and
see if they have a Twitter profile link.
Don’t have time for this? Hand it off to an employee or pay someone to do it for
you.
Day 7: Follow Bloggers, Journalists, or Media Outlets in Your
Industry
Who is writing about you/your industry/your customers? Find publications,
journalists, and bloggers who cover your niche. If they tweet something you agree
with or can add to, reply to them. Don’t pitch: strike up a conversation. You can
pitch once you’re sure they’ll recognize your name again.

Day 8: Follow More Customers; Tweet Some More
Have you followed all your customers yet? Get back to it!
Start sharing stuff about you: a link to an interesting page on your site, an event
you’re going to attend, your thoughts on a piece of industry news.
Day 9: Follow Industry Groups and Events; Keep Tweeting
Does your industry have any conferences and associations? Find their Twitter
profiles and see if they are using hashtags. Follow and participate in the
conversations.
Day 10: Follow Local Celebrities and Influencers
Are you following enough people? Are some people following you back?
Now branch out: follow celebrities and influencers you like. Maybe your mayor, that
local band you like, a TV newsperson. If you’re a B2B business, think reputed CEOs
of companies that aren’t in your industry, or that business blogger you follow (even
though she doesn’t write about your niche). Twitter is a great way to talk to people
who wouldn’t notice you otherwise.
Day 11: Start Sharing Tips
Why should anyone follow you? If you tweet interesting and useful stuff. So start
tweeting tips that your followers would appreciate. This is just the same as content
marketing on any other channel. For example, a laundry can offer quick tips for
cleaning clothes or hanging them up or storing them for winter.
Some of these tips can be in the form of links to your web pages and blog posts, but
don’t just tweet that. Share content from others as well. The ratio of your stuff to
others’ stuff shouldn’t be more than 50% at the most.
Day 12: Download the Mobile App
Now you’re tweeting regularly and following people and reading their tweets. Good.
So download the mobile app and don’t make excuses. Tweet when you’re
commuting (but not driving!) or while you’re waiting for a meeting.
https://twitter.com/download

Day 13: Try out a Scheduling Tool
The time you are tweeting might not be the time your audience is most active. So
schedule some tweets for your followers to read when they are around. We swear
by Buffer, but there are tons of scheduling tools available.
Scheduling tweets is especially good for sharing links, especially links to your blog
posts. You can share the same link several times (but not too many times) through
the day.
But don’t just schedule tweets and think your job is done. No, go to Twitter, see
what others have tweeted, and reply and engage. There’s just no substitute for that.
Day 14: Build on Your Network
Okay now. It’s nearly two weeks and you’re swimming along nicely. You’re going to
keep doing this, right?
So let people know. Put your Twitter link on your website, and maybe also on your
email signature, business card, email newsletter, brochure, presentations, etc.
Day 15: Follow New Customers
Have you got any new customers in the last week? Go follow them. Start making it a
habit to follow new customers if there’s an easy way to get to their Twitter profiles.
Apart from searching for their names, here are some ways:
• If you have a feedback form or any other form for customers, ask for their
Twitter username in it
• Offer a coupon code if people follow you on Twitter; then you can follow them
back (and only people interested in your product will want a coupon)
• If you have an active Facebook page or LinkedIn group or other community, start
a thread asking for people to share their Twitter usernames
Day 16 Onwards: Keep Following and Tweeting
The more you tweet and engage with other people, the more followers you’ll get
and – more importantly – relationships you’ll build. So keep working at it! Soon it will
seem like fun, not work, and you’ll be giving yourself more than the allocated 15
minutes...

Resources
Official Twitter Tools:
To create an account and use Twitter on on web: http://twitter.com
Use Twitter on mobile: http://twitter.com/download
Manage multiple Twitter accounts and feeds and schedule tweets:
http://www.tweetdeck.com
Integrate your Twitter account with your website of blog: https://dev.twitter.com/
Third-party Tools and Services
Buffer (http://bufferapp.com): Easily share content and schedule tweets with
browser and mobile extensions
Hootsuite (http://hootsuite.com): Manage multiple Twitter accounts, collaborate and
schedule tweets
SproutSocial (http://sproutsocial.com): Manage multiple twitter accounts,
collaborate and schedule tweets
Followerwonk (http://followerwonk.com): Find people and see Twitter statistics
Topsy (http://topsy.com): Search for any tweet since 2006 and get statistics for any
Twitter user
CrowdBooster (http://crowdbooster.com): Twitter stats and tips
Markitty (http://markitty.com): Get stats and personalized recommendations every
day to get the most out of using Twitter for business

References
http://markitty.com/blog
https://twitter.com/about
http://www.socialmediadd.com/Articles.asp?ID=248
http://www.statisticbrain.com/twitter-statistics/
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20130618005649/en/STUDY-
Customer-Service-Twitter-Sees-63-Percent
This guide was created by Unmana Datta and Nilesh Bhojani of Markitty.
If you like it, share it with your friends and colleagues!
© 2013 Markitty Marketing Solutions. All Rights Reserved

http://markitty.com The
Markitty helps small businesses and entrepreneurs use online
marketing more effectively. Our tools and services are designed to
help
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The Beginner's Guide to Twitter for Business
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Better Marketing blog for online marketing
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Contact Unmana for marketing consulting or speaking
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