Last week in part 1 we looked at how you can boost your Twitter profile by writing a great bio and by including a picture. The tips I am going to share this week may seem like child’s play to many experienced Twitter users but they are things that are often overlooked.
3. Personality
As business owners we are constantly seeking our USP, what makes us different to our competitors? What makes us stand out from the crowd? For me, the one thing you always have over your competitors, the thing that makes you truly unique is you and your people. In social media this is a massive asset, injecting personality and tone of voice into your tweets makes them uniquely yours.
One of my favorite Twitter accounts, spanning way back to the old days when I was blogging for Feelgood Organic Hampers is @KieranMurphy of Murphy’s Ice Cream. There is personality in his tweets, somehow always related to ice cream and always making me hungry.
Bigger companies can have personality too. Last week I showed you how Honda identified the people behind their tweets. The Roger Smith Hotel (@RShotel) in New York City has become a bit of a social media celebrity of late and although they are being very creative with their marketing it’s still easy to find the personality tweets.
So how do you add personality to your tweets? As children in school we are constantly told to write in a particular way, to make sure our grammer is correct. We are encouraged to have a professional writing style. The key to tweeting with personality is to throw all of these rules out the window. Tweet as you would speak and the personality will flow in naturally.
4. Sharing is caring
If you are familiar with @chrisbrogan you may be aware of his strategy that you should spend 12 times longer talking about others than yourself. Sharing is a massive part of what Twitter is about, Re Tweeting others and sharing blog posts from others that are of interest to your target market is easy and valuable. Not only does this provide you with great content to share with your target market but it also opens a way to connect with other Twitter users in your industry, provoking conversation and forging new relationships. 12:1 may seem excessive to some but however much you choose to share it should be a huge part of your Twitter strategy.
As well as sharing other people’s content you should make it easy for others to share your Tweets. As you know tweets can be up to 140 characters long but if you want to maximise your Re-Tweet potential, especially amongst the more established Tweeters who still use the old fashioned RT method try and confine your tweets to 120 characters. This allows space for a full RT.
Asking for a RT is a way to increase the number of shares you get but be aware not to use this tactic too often. Asking for a RT of every post will just make you look like you are begging! Sian’s wrote a good post on ReTweeting recently.
One of my favorite Irish business accounts for sharing is @GarrendennyLane, Lorna the owner is a keen blogger herself but constantly tweets links to other great design blogs.
To find content to share set up some Twitter lists of your favorite tweeters, the ones who create and share the best content. This way it’s easy to discover good stuff to share. Find some good blogs covering key areas of your industry and keep an eye on them
If you have any tips and tricks you’d like to share on using Twitter do let me know, leave a comment below as I’m always looking for great Tweeps to include in these posts.
