Should I put my business on Twitter?

Good question. First up, Twitter is one of those social networking tools where the more you put in the more you get out – so be aware that you can’t just set up an account and then think “yes, I’m on Twitter”.Putting your business on Twitter can work really well; it can show you as an expert in your field and can definitely help in promoting your business.  However, you need to define a real strategy for your Twittering, such as setting aside time everyday to tweet (messages you send) – this could be 15 minutes at the start and end of each day, it doesn’t have to be hours.   

You need to create rapport with your fellow Twitterers, the best way to do this is to tweet things of interest, such as an interesting website, your latest blog, new tax breaks etc to your followers without it sounding like you are selling.

Below are some points to help you make the most out of Twitter when you are starting out.

• Choose a good name – make it relevant to your business. For example, for me I am LaRoo (my business name), or you could choose your website address (without the .com bit).
• Make your name short, you want people to retweet you (which is when people forward your message onto their followers), and as they only have 140 characters to write their tweet in, you won’t get retweeted much if your name is 20 characters!
• Set up your profile properly. When people want to know more about your business, this is where they will look, so make sure what you do and your website address is there.
• Find some people to follow who interest you, or are relevant to your business, other Twitterers will often look and see who people are following
• Promote your Twitter name in your email signature, business cards and on your website

For more information, the best book I’ve found on Twitter is “Twitter Power” by Joel Comm. It goes through how to get the most out of Twitter and starts with the basics.

Lara Solomon is the founder of Mocks, mobile phone socks www.MyMocks.com and author of Brand New Day – the Highs & Lows of Starting a Small Business. Lara’s business LaRoo was the winner of the NSW Telstra Micro-Business Award in 2008.

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