Member Article

Twitter for non tweeters

So what is Twitter? Essentially it is a mini-blog or an online diary that provides an ability to have instant conversations with people you follow and who follow you. All of this has to be done in 140 characters or less. Twitter enables you to post short updates on interesting things that are happening in your business which other people can then share with their own followers by ‘re-tweeting’ the post. As a result you can communicate with a wide network of people very quickly.

How do you start tweeting? Once you have opened a Twitter account, you can upload a picture (known as an Avatar) and write a short biography about yourself. Twitter also provides an opportunity to link to your website. Now you should be ready to start, so what are the main points to be aware of when using Twitter? The following practical pointers will help if you are new to tweeting:

- You can follow anybody on Twitter, there are in excess of 200 million users and anybody can follow you.

- You have 140 characters with which to get your point across and text speak is not usually used. The message you send is known as a tweet.

- Everybody that follows you will receive your tweet in their timeline, just like you receive every tweet from the people you follow.

- If you think that a tweet you receive might be of interest to your followers you can re-tweet it and they will receive it.

- Most online articles have a tweet button so you can link it into your Twitter timeline and therefore make it available to your followers.

- Who you follow is up to you, competitors, partners, celebrities and Government bodies all have Twitter accounts and may be of interest to you, but you will probably redefine who you follow as time goes by.

- If you only tweet about your own business people will ’unfollow’ you fairly quickly so you need a mix of content including some that builds a picture of you, some about your business and some that may be business related in general terms and so of interest to your followers.

- There is an argument that people and not businesses tweet, and therefore your Avatar should be a picture of you rather than a logo. If your content is good it probably won’t matter so you decide which approach you prefer.

- Twitter is a great medium to get involved with but you have to dedicate time to it, if you tweet once a week you’ll not gain any followers. It’s an instant medium and sometimes opportunities come up and have to be acted on quickly.

Twitter has no boundaries with regard to who uses it, and this is reflected by the type of businesses that use it. Although this is very brief overview of Twitter there are working examples of business opportunities being found on Twitter and business being done. So have a look, have a play around with it, and see if it’s for you.

For more information and support in starting and growing a business contact NBSL on 01670 813322 and visit the website at www.nbsl.org.uk or follow NBSL on Twitter.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Phil Langton .