From Auto Tweeters To Follow Friday – Understanding Twitter For Business

From auto tweeters to hash tags, and from 'Follow Friday' to retweets, getting to grips with Twitter can be something of a battle. There's no denying the fact that as an online marketing tool Twitter is one of the best ways of getting your message out there, of developing brand awareness, boosting brand visibility and helping to improve the reputation and image of the business.

But like anything, if you get it wrong then quite apart from being something positive it can quickly turn bad, and can even cause significant harm to your business. So if you're just getting started with Twitter and you don't know your auto tweeter from your retweet, and you think that Follow Friday is something that Saturday does, then read on for a few select tips to help you make Twitter work for your business, and not against it.

One of the first things to appreciate is that there's one massive mistake which a good number of online marketers make. There's only one thing worse than not signing up to Twitter, and that's registering for an account, publishing the odd tweet for a while, and then giving up. It's understandable, because Twitter is a commitment that requires your constant attention many times every single day. But creating a Twitter account, branding it and getting it up and running before walking away from it or forgetting all about it simply gives the impression that your business isn't able to cope with any additional demands or that it's not willing to make a consistent effort. In other words, the messages being given out by a dormant or dead twitter account can be very damaging.

This is why a number of businesses and online marketers are now using auto tweeters, or tweet bots, to help reduce their workload, and enable them to maintain an active and positive Twitter profile whilst being able to completely forget about it, getting on with the day to day process of running the business. This is a much better alternative to creating an account and then running out of steam, so if you're looking to get started with Twitter it's worth being realistic about it, and start using a Twitter bot fairly early on - it'll make life a very great deal easier.

But what of things such as retweets, and Follow Friday? If your tweets are good, helpful, interesting, entertaining or otherwise of note then other people may wish to repeat your tweets themselves. This is called a retweet, and it's a great form of advertising and marketing, since it's being perpetuated and spread on your behalf by other people. It's important to think about two things here. Firstly, make sure your tweets really are of good quality so that people will want to follow you, and retweet your posts, but also make sure that you spend time reading other people's posts, and retweeting theirs too. It's a fact that those people who retweet more often tend to get followed more, and have their tweets retweeted in turn. It pays to be generous!

There are many traditions on Twitter, one of which is the Follow Friday, or #FF tradition. This is a great opportunity to both get followed and to recommend people for your own followers to follow. On a Friday just list the names of a few people you think are worth following, including the hashtag #FF. Hopefully other people will recommend you, and so this is another great way of expanding your followers base. Twitter is a great marketing tool, but it's one that requires you to be generous in order to reap better rewards.