To Tweet or Not To Tweet, That is the Question
It seems like you’re beating your head up against the wall, trying to get sales as a small business owner. You try everything. Or almost everything. And still nothing happens.
No sales. No money. Nada. Nada. Nada-oh.
This is a worst-case scenario, but it happens.
For many business owners, social media is a scary prospect.
‘They have no time for it.’
‘It’s too time-consuming.’
‘I don’t understand what it’s all about.’
These are the excuses, anyway.
Many small business owners don’t pay much attention to social media for those very reasons. They’re too involved in other areas of their business like sales, which they deem of overriding importance.
One thing they don’t understand is that social media is sales!
You’ve got to prioritize. You’ve got to know, as a business owner, what actions are crucial for your business to grow and what are not.
One of the best platforms of advertising I have used over the years for my small business (I’m an indie book publisher) has been Twitter. And I’m not talking about Twitter ads. It’s potential to be a free way to garner attention — just as with the other platforms — is immense if you know how to use it properly.
But you have to know how to use it PROPERLY.
Can Twitter be a boon for small businesses or is it just another platform full of empty promises?
I believe it’s the former if used correctly and with a plan in mind, though it also has to do with what area of business you are in.
One of the first things you should establish is a plan of action. A strategy to move forward with.
Washington had one during the Revolutionary War. Wellington, too, at Waterloo.
You’ve gotta have a plan, man.
Plain and simple.
You have to think about what your intention is going to be when using Twitter for your business.
Do you want to see how your industry niche is developing and what the latest trends are?
Is it to increase brand awareness of your product/service on the platform?
Or is it just to scale up sales?
These are important factors to think about.
So think about them. Don’t dilly-dally. Get into the zone and go for it.
Such metrics are essential at a later time when you want to analyze reports from the data from Twitter.
One of the best ways to search out potential clients on the platform is by what I like to call ‘Community Vacuuming’, Social Monitoring in industry parlance. This is the technique of actively hunting down comments and engagement on your online activity, so as to be up to date with what’s going on in your social media feeds. This is a way to see what your competition is up to and follow customers’ views and opinions on your product/service.
Using Twitter’s advanced search option will quicken up this procedure here, which is known to be a complete time suck. Hootsuite, TwitterCounter and Twazzup can help you in this regard.
Depending on your business and niche, you may or may not have a large customer base. If you are a brick-and-mortar business, ie. a restaurant or florists, you could search for locations of Tweets in your local area. From it, you could then engage with these people.
Automation is key
Wasting time on manually following up leads on platforms such as Twitter et al is time-consuming.
I should know.
I’ve done it.
Too many times replying to ‘likes’ from my blog posts or reviews for my books when I get no engagement back.
It’s energy sapping.
Demoralizing even.
A massive pain in the face. And you don’t want that, do you?
‘No.’
What you want is time to grow your business.
With all the online noise, the streams of content — some useful, but the vast majority of it complete arse dribble — it’s difficult to stand out from the crowd.
It’s hard to be that unique one.
The pink rabbit in a digital world.
Getting good content that is relevant and interesting — unless you’re Guy Kawasaki — is not an easy task. Impossible in many instances.
It’s gotta be fresh. Fresh like that carrot just pulled from the earth (you can give that carrot to the pink rabbit now!).
Content can become irrelevant with the fast-moving timeline. Tweets lose their freshness instantly if they’re not offering something new, radical, off the scale.
An awesome image. A delightful insight nobody else knows.
This is what does it. Nothing else.
I’m going against popular opinion here, but it’s worked for me:
Tweet the same content — as long as you feel strongly about it and you think it’s offering your followers value — more than once.
I’ve tweeted the same tweet five or six times. The record’s eleven, I think.
Again, using a scheduling software like HootSuite or Sprout does all the hard work for you, and can save you a lot of time.
One of the key takeaways from all this is no matter what you tweet, you must remain constant with your voice and tone. Always presenting yourself in a voice that is recognized to popularize your brand or product will give you a big advantage against a lot of the heavy noise espoused by too many people on Twitter.
Your uniqueness can — if done right — pay dividends.
Consistency in voice benefits not only you but your potential clients as well.
Another tip to reach out to the masses and differentiate what you are offering from the crowd is to have a snazzy bio. If you are the brand, sell yourself in a way that is both humorous and clever.
Draw people in with the magic of your words.
Create an aura of anticipation. Make them want to know more about you and your product/service.
In a nutshell, using Twitter can still be a useful medium if done correctly. The naysayers who believe it’s done as a platform are wrong.
I’ve made many mistakes during the eight years of using Twitter.
Too many to name.
But experience and hindsight are, as you know, the best teachers.
Implement a strategy that you can consistently work on. One that you can analyze through data.
Goodbye and good luck, Tweeters!
