Twitter 101: Quick Tips for Starting

Twitter is another important social media platform for one-to-one and one-to-many communication. One of the key advantages is the fact that its tags are SEO researchable. In other words, if you post content and include your industry's keywords, searching coustomers can find you. This free advertising can be very easily used because, as discussed below, you can provide weblinks. This is ideal because It also offers many of the popular features  seen on other platforms like hashtags, fleets (similar to Instagram stories), communities (similar to Facebook's groups), Super follows (similar to Patreon).

This post will explain the basic elements and features of Twitter before offering tips on being effective on the platform.

Tweets

Twitter messages are called tweets. Tweets are 140-character long messages that you broadcast to followers. They are SEO ready in that your customers' Google search results access them. Tweets may include up to 4 images, polls and emoticons. Tweets can also be scheduled from within the platform. You can configure each tweet so that only persons you authorize can respond. The options are "everyone", "people you follow" and "only people you mention". Tweets can be deleted. (Associated retweets are automatically deleted when you delete original tweets).

Re-Tweets (aka RT)

Retweeting refers to reposting / forwarding another user's tweet to one's own followers.

Direct Messages (DMs)

Direct messages allow you to send one-to-one private messages between users.

Super Follows

This feature involves paid followers (comparable with Patreon). It allow creators to share subscriber-only content with their followers. Creators need to set the monthly subscription for access to such content. This feature allows creators to make money on Twitter.

@ Messages

@john:            Public message to John that will appear on his @page

Polls / Surveys

You can create polls that are multiple choice questions.

Communities

Twitter Communities are like Facebook Groups. Specifically, they provide a dedicated space for discussions on specific shared interests. They are formed and managed by users (admins and moderators) who enforce community rules and keep conversations in line with the group's mission.

Quick Tips for Using Twitter as an Effective ECommerce SEO Tool

1.

Create single Twitter accounts for each niche, department, interest, aspect of your life and so on. For instance, if you create a Twitter account to sell paperclips, do NOT do anything that is irrelevant to this objective like tweet about your automotive products, your dog's new litter of puppies and so on. Keep relevant at every turn. This includes your choice regarding the people you follow, your retweets and so on. In short, allow your activity to send an unambiguous message to search engines, as well as to retain the interest of your followers.

2.

Customize your Twitter account to suit your brand. The following are a few examples of how you can achieve this.

• Create a description with keywords. Remember that search engines use Twitter keywords as meta tags
• Apply your logo
• Customize your background image to include contact details (even though Twitter does not allow the background to be live hyperlinks). This simply provides efficient use of your internet real estate.

3.

Attract Followers. Keep the first golden rule in mind regarding keeping all activity relevant to your business objective. This involves creating associations with relevant Twitter users.

• Follow Twitter users who have similar interests, especially those with a large following that is engaged (ie responds to their tweets). These ideal Twitter associates are called social media influencers. One way of finding them if by searching for niche-related keywords with a hashtag. Followerwonk is an even more powerful means of achieving this objective. (Click here to read an article for steps on doing this with Followerwonk). Follow your competition! Wise competitors are likely to start following you, especially when your account begins to perform well. This is a means of keeping current in your industry and taking opportunities to access a competitor's following.
• Keep relevant in the minds of your followers by communicating with them. The first two of the 3 following Twitter messaging methods are most useful in attracting and retaining followers.
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• Tweets ie messages shared with the public, much like a Facebook post with public settings. However, your messages stand out on the pages of your followers. Whenever possible, place your keywords with hashtags within the first 27 characters. This part of your tweets are comparable with the all important ‘title’ tags of web pages that search engines grab. Tweet about anything relevant whether announcing new blog posts, promotions, announce corporate accomplishments, affiliate program or other employment opportunities, competitions, product links and use tentpole marketing opportunities to send messages that give your business more of a human appeal. If you need to include long URLs (website addresses) into your 140-character tweets, use serves like bitly ( https://bitly.com/shorten/ ) to shorten the URLs to considerably fewer characters.  



• Retweets ie messages that are forwarded. This is useful if a tweet originated within of followers of which your followers are not a part. The retweet introduces the tweet to your followers.
• Direct message, ie private message that are possible only between you and your followers. These messages do not have SEO value.

4.

Connect Twitter to other (social) media. Spread your hashtag keywords through as many communication media as you can. Some of these include email signatures, business cards, promotional web content and so on. In fact, in some cases, cross media connections provide automation. For instance, your tweets can automatically appear as Facebook entries.  

• Log in to Twitter


• Settings (top right corner drop down menu)


• Profile


• Scroll to ‘Facebook’ (and follow instructions)


• Save Changes


• (When done, your Facebook page should automatically have a Twitter icon)

Types of Tweets you should post

Ensure that all of your tweets are doing at least one of the following. 

i. Web-linking. The link should lead to somewhere your brand can engage for longer with your leads. You can shorten your weblinks with tools like Sniply.

ii. Quick questions (QQ). This is ideal for engagement. 

• Do you like X or Y?
• Which design creeps you out?

iii. Industry Buzz. This type of content allows you to reinforce your expertise in your field. Specifically, it shares knowledge in a very authoritative way, perhaps even showing background research, actionable information like tutorials / tips and so on. Although showcasing expertise, the content should be sufficiently relatable that your followers think they could not have said it better and wish to re-tweet the content instead. This type of content gets the most re-tweets and is therefore supremely valuable for virality / market penetration, ie getting the attention of your competition's audience. 

iv. Networking. This relates to actually striking up discussions with otherwise strangers. Example(s)

• Thoughtful compliments are an ideal way of breaking the ice like, "I liked how your video discussed x-y-z. The content was very inspiring." (NOT I liked your video).

Use tools like Buffer to schedule your tweets well in advance.

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CONTENT RELATED TO USING TWITTER

• Social media 101
• Instagram 101
• Facebook Groups
• WhatsApp Business
• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• Chatbots
• Tawkto
• Use tools like Buffer to schedule your tweets well in advance.
• Internal links