Twitter has an average of 88 million US visitors every month, but what you need to know is how to get in front of the half million who are within driving distance of your business. When people want to know what is going on right now, they turn to Twitter. They know it is the best way to get and share information instantly and connect with people and businesses, both locally and around the world.
With over 500 million tweets sent every day, there are ways for your business to stand out locally and reach an audience of new and existing customers. You can create meaningful connections with a relevant audience while generating leads and building a loyal customer base.
Use these links to the many resources Twitter has for your business:
Creating a Twitter Profile for Your Business
Building a Content Strategy for Twitter
Growing and Engaging Your Followers
Tracking Your Results with Twitter Analytics
Tips for Using Twitter for Local Businesses
Get Personal
One of the biggest advantageous of Twitter for local business is that unlike some other social networks, you don’t have to have someone as a follower to get your message in front of them. If there is someone you want to engage on Twitter you can simple send a Tweet mentioning the person you want to get your message to. Example: @JJWatt Stop by @HoustonDonuts for the best bear claws in town. #Tasty
Optimize Your Twitter Bio
This is where your audience looks once you’ve caught their attention with a tweet or they found your profile on Twitter so make it attractive and fill it out correctly. Show your personality and make it clear what you do for your customers. Choose a cover photo that is a clear visual representation of your business and consider your smiling face instead of a logo for your profile photo (people like doing business with people). Remember that your profile photo will appear as a little icon next to every one of your tweets. Create a concise 160 character bio that shows why you are unique and leave out the hashtags. Most importantly, include a trackable URL so customers have an easy-to-use link to your website.
Designate Your Geographic Location and Enable it in Tweets
When using Twitter for local businesses it is vital to fill out your location on your profile because this is searchable on Twitter. Plus, if you are on Twitter and you can click on it and you will see tweets going on locally and join relevant conversations. Your location is disable by default to turn it on open a new tweet and click on the “Location” icon and turn on your location.
Use Pinned Tweets
Twitter gives you the ability to “pin” a tweet of your choice to the top of your twitter feed on your profile page. This gives maximum exposure to your best tweets and it is easy to do. Simply click the “more” option on your tweet and select “pin to your profile page” and it will stick to the top of your timeline until you change it.
Use Images A LOT
Tweets with images stand out and get more engagement on Twitter. In fact, according to Buffer (a leader in the social media industry) tweets with images get 150% more retweets than those without images. Make sure your images are sized correctly so they are not cropped in the tweet, and use JPG or PNG for images and GIF or PNG for vector or line art images.
Put Videos in Your Tweets
Did you know you can shoot a 30 second video from inside Twitter mobile app? Crazy, right? Think of all the opportunities your local business has to post a quick customer testimonial, show what’s going on in your store, or events you are participating in. You can also add videos from your files. Just open a new tweet and click on the media button (or camera icon if you are on a small screen) and record or add your video.
Give the People What They Want and then Promote Your Business
You’ve heard of the 80/20 rule and on Twitter, depending on how many times a day you tweet, it’s a better practice to use a 90/10 rule. This means that 90% of the time you are providing your audience with helpful, valuable, or entertaining information in your tweets and only then are you doing any direct promotion of your products or services. People on won’t follow you on Twitter to see the same coupon in their Twitter feed five times a day so show your personality and give them a reason to follow you so you can market your business to an engaged audience.
LEADS – Use Hashtag Search to Find Your Audience
You are doing all this to grow your business so if you aren’t building your brand, reaching a larger audience, and generating leads Twitter can be a waste of time. A good way to find local customer on Twitter is to use tools like the search feature on Twitter or Hashtagify to search your #location to see who is tweeting about your area and see related hashtags that will help you reach your local audience. While you are looking at tweets make sure to note any big influencers in your market that you can engage with and possibly get a retweet of your best stuff.
Now, before you go searching for new customers make sure you have a profile and Twitter presence that people want to stay connected to by creating a killer profile, using photos and videos, and giving your audience something of value so often they don’t mind the little bit of self-promotion you do.
Use this free Local Score grader below to search the most important business listings and customer review sites to see where your business’s online presence is working hard for you and quickly find where you can make improvements.
http://ift.tt/214xAEs
What’s Your Local Score?
Enter any business name and zip code and see how you show up on directories.
About The Author
Zach Anderson is the co-founder of Reputation Loop (helping small businesses grow by generating customer feedback and online reviews) who loves online marketing and golf.
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