How to Use Twitter for Beginners

It can always be quite a daunting task to start using a new piece of tech whether it’s a new mobile phone or a social network. When seeking advice on marketing any business the first thing people say is “our you on social media”. Every company’s marketing needs our different & so should their social networks, there’s no point in being on a social network if you never post.

One of the social networks I get asked about a lot from clients is Twitter. The normal set of questions are

How do I use it?
What do I post?
I just don’t understand Twitter

So I thought I would try and help answer these questions with a blog post and to help you get started a Twitter Set-up checklist.

Finding The Right People:

One of the biggest struggles for a lot of people is how do I build a following. To do this effectively and organically there are some simple ways to help you.
The best way to find people is to search for them. What I mean by this is If you have a specific niche or industry subject search for others that are talking about it and who is following them right now. This can help to see what others are doing and what others are engaging in. This helps to give you a bigger picture of your target market and subject matter on twitter. Once you have a better idea of the niche on that network you can start engaging with prospects, influencers and their content. Most of the time if they are an active user they will follow you back. The aim of all social networks is to be social so get going and start engaging people.

Below is some easy ways to find people

#Hashtags:

So what is a Hashtags, I am sure you have heard of them by now. It’s the words you see on social media that start with “#”. They are used to organise tweets in real time into categories and subject matters. I warn you some of it will be rubbish and some you may not want to engage with but you will find other real people interested in your subject.
Tips:

Keep them as relevant to your content as possible
Don’t overuse them (try to limit it to is around 10 per post)

GEO-Targeting:

So you can use hashtags to target your tweets to different subject matters. But if you want to target users by location you can use GEO-targeting. With this tool, you can target specific cities, Postcodes with a certain distance.
You can use hashtags and GEO-Targeting to narrow the search of your subject or interest by location. Helping to find your local target market.

Tips:

Don’t Geo-target every post as it can limit your reach
Don’t Geo-target random places if they don’t have any relevance to your post

Organising Your People:

Now that you have found your niche and what they like and where they hang out. It’s time to organise them. As you probably have seen twitter is a bit crowded and a lot of people misuse it. if you’re not careful you can end up with a feed of rubbish as well as missing out on all the good stuff.

To help users organise their different people they follow, Twitter created lists.

Lists:

Twitter lists our lists of users that help you narrow down your feed. You can make public lists if you want to share your list or private lists if you don’t want anybody to know. Twitter will not notify the users or update their follow count if they are in a list.
You can use lists to organise your most important users that you engage most or your niches influencers. This is also perfect for following competitor and not adding to their follow count.

Tips:

Don’t make too many lists (it can become confusing)
Don’t just add random public lists (it might seem like you are saving time but your not)

Outreach:

Using your new lists you can start engaging and reaching out to active users. The best way to engage with people on twitter or in your lists is to join in the conversion by asking for advice or giving your option on the subject. This can help increase brand visibility on twitter as it will come up on their feed and to their followers.

Direct Messaging:

For a more private conversation with a user, you can DM (Direct Message) them. Normally you can only DM someone if you both follow each other but If they have opted in for anyone to DM them (like a lot of business have) you can DM them without following.

Content:

“What do I post?”
is probably the most asked question by clients, Answer is it differs from industry to industry. You going to want to be clear on what your brand image is and what content best represents that. There’s no way to get around creating content, you just need to do it.

Here are some simple ideas to get you started

Short brand messages:

Twitter is a platform that is built on opinion but you have the 140 character limit, this means you need to be a little more creative with the way you articulate your messages. You want to be clear on what your brand is about and what messages you want to get across. A good way to think about it, if you’re struggling is to split your overall message into a monologue of small points to make a bigger point.

Retweeting:

Retweeting is twitter’s very own sharing function. You can share any one’s tweet on your own feed and to your followers. Retweeting is a great way to keep your feed busy and share great content to your followers.

Sharing industry stories:

What do you read on a day to day basis?

Every morning I read different industry publications to get a bigger picture of what’s happening in my industry. A lot of people use twitter to consume information and find links to publications. Sharing stories that you have read show your trust and authority in the industry and show that you keep up with what strengths and opportunities that our out there.

Use Images, GIFs & videos:

Even though Twitter started with a text medium you can use multimedia. Using images, GIFs or video can really help cut through the clutter on twitter and I have seen a lot better results with posts with multimedia vs posts without. It acts as a more engaging post because there’s something visual to catch their eye.

Everybody’s different but I find spending a day to focus on the week’s content schedule and creating the content for that schedule is a great way to start and gives you greater control of your time so you can get back to running your business.

As I mentioned at the start of the post I am offering a Twitter Set-up Checklist for free to get you started.

Click here to get your twitter checklist

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This post was originally posted on MPH Creative Blog as a guest post by myself