by Jeremy Orbell

Created on: January 20, 2010   Last Updated: January 29, 2010

More and more people are using Twitter in a business context these days to help promote products and services. No longer is it just being considered as a banal method of telling friends and family what you had for dinner but a genuine bona fide communication tool.

Personally I have three Twitter accounts. One is for my employer for general announcements and information with a second personal work account too for more general industry chat. The third one is my own which is mostly used for my own purposes such as promoting blog posts from this site. It will be through this account I shall explain a few of the techniques you can use if you are new to Twitter.

I felt I should make ‘the new to Twitter’ clear as this is not meant to be for the regular users who have figured out how to use the thing. This is for those who may have set up an account and seen absolutely no benefit thus far. There are several reasons why this may be the case and I will come to those shortly.

At the time of writing I have over 1000 followers and I am following a good deal more than that. For my own purposes I could argue that my list people I follow has become too long but that is a discussion for another time. Where I benefit is having a significant number of followers who I can update on a range of topics whether directly related to my work or my marketing and communications blog.

For now, here are a few Twitter tips to get you started…

1.  Make regular, relevant updates to attract followers

Remember that Twitter only works if you make regular and meaningful updates (known as ‘Tweets’). If you don’t say anything why would anyone bother to follow you?

Many accounts lie dormant purely because the user has a set up a page and just waited for something to happen. You will only gain followers if people see what you have to say and are interested in your view. For a business it might be because you offer a particular product or service and that can draw many people in who will be able to find you via the search facility.

2.  Adding links and URLs

Adding links to your Twitter posts means that followers can find out additional information. For me I’ll use links to event registration, online documentation, industry news, press releases etc. However, some website URLs can be a little on the long side which can be an issue particularly as you only have 140 characters to play with. For this reason I suggest shortening them using tinyurl.com.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>