Recently, I witnessed a business that was interested in expanding their Twitter and social media efforts. The immediate questions were along the lines of, “How do we get lots of followers? How do we get listed? How many tweets do we do a day? How do we word our advertising on Twitter? How do we do automatic tweets?”
I began to explain what was important and what wasn’t. I explained the subtleties and the “Do Not Dos.”
An abbreviated version is below
- Engage with people and show interest.
- Get to know them and what their story is as much as possible.
- Find people to follow who are interested in the same things as you are.
- Answer tweets to you. If they took the time, show them that you appreciate their efforts by answering.
- Don’t use automatic tweets except in certain circumstances.
- Give of yourself and help people.
- Don’t be phony.
- Don’t re-tweet without reading.
- Don’t react to irritating or angry tweets.
- Learn to use Twylah.
- Use hash tags appropriately.
- It’s better to tweet less than tweet wrong.
- Pay attention to the experts and not the self proclaimed Gurus.
Social media is all about the people and the businesses behind the tweets and the loyalties that are formed. Contrary to what the media would like people to believe, it’s not just about the number of followers. It’s about the relationships that are formed which in turn boost personal and business success by creating ambassadors for you and or your business.
Photo: joshsemans
