Success on Twitter is not the result of filling your feed with praise about yourself and your company. Success on Twitter is the result of using content to influence and engage with your target market. Over 500 million people worldwide use this microblogging social platform.  How can your business use Twitter to gain more followers and ultimately increase sales? Some basic Twitter know-how goes a long way for successfully tweeting about your company:

• Keep the content about you and your products to a minimum, and focus on engaging your customer
• Create interesting, witty content
• Use pertinent #’s (hashtags)
• Take part in # community dialogues
• Use @mentions and RT’s to interact with your market and thought leaders
• Respond to your @connects
• Use contests and coupons

Keep the content about you and your products to a minimum, and focus on engaging your customer While this may seem counterintuitive to traditional marketers,  social media is about interacting, sharing, and creating a bond with your consumer. Generally speaking, your customer doesn’t really care about you or your products, unless you can connect with them emotionally. In harsher terms: Nobody cares about you, we only care about ourselves. And we like to talk about ourselves too. If you can create content that engages, peaks the interest of, and emotionally connects with your consumer, you will become a more important part of their world. You/ your product/ your brand will more likely to be shared with others who share the same worldview. Understand your product, understand your customer, and speak to them on Twitter. Associate your products with feelings, thought provoking information, and lifestyles. Add your products in some of your tweets, but don’t shout about them. Create interesting, witty content Great content gets shared. Shared content means more brand exposure, which means more leads, which means more sales. Write tweets that are of interest to your market. And try to be witty (but not necessarily humourous). Think of the text of tweets as headlines or ad copy. The more attention grabbing they are, the more likely they will be read. The more they are read, the more likely they will be retweeted and shared. And it always helps to ask your followers to retweet your tweet! In fact, there is data that suggests asking for a RT results in 4 times more retweets! (source: Hubspot ) Use pertinent #’s (hashtags) Including hashtags in your tweets makes them reach a larger audience. Your tweet not only goes out to all of your followers, but also to everyone who follows, or searches for a particular hashtag. Hashtags are a way to organize topics. You can create your own hashtags. You can make funny or obscure hashtags that specifically relate to your market and/ or product and brand. Some brilliant uses of hashtags include @MapleLeafFoods use of #bacon: Take part in # community dialogues Being active on hashtag topics and engaging with other users of related hashtags is like an online form of the old fashioned face-to-face networking. And you can reach customers from around the globe, in your niche, that want to interact with you on Twitter. Search out #’s that are related to your brand, service or product. And then use the #’s, and interact with other influencers dominating the topic. Associate your tweets with thought leaders of your relevant topics. For example, if you are in the eBook publishing world, you could engage in hashtags such as #ebook, #ebooks, #read and #booklovers – or #mystery and #suspense such as in the example from @nookBN: Respond to your @connects Check your @connects frequently. Twitter is about conversing with your customer. Many of your customers these days use Twitter more than email as a way to connect with companies. A response on Twitter is expected fast. If a customer is mentioning you in a tweet, you need to pay attention and take action – even if that action is a simple thank you. Use Twitter as a customer service tool, to respond quickly, and well, to your customers’ needs.  This can go along way to build trust, develop loyalty, and generate more leads and sales. Use @mentions and RT’s to interact with your market and thought leaders Twitter lets you communicate with your market very easily. It’s also a great way to get in touch with thought leaders, celebrities and newsmakers in your industry. If you have a great customer who follows you on Twitter, for example, mention them. Send them an @handle tweet to thank them, retweet a tweet, or mention them in a #ff. (#ff stands for FollowFriday. This weekly shoutout has been a tradition on Twitter, and still has some merit. It gives you the chance to acknowledge your valuable and worthy followers, and suggest that others follow them as well.) Because Twitter is such an open forum, you can easily get in touch with thought leaders, other businesses, celebrities and more. You can use this to develop new business leads, get RT’s from industry leaders to gain further reach, and open dialogue to associate your company with others. For example, if you have written a blog post about a related company, you can send them the link through a mention on Twitter. Use contests and coupons Ok, this is where I disclose my bias.  Wishpond makes social contests, coupons and sweepstakes apps (which work on mobile too). Social promotions do go a long way in developing emotional bonds with your consumer, as well as getting lots of retweets. Contests are a fun way to engage your audience and generate buzz about your product. Who doesn’t like to win? And who doesn’t like to share when they’ve won? Contests can create user-generated content for you too. And UGC is some of the most shared content. People like to share what they’ve created. Coupons generate a lot of excitement for your products too. And they are retweeted often to followers and friends. Check out, for example, how @LookoutBlizzard has used our Sweepstakes to generate buzz on Twitter for their new game: Try out these Twitter tips. You really don’t have anything to lose, and you may just gain more engaged Twitter followers by doing so. And hey, why not visit Wishpond, to make your social promotions on Twitter!

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