How to Make the Best Use of Twitter for Your Business: "
Twitter is one of the most popular social networking websites and I am sure everyone is aware about this website. Twitter is not limited to the common man usage; celebrities are also using Twitter to stay in touch with their fans. For a lot of people Twitter would be a way perfect way to stay in touch with friends and family of follow their favorite celebrities. If your usage is limited to these things, you are not making the most out of Twitter which you should.
Any website can be confusing at the beginning and for a newbie Twitter would appear to be confusing as well. We will discuss every small detail related to Twitter so that new users and users who are already on Twitter can take the full advantage of the website. One new trend in the sticker printing industry is to put catchy tweets on stickers and then hand them out at events.
What is it all about?
Well, there is nothing so complicated about basics of Twitter. Twitter may not have a lot of games or applications like other networking websites but it serves the purpose of being a popular website. On Twitter, you can upload your thoughts in 140 characters and not any more than that. Different from typical terms used:
As mentioned earlier, the terminology used in Twitter is quite different. The terms used for common things are a little different for instance, if you want someone to be your friend, you need to follow them and not add them to your friends list. Similarly, a thing commonly known as ‘Status Updates’ is known as ‘Tweets’ on Twitter. So, for beginners understanding these terms can be a little difficult. Follow are a few Twitter terms which any beginner should know:
- Lists – This is a feature recently introduced in Twitter. All you need to do is create a list and add people you want to follow in that list. In this way, you will not have to follow every one individually. You can simply follow the list.
- Reply or @reply – Mostly, you have to comment on updates of the user and they are shown. In Twitter, it is a little different because if you want to comment on someone’s tweet, you will have to use the symbol ‘@’ before their username. In this way the person and your common friends will be able to see you tweet reply.
So, using Twitter is no rocket science, in fact it is pretty simple once you get to understand the terminologies well.
Following Guidelines
Obviously every site has a set of rules and regulations which users need to follow in order to maintain healthy environment. On Twitter, you are not supposed to send spam messages to other users. Also, if you are updating tweets way too often for instance, every minute, you are obviously going against the etiquette. Also, try to have a nice conversation with someone who is trying to talk to you instead of being rude. These are totally personal choices but they are proper etiquette which need to be followed. You should not start following people simply to increase the number of following / followers. Twitter’s unique point is brevity as you need to convey all in a short message so do not write too much.
Lack of Functionality
Other social networking websites have a lot to offer to their users. Twitter is also capable of offering a lot of good services but it lacks functionality. However, Twitter does consist of tools that mostly users are not aware of. A person who is more technical can understand the variety of tools Twitter has to offer.
Various Applications
Since Twitter has become a very popular website, people wanted to use it on their iPhone and other smart phones so special applications have been developed for different users. For each kind, a special interface has been designed for user’s convenience. Applications such as Swift, Twidroid are specially designed for Android phones. Twittelator and Tweetie are applications for iPhone users. A lot of other applications have been designed to address the needs of Twitter users.
Ways to Follow People
Finding and following people is not at all a difficult task on Twitter. This is among the very first things anyone would do after joining Twitter. You can always look for people you actually know or celebrities you like and start following them to know what is going on in their lives. If you want to grow your circle of friends and do some more networking, you can always look for people you don’t know but would want to know. There would be a lot of people with your similar interests.
As said earlier, you do not have to follow people blindly just to increase the numbers. Follow people with whom you would actually like to have a conversation.
Advantages of Having a List
A lot of people have created lists on the Twitter related to their interests and this is the best way to find people who have similar interest as yours. Another best way to find people is to browse through the topics of the list and look for the ones having your interest. You can have conversations with the people who are already following those lists.
Best Communication Tool
Twitter has become the best way to communicate with your loved ones because we do not get time to meet everyone is our daily lives so it helps us in staying connected. Also, you can find people sharing same interest as yours and you can always grow your friends circle. You can also join in chats and talk to people whom you follow. It is also a good way to promote your company so if you have joined Twitter for business purposes, make sure you stay active and reply to users’ comments.
It doesn’t matter if comments are negative or positive, for your company’s reputation, you need to reply to them to clear any misunderstandings.
Best Way to Market Your Business
Twitter can be one of the best platforms to market your business. However, sending tweets every single second about your business is not the best way to go about it. Your strategy should be to inform people about the positive aspects of your business instead of doing promotion blindly. If you have a blog for your business, you can always promote it on Twitter and interested people can find details on the blog. Designers have an advantage to design customized home page for their Twitter to show their talent.
Just for the Entertainment Sake
Social networking websites are a great way to entertain yourself so you do not have to take Twitter way too seriously all the time. At times, you can simply tweet to unwind and interact with your friends.
The Wrap Up
We all know that everything has its pros and cons and same goes for Twitter. It is entirely up to you to be productive on Twitter or waste your time. It can be so addictive that you can end up wasting time on Twitter like anything which is not a great idea. So, productive usage of Twitter is always a good thing to do but make sure you do not tweet way too much that you do not have time for anything else.
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