business advice - Craft Focus Magazine

q&a special
to tweet or not to tweet
This month industry expert Clare Rayner, answers queries on the effectiveness of twitter and
facebook for business owners
QTwitter first and foremost is a social media tool
– the clue is in the description – social. It is not
Adirectly a business tool and thus for businesses
to use it successfully they need to be mindful
of a few things.
1. Who do you want to read/see your
messages and why? (therefore what should
your messages include?)
2. Who do you want to be speaking to and
why?
3. What is your policy regarding customer
complaints/negative opinion?
When you set up a twitter account you can
follow other accounts that interest you (which
you can find by searching on twitter) and you
will become followed as a result of the content
you share. This is why it is important to firstly
think about what you will be saying.
Once you’ve got the basics clear, and have
begun to “test the water” so to speak,
(following some people, sharing some content,
getting followed) you will be in a better
position to think about the next steps or how
to leverage twitter.
A business can leverage twitter in many
ways.
You can seek to find businesses who have
a common customer base to yours. You can
begin conversations with them to share ideas
and opportunities – possibly to cross promote/
refer each other.
You can “listen” to what is being said that
is relevant to you, your competition, your
industry – chipping in when you feel it is
appropriate.
You can engage loyal customers – speak
to them about your service, why they like
you, what you can do better. By having a
“personality” and by being open and genuine
I've obviously heard of Twitter, but is it really
a useful business tool?
you will potentially increase loyalty. Your
customers are likely to then recommend you
to their twitter followers
You can add a “feed” (see twitterfeed.com as
an example) to provide an automated sharing
of news / blogs / features that are relevant to
your industry and interests – thus you can be
tweeting and sharing when you are not even
logged in yourself!
Q
A
How often should I post on Twitter?
Twitter is very much a right-now sort of tool –
people dip in and out of it. They also have lists
to follow tweets of their favourite tweeters.
One thing is sure though many thousands of
tweets will have been made within the space of
only a couple of hours.
If someone mentions you in their
tweet, it may be positive, a referral
or a complaint – definitely worth
checking in all cases.
As a general rule I would suggest you ensure
that you are tweeting regularly during every day.
This can be done with tools such as twitterfeed.
com as well as by scheduled tweets.
I would recommend setting up alerts so that
you can respond immediately if:
someone tweets @ you (this is a “mention” and
means your twitter ID has been included in a
tweet by another person) someone RTs you
(this is a retweet, meaning someone has shared
a tweet you made with their following), or your
business name is mentioned in the text of a
tweet
It is good practice to thank/acknowledge
a tweeter if they do share your content by a
retweet. If someone mentions you it may be
a positive, a referral or a complaint,definitely
worth checking in all cases. If your business
name is mentioned then someone, somewhere
has something to say about you – you should
know about this and be ready to reply.
If you have a question about any aspect of your business, simply write to:
Q&A Special, Craft Focus Magazine, Broseley House, Newlands Drive, Witham, Essex CM8 2UL.
Alternatively, send your queries to editor@craftfocus.com.
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