business advice - Craft Focus Magazine

to tweet or not to tweet
Q
A
How does retweeting work?
Put simply it is like forwarding an email –
someone likes your content and wishes to
share it with all their followers. Retweet/RT is
a GOOD thing for your twitter identity. Your
message is being amplified by those who are
reading it. The more RTs you get, the more
you are reaching new listeners and you will
potentially increase your followers.
You can also RT someone else’s content,
again a good thing to do (especially if their
tweet reinforces your own message). An
added bonus is that you’ll not only be sharing
more good content with your followers, you
may well be engaging the originator of the
tweet in a conversation with you because as I
mentioned earlier, it’s good practice to thank
someone for an RT.
Q
A
Can you prepost to drip feed Tweets
throughout the day to save time? (I've heard
of hoot tube or something)
You can schedule tweets and one tool which
I use for this is called Hootsuite. The basic
hootsuite user account is free. Hootsuite is a
browser based tool that actually enables you
to see up to five social media accounts in one
snap-shot. You can not only see Twitter but also
Facebook and Linkedin, if you use these tools.
Hootsuite enables you to prepare tweets
(or status updates in other media) to be sent
out at a pre-defined time. This means that
you can prepare content to be tweeted while
you are away from a PC. This ensures you are
sharing, promoting and visible on twitter even
at times when you can’t be online!
Image courtesy of
Gail D’almaine
84 craftfocus
Q
A
If I have a personal facebook account but
want to set up a business one, how can I stop
anyone accessing my personal account?
Facebook recommends that an individual has
a personal account – it is a very personal form
of social media and is aimed more at friends
than businesses.
If businesses want to have a presence on
facebook the recommended approach is to
set up a facebook page for the business, your
personal account would be the administrator
for that page. Both your personal account and
the business page can have different visibility
settings so there should be nothing to worry
about on that front.
Your blog, tweets and other media can be
fed through to either your personal account
or your business page, or both – as you wish.
Clare Rayner, the Retail Champion, has regularly made guest
appearances on BBC radio, TV and has contributed to various retailfocused
articles and opinion pieces. Clare shares her expertise in
developing strategies with retailers of all sizes to increase profit,
customer base, revenue streams and channels to market. Clare is
also owner/director of several businesses servicing the retail sector
including Retail Acumen, The Retail Conference and e-mphasis
Internet Marketing.
There are applications to enable this.
You can invite your customers to “like” your
facebook page. This means that they will
receive notifications from the business page
in their news feed in the same way they can
see status updates from their friends. Just
because they like your business page does not
automatically give them visibility or access to
your personal account and you still have full
control over that.
I hope the answers above are helpful. Of
course this just scratches the surface of a very
wide area! Social media can be a fantastically
powerful tool for retailers and consumer
brands – enabling them to engage with the
customer in a “place” where the customer
feels “at home”. Careful consideration should
always be made though. Remember that
your customer is on social media primarily to
be social and interact with friends therefore
your tone should be moderated accordingly.
Businesses which overtly promote themselves
via social media will not do as well in the
long run as those who leverage these tools
to deepen their relationships with their loyal
customers, turning them into advocates. C