If social media were a three legged stool, then a business website, Facebook site and Twitter account would be the legs of that stool. For businesses wanting to master the art of social media marketing, these sites must be professional looking, elegantly managed creating a seamless brand appearance. They also need to be balanced and leveraged between one another.

This week at Social Energizer, we are focusing on helping people get up and running with Twitter. As mentioned in our earlier blog, Rule 1 for Social Media Measurement, Twitter’s purpose is to generate excitement and rapid discussion. The important metrics are how many people follow you, how often you are retweeted and how often, and which, of your tweets are ‘opened’. By doing all of this you are generating activity, and hopefully, pushing them to your website where you can convert them into an eventual sale. That’s really why we’re here, right?

So, after you open your account, here’s where you start:

The make-up of a tweet

Write a tweet of 140 characters or less: note the number next to the word tweet keeps track of how many characters over or under you are.

The art of the Follow

When you find someone interesting, “follow” them, they’ll likely follow you back. To do that ‘hover’ over their name until a pop-up opens or click on their name and their profile will open for you. Simply select ‘follow’ and watch your numbers begin to grow.

The art of the @

• Just need a short example here- I am @SocialLynn, type this into a tweet and it will ‘tweet’ me and let others know that you are talking to me. Yes, they can eavesdrop. That’s kind of the point.

The art of the # hashtags

• # is used to find people tweeting about a certain subject.
• When using it in your tweet, it allows you to tweet beyond your ‘friends and followers’ base.
• Similar to keywords for your blog, #tags can be strategic. You can add people to your twitter account that are interested in the same things. Within www.search.twitter.com, #Science would pull people interested in science. Using that technique, add people likely to be found within the demographics of your target market.

KEY Twitter Strategy

You want to follow and have as MANY people as possible, but keep the numbers somewhat balanced with how many are following you. Don’t be too selective on the ‘who’. Twitter is about numbers. Maybe have a goal of 1,000 the first month, 3,000 the second month and so on. Keep building it until you notice your ‘trackable traffic’ picking up i.e. blog and Facebook when you reference them.

General Twitter guidelines

• Soft sell, be useful to others
• Tweet/retweet others, more than yourself.
• To speak to someone directly use the @ before their name.
• Let your friends and colleagues know you are on twitter. Include your Twitter ID on your signature line and business cards (website, facebook url, too)
• Don’t feel obligated to keep up with it all. Twitter is a stream. You step into and out of it at your convenience. If you see something you like, tag it as a “favorite” and come back to it. Or send it to yourself as an email.

I recommend linking your Twitter account with your website. I do not recommend linking Facebook and Twitter (personal preference); they seem like different message formats and audiences to me. As part of the three legged stool, have you noticed that I seem to be leaving out Facebook? Check that in our post, First Steps to Successful Marketing on Facebook, it is certainly one-third of the social media equation, I just like to use it differently than Twitter. Facebook is also a tool that pulls people to your website and final call to action. Once again, this threesome should all appear professional looking, elegantly managed and brand integrated. To learn how to do that, just give us a call or drop us a line. Thanks!