Twitter is primarily about social engagement and businesses that fail to get to grips with this are missing the marketing power of relationship building.  From sending Christmas ecards for business to telling the world about your next big event, Twitter is one of the most powerful tools available to engage a business audience. However, while most organisations know the value of social media in promoting brand awareness, many fail to realise its full potential.  Especially since Twitters share floatation they have immediately targeted the business community with specific business propositions https://business.twitter.com

Here are our 8 tips to enable a business to maximise the benefits on offer:

1. Build a meaningful following. The first thing you have to do is develop your following and you need to do this in an intelligent way. Many businesses make the mistake of randomly following or buying bulk followers that have little or no value. Follow Twitter accounts that are active and interesting, and are relevant to your field. It’s better to build slowly than rush ahead without any game plan.

2. Write tweets that are interesting. Develop a list of subject areas your following will be interested in. Become a respected and trusted purveyor of valuable content. Businesses that merely tweet about their product all the time are far less successful than those that provide their audience with that something extra.

3. Respond and retweet. This is another thing that businesses often fail to do. Twitter is a social conversation. You wouldn’t go to a party and talk about yourself all night so don’t do it on Twitter. If someone tweets a message about your product, respond to them. If they write something interesting that may be of interest to your other followers, retweet. Show a little altruism and your business will reap the benefits.

4. As your following grows it will become increasingly harder to keep track of the constant messages. Create lists for different conversations or popular tweeters that you want to keep  track of.

5. Find the art of writing a great tweet. The current thought is that short and sweet is best. This may not be the right solution for your business so don’t be afraid to experiment with different ways of saying things.

6. Expand your audience with the use of #hashtags. These are a great way of getting in on current conversations taking place between multiple users on Twitter. Find the hashtags that apply to your business and include them in some of your tweets.

7. Don’t just write. Vary your content by including image and video links. For yuletide greetings, rather than sending texts of goodwill to all your followers tweet colourful corporate christmas ecards to brighten their day.

8. To help build your following even further make sure you have your Twitter address (and perhaps your feed) on your website, so visitors can click on it and join the party. Have it on all your promotional literature too and business cards. Send out business Christmas ecards to your e-mail list and ask them to join you on there.

Twitter is a great social way for businesses to stay in touch with their fans and build a strong relationship with them. The successful users are the ones who appreciate the nature of the platform and can use it to their best advantage.