Tweet Your Message Right in 10 Simple Steps

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Tweet Your Message Right in 10 Simple Steps

Did you know that according to HubSpot …

So the verdict’s in. Twitter is now one of the most popular social networking sites around. As such it offers you a unique way of promoting your message, connecting with customers and generating leads.

Done well, your can use your Twitter profile to tell a visually compelling story about your business. Here are some examples that show the myriad of ways others are telling their stories:

Taiga Company

Julie Urlaub presents a smooth, modern, easily read design that beautifully frames the information in her profile:

You’re likely to get 2x as many leads if you Tweet than if you don’t?

42% of companies who Tweet for marketing have connected with a new customer?

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The New Yorker

This famous magazine presents its profile framed in a collage of previous edition cover photos. The profile information is still easy to read, and that’s what you want:

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Adobe

With an elegant background and header reflecting each other, Adobe’s design pulls you right into its profile information. Beautifully done!

Take time to lurk about Twitter discovering other profiles/profile designs. Get a sense of what you like and what you don’t like about them. That will help you when you begin building your own company profile.

While taking note of various designs, also notice how companies are using header space to write business and contact information. This is easily changed from day to day if you wish. Unlike Facebook, there are no content limitations so you can add time sensitive offers, information and announcements if you wish.

Once you’ve done your homework, here’s what you should do next:

1. Choose your Twitter username and create your account

Because you’re opening a business profile, simply use your business name: @YourBusinessName. If your name is Kayak Canoe Blogger, for example, you could open an account as @KayakCanoeBlog. You can’t use “Blogger” because the maximum number of username characters is 14.

Here’s a tip: See how we wrote this username (KayakCanoeBlog) with initial caps? If you have more than one word in your username, make sure you do that, too. It’s much easier to read and understand that way.

Here’s another tip: Whether your company is large or small, it’s best to have only one account. Managing more than one means more work for you and can weaken

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your presence in each account. Use multiple managers if you must, but within one account. You’ll be more effective (and much happier) in the end.

So … are you ready? Then check in at http://twitter.com.

In the “Join Twitter Today” box, begin building your profile. When you’re done, click in the yellow “create my account” link.

You’ll be taken to this welcome box. Click on “next.”

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2. Build your timeline box. Choose the first 5 people or companies in your industry you want to follow. Then click the “next” button to continue.

3. See who’s here box: This box gives you the chance to find and follow influencers in your industry. Choose as many as you wish (remember, you can expand this list later), then click on the “Next” button:

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4. Find people you know box. In this section you can choose to add contacts from your email accounts. You have the option to skip this if you want as you’ll always be able to do that later. When you’re finished, continue to the next section.

5. Add character box. Upload your image photo and fill out your bio here. (You’ll be able to do both later, so if you want to skip this now, you can.)

Profile photo (Twitter specs: 73 x 73 pixels. File: JPEG, GIF or PNG. Size: 2MB or less. Recommendation: keep all other specs the same, but increase your pixel size to 500 x 500 so if someone clicks on it to make it larger, your photo will maintain its clarity).

Upload a professional photo or your company logo here. This is your company identity, so make it work for you. This is the image that will appear with all your tweets.

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Twitter Bio (160 characters or less).Don’t skimp on this! Use your creativity to give people a reason to read what you write. But stay real. This will be displayed on your profile header just under your username.

Think about keywords you can use to help people find you.

By now you’ve taken note of other interesting Twitter account profiles. Use the ideas gleaned from them in your own bio.

Take a moment now and list your best keywords. Don’t worry … this isn’t something that’s written in stone. Your keywords will change as your business grows, and Twitter lets you revise your bio as often as you want:

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6. In the Profile tab within your Twitter settings page, upload your header and add other important profile information.

Header (1252 x 626 pixels, up to 5MB, JPG or PNG file). This is a great place to tell people about your business through imagery. Go back and look again at the Twitter profiles of Taiga, The New Yorker and Adobe offered at the beginning of this chapter. You’ll see three unique and imaginative ways these companies are using headers to their advantage.

Other Info. Deepen your profile here by including all links to your company website or blog. You can also indicate your location, edit your bio, or set up automatic tweets to your Facebook Profile or Page accounts.

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7. In the Design tab of your Twitter settings page, upload your background image.

Here you can either choose from Twitter premade background design themes, or go to a place like themeleon and choose one of theirs.

If you want to set yourself apart by designing your own background image, the recommended custom background image pixel size is1600 x 1200.Your image can be a JPG, PNG or GIF file. Size: 800kb-2MB.

Remember: the visual space of your Twitter background is valuable “real estate.” Use it well!

Marisa Murgatroyd at LiveYourMessage offers a great guide for creating your own Twitter backgrounds. Here are some things to consider:

The left side of your image is the most important part. That’s where you should place any information, or narrative, about your company.

Because of variations in screen size and resolution, not everyone will see the same thing when they land on your company Twitter profile page. The right hand column is the area you should use for any company information you want to add, so the size you use is important.

The percentages of visitors who will see columns of certain pixel widths are below:

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71 px = 90%

199 px = 65%

242 px = 40%

279 px = 20%

If you keep the left column of your custom design within the 71 pixel range, the largest number of viewers will see the designed image correctly.

8. Promote your Twitter presence everywhere!

Do you have a website or blog? A presence on other social media platforms? Be sure to promote it by installing the Official Twitter Follow and Share Buttons everywhere you can. This lets your visitors easily follow you with just a click of the button.

9. Use a third-party resource to maximize your Twitter experience.

You can avoid the job of Tweeting each post from you business blog by using third-party services like Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to link your blog to your Twitter account.

This is very useful, especially if you’re working with multiple account managers or with other social media channels. These dashboards allow you to see all your Tweets, ReTweets or Direct Messages … as well as posts to other platforms.

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SocialOomph is other good social media management tool that might work for you as well.

Hootsuite and Tweetdeck dashboards look like this:

Hootsuite Dashboard

Tweetdeck Dashboard

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10. Reach out to others and build your following

Now that you’ve built a compelling Twitter Profile, it’s time to reach out. The benefits gained from the Twitter experience come from the people you follow and who follow you.

Ask your employees to retweet your tweets. Each employee has a following beyond yours, so having them share your messages with their followers automatically expands your reach.

Start following others on Twitter in your industry … or others who share your vision. Start following bloggers, people and influencers in your industry. Retweet their messages, share their content and create tweets of value to hook them into following you back.

Once you have followers, engage with them. Remember: It’s not just about you. Twitter is a two-way conversation in real time. So don’t just post your own content. Share. Send @replies thanking people for retweets. Use direct messages to thank people for following or respond to tweets. People like interaction. That’s what Twitter is all about.

Connect with people writing about your industry or interest. You can do that easily by using free tools like SeekOrShout and Muck Rack. Do that and you’ll find writers who cover your industry. Follow them and start building relationships now. Why? Because in the future they might well come back to you as a resource for a story they want to write about!

Let the Tweets begin!

You’ve now built your Twitter Profile and you’re ready to begin tweeting. Here are four great tips to ease your tweeting experience and help you connect, build your base, and bring results:

Optimize your tweets with keywords. (Refer to Step 5, where you wrote down your initial keywords.) Anyone can search for your tweets because they’re public. So when you use business-related keywords, you optimize your chances of getting found through your tweets.

Schedule your Tweets in advance. Put your 3rd-party resource manager to work and use it to schedule a series of Tweets (see Step 9).

Do you have ongoing promotions you want to Tweet about daily? Schedule them in advance. Once you’ve completed the scheduling, though … don’t forget about your followers! Make sure you’re watching for any responses and engaging with the people who are connecting with you.

Are you starting a big marketing push? Create and schedule “lazy tweets” beforehand about the promotion. Give them to your employees and ask them

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to help out by tweeting. It’s easy for them to do and helps out in your promotion.

What about other content? Don’t just tweet promotional content. Share other content as well.

Intersperse your tweets with questions or quotes -- or something personal you’ve done concerning your industry (“Whew! I’m stoked! Just returned from a killer conference on widgets.”) Interesting, curious, unexpected tweets are always good for capturing attention. But don’t go overboard.

Your tweet voice is important. If you’re the only person tweeting for your company your “tweet” voice is yours. If people from different departments of your company are tweeting to the same account, make sure your voices are similar.

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This is a chapter from our eBook …

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with a powerful business blog

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by Faith Attaguile and Valérie Leroyer

What are you waiting for? Get your FREE copy now, right here

It certainly isn’t the first book written on the subject of business blogging, but it may well be the best.

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About the Author …

Faith Attaguile spends most of her time at FrontlineCopy.com offering copywriting, blogging and empowerment marketing services to eco-businesses working for a greener world.

She’s been trained in business blogging by Corbett Barr (Think Traffic) and has guest-blogged at KayakCanoeBlogger.com. She writes regular posts on her website blog. You can also find articles by Faith in East County Magazine and The Coast News.

Connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.

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We wrote this document for you to share with everyone.

But please, don’t sell or change it!

Faith

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit here.