Twitter is an essential brand building platform for any biz targeting other businesses.

But the “high tide raises all boats” digital land grab is over, it’s a fight to just get heard.

You need a bulletproof marketing strategy, coupled with excellence in tactical twitter marketing. #readon

1.0 Best Practices; Where to Start and What to Do

Twitter basics: stand up an awesome profile page with high quality images, create a stellar bio with integrated keywords, spend time listening and following competitors and thought leaders.

Then, take the Twitter plunge using these tactics:

• Don’t rely on textual tweets - insert image into 30-50% of your Tweets and take some risks with your images.
• If Brand Tweeting: forget the Foursquare check-ins, you and the cat hanging out: that’s what Facebook or a personal Twitter account is for.
• Be mindful of your audience: Twitter success has always been and will continue to be about curating and sharing great content.
• Brand personality is cool: don’t toss out endless news stories about your industry without some shared personality.

• Pay it forward; this was the mantra of Twitter back in the ancient days; it’s still relevant, even in today’s “me first look what I did” world.
• Use lists to keep your sanity. Once you get above 3-5K Followers it can be hard to separate great content from the mediocre. Lists let you refine the conversation flow.
• ReTweets are the coin of the realm on Twitter: shorter under 100 character Tweets with links get 30-50% more ReTweets.
• Twitter is a stellar marketing tool for SEO: Google “sees” your social shared links in spite of what some SEO Geeks say.
• Use hashtags to connect with a more sophisticated audience and generate awareness for specific topics.
• Create & “own” a branded hashtag that dovetails with your marketing.
• Use the same Tweet 2-4 times per day and spread it out over different timezones.

Eight Reasons why Individuals and Brands Unfollow you On Twitter

1. No Engagement via your Account: it’s all “broadcast” out Tweets
2. No real content curation with your account: newsworthy factor is not valuable
3. Referencing causes or activities that may not resonate with your community
4. Not really active on the platform: 1-5 Tweets per week is not a “digital heartbeat”
5. Using automated tools to shared content: not a real account
6. Don’t participate in “social activities” like #FF (#FollowFriday): no investment in the community
7. Every Tweet references your product, service or company: self-serving
8. All your Tweets are made with @ (meaning your Tweeting to people) - your content is not diversified: get on @snapchat

2.0 Baseline Twitter Marketing

• Have Favorites “designation” (these help to define your account)
• Syndicate content and news sources with mindfulness & rotation freequency
• Only 10-15% of your Tweets should be about your brand or business
• Know there’s a fine line between conveying personality and being foolish on Twitter (we can’t tell you exactly what that is)

Dumb Twitter Marketing Strategies

• Buying Followers on Elance or Fiverr (wherever): may look good for the ego but does nothing for brand engagement
• Broadcast only mode via Twitter account. No engagement or @messages to anyone in the Twitterverse.
• No creativity in the bio whatsoever.
• Using bonehead #hashtags that have nothing to do with the Tweet (non starter).
• Endlessly promoting your services. This should be no more than 10-15% of your Tweets.
• Boring profile page with funky images.
• Selfie Tweets on endless loop: “I uploaded a YouTube” or “I just ate lunch” (put that stuff on your Instagram account).
• No value added value in the Twitter stream: not curating content in any meaningful way.
• Using an admin or offshore person to manage the account that has no clue about what to do (it’s obvious).
• Not sharing images. Twitter has morphed from text to an image centric platform.
• Inappropriate Tweets about sex or politics. Take some risks and have some personality; but, learn the fine line between good and bad taste.
• Using the same bad marketing strategy a celebrity is using on Twitter: you aren’t a Kardashian so don’t Tweet like one.

Advanced Twitter Marketing for Moving the Meter

• Create “influencer” lists of your own and follow others created by thought leaders, competitors and/or others in your industry.
• Participate in Twitter Chat Discussions: some are like drinking from a fire hose, but dive in and Tweet to get your brand heard.
• Change your profile frequently; it gets ranked by Google immediately.
• Connect your Twitter account with other platforms (this is just good content marketing) and don’t forget to embed Twitter account with email newsletter.
• Use high impact images on Twitter: 20-40% of your Tweets should have attached images.
• Use Twitonomy to understand what your competitors are doing: follow their lists, assess their content marketing strategy: what they are sharing, hashtag usage, who they are Following.
• Invest time: be patient and expect to spend 3-6 months to build up a Following on Twitter; forget your Follower count: a smaller and engaged community is much better than larger group of Followers who are not engaged.
• Used Tweetdeck to segment lists (“columns”) of users, hashtags relating to your industry, competitors and your own lists.
• Twitter’s Advanced Search can be used to pull up hashtags or keywords used by potential customers who are Tweeting about a problem they are having. This is 1.0 data-mining and labor intensive; but, can be useful for sourcing leads or partners.
• Twitter’s new profile page is a great way to use a dramatic image that makes your brand stand out - change it at least once a month. Pin your best Tweet every few days to your profile page: should be a Tweet linking to your blog or other branded content.
• Use Social Bro for uploading email contacts and getting a list of all Twitter accounts.
• Don’t just Tweet your headlines: extract “fresh” headlines from the body of a blog post, use questions or quotes from your content.
• Create custom images with text overlaid with the image. These can be mini advertisements for your business.
• Tweriod lets you analyze the times when your Followers are online and sharing your content.
• Use Twitter Cards to attach rich visual images to your Tweets.

Apps we recommend and use: Tweetdeck, Topsy,  Twist.Ly, Twitonomy,  Hashtags.org, TweetAdder, Twtrland,  SocialOomph and TweetBot.

Like every social channel, Twitter is constantly updating the functionality and platform, necessitating your staying current with these changes. Be an iterative brand.

It’s an extremely dynamic platform moving at warp speed.

Jump in/on and reach out if we can help you. #livedigital