The last few weeks have been blogs of the personal variety. I have a few technical blogs I want to start tying up. About a month ago, I did a blog on Twitter basics. I figured from the start I would make this a 3-blog series. Original plan was a basic, intermediate and advanced twitter guide through my eyes.

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After lots of thought and debate between Lisa and I, we felt, we as a group, would rather write more personal items, that were important to us, as opposed to technical business writings. So, 3 weeks out of 4 the blog will be on personal experiences and how we as people deal and experience things. That leaves 1 out of 4 weeks to be of a technical nature. I apologize in advance for the nap you may now experience.

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TWITTER BASIC RECAP…

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In the previous blog on twitter, we mainly stuck with the basics. From how the @ symbol was used to tag users, to following other users. We also discussed the previous 140-character limit, which has since been rolled out and increased to 280 characters.

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The importance’s of security and keeping private information was also briefly touched on. We finished up on the important merits of why we felt social media and twitter was essential for communication and expanding your product.

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NEXT STEPS…

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Now that we are through that segment we can touch more on things like posting, consistency, consistent messages for your brand and scheduling your tweets.

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When posting, the most important thing is to do it regularly. There will be days you just don’t feel like it, we all get them. You need to ignore that feeling and post anyways. The only way to grow followers and have interactive people in your user base is to have a schedule and follow it.

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Let’s be honest. People are fickle creatures. We all are whether we wish to admit it or not. We get bored easy and we will go look for the next best thing. If people, see consistent posting of high quality content they will keep coming back.

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The best way to keep the quality up and post regularly is to plan your posts in advance. Lisa and I figure out what we want to do way in advance. For example, these blogs, I have a schedule of about 5 weeks’ worth of ideas mapped out. When I get near the end of those 5 weeks, I figure out what the next period will be in terms of content.

Do you know why I do this?

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I know there is absolutely no way I will be on my game 100% of the time. Therefore, I plan my content out so if I have a bad day or a bad week due to life’s crazy circumstances, I have it covered! I will then be prepared in advance for those days with, at the very least, rough ideas.

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Tweeting is one half structure and planning in our estimates. Always sticking to the plan will also keep you from making tweets that could possibly come back to haunt you. We all know once it’s out there for everyone to see, you cannot take it back. This is another reason to plan your posts.

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Another important aspect is grammar and spelling. You are a company, so your messages should be professionally written. What I mean by this is refrain from texting lingo in your messages. These are fine for personal conversations with friends and family.

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NOT FOR YOUR COMPANY.

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I am not saying do not be witty or have a style. Just no LOL, IDK, TTYL. Proper grammar and spelling is always important when tweeting. Leave that stuff for the personal accounts. Time and place for everything, my friends.

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You might want to have a few planned replies created to help with dealing with what the internet calls “Trolls.” Look, we are human, we have feelings and emotions. If someone is trashing your business and what your business does it is a horrible to react off those emotions. What better way than to have a notepad file set up with responses to deal with those.

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We would recommend redirecting those users to contact you by the company email, or perhaps if there is a legitimate concern, to give your company a phone call. This way you direct them out of the public eye, so you can deal with the matter in private. Nothing like airing your dirty laundry for everyone to read along with you.

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With these posts we now get to consistent messages. Always make sure you keep on target with your market in your tweets. You do not want to change up how you express things one moment, then flop back to another or contradict what you said last week.

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Those previous tweets are available for the whole world to see. Stay consistent.

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The final thing I will talk about today is something that will make your life easier on twitter. Schedule your messages that have great importance to your company. For example, you have 20% off on all websites for the next week, make sure the public knows it! Don’t tell them 1x, make sure you tell them many times!

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This is where scheduling your tweets come in. First, it allows you to be consistent with your message, second it allows you to plan your content ahead of time. You can use things like HootSuite or Tweetdeck to set these up.

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Pick appropriate times to have the tweets go off like around the lunch hour or dinner time or even 8pm at night. It will take a bit of trial and error to figure out what is an ideal time for people. Always include hashtags in your tweets. This groups together like ideas, tweets and messages. That way your tweet when it posts will also be grouped in with these messages.

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That is where we will leave it for this week. Remember, keep your tweets consistent, plan your tweets and schedule the important ones in advanced. The most important thing is to tweet often and engage with your audience using our simple ideas.

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Until Next Time …