Jade's Virtual Office

There are many free online marketing opportunities for your business. For now, let’s talk about Twitter.

Using Twitter, you can communicate with other people through messages containing 140 characters or less. If you want to be up-to-date with social networking sites, you MUST have a Twitter account and learn to use it properly.

Following are some tips that will help you on Twitter.

Your Twitter profile:
•    Fill out all of the information on your profile. This move will help people to get to know you and your business. Also, share your website address so people can visit your website if they’re interested in your products or services.
•    Put a professionally-made picture on profile. You could also use a logo of your company, but usually people like to communicate with – and see – a “real” person. Whether you choose a picture of you or your logo is up to you –, just don’t leave that brown square on your profile!
•    Put a unique background on your account. You can create one by yourself  that represents your company. Another option is to find a background template on the internet; you can find really good backgrounds for business accounts if you just do a little research. Your picture on your profile plus a logo and short description about your business on the background will work together to help your business make a great first impression to other people on Twitter.

What to tweet:
•    First, think about what you would like to read in other peoples’ tweets. Do you like to know what they are eating or watching on TV? Or are you more interested in seeing links to interesting articles and tips about marketing? Tweet the things that are interesting for you, and they will be interesting for your readers too.
•    Tweet about your business, share new ideas, give advice. Don’t spam; if every tweet tells them what to buy or how to make more money online, you will lose all of your followers.
•    Try to respond to all of the people who tweet specifically to you.
•    Did anyone share a good article? Retweet it for your followers by copying and pasting the info or link. Be sure to make it known that you’re retweeting by starting the tweet with a RT and the original tweeter’s profile name.
•    Try not to use all 140 letters if you have a good tip to share. Your followers will probably want to retweet it, and leaving about 20 characters free will allow people to easily pass your message along.

My last suggestion is to use Twitter Search to monitor what people are saying about you and your business on Twitter.

Did you like my tips? Get even more by following me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/JadeLT.