Twitter can be an important business tool, but are you using it to the best of your ability? Never fear, we’re here to help.

Do this first!

If you’re a small business or a sole trader, people want to see you! Think about how your profile looks and feels:

• Profile picture. Can they see the smiling faces of your company? Any chance to feel approachable to potential clients is a win!

• Who’s tweeting? If multiple people from your company are tweeting, it’s often a nice touch to sign off your tweets with your initials; that way people know who from your company is tweeting, making them feel more connected and giving your tweets a personal touch.

• Pinning tweets. Make it easy for people to read relevant info. Pin important details like sales, new products or where your customers can find you to the top of your profile. Just remember to change it when the pin is no longer relevant!

Plan, plan, plan

You don’t have to be physically tweeting 24/7, that can pile on the pressure and make Twitter feel like a chore. Think about planning content ahead of time; perhaps you can you plan something around popular hashtags like #MondayMotivation or #TBT (throwback Thursday).

Think ahead to events like Mother’s Day or Easter. Any event which people come together to celebrate can be a great way to pick up followers and potential customers, as long as it feels natural and relevant.

Planning content is easier if you’re using a scheduling tool. There are many free tools out there like Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule your tweets. Setting aside a little time to plan will end up saving hours in the long run.

And don’t forget to have a fun along the way! We love seeing Greggs’ latest tweets - they never miss an opportunity to stir up some banter.

Find customers with Twitter search

It’s easy to find others interested in similar things to you. Explore Twitter’s advanced search; perhaps you’re interested in food recipes and growing your own food, specifically for people in Saffron Walden? Reach out to those who share your interests - you’ll find yourself building a bigger community in no time!

How to sell without the hard sell

The trick is promoting your products without giving folks the hard sell. You could try highlighting a benefit to potential customers - perhaps you have a new blog post that will be helpful to them and, incidentally, showcases a product benefit.

IKEA, below, draws customers’ attention to their organisation guide so you feel empowered to do more with your living space. This type of content helps sell in a more discreet fashion, which your customers may find less exhausting.

Think about what your customers might be interested in; what are they curious about, what might make their lives easier? Twitter is saturated with people selling their products, so it’s wise to use tact and mix it up.

Sure, new products are great to showcase alongside customer testimonials and video demos, but be sure your audience doesn’t feel like they’re always being sold to.

Join the convo

Get in on the game and join the conversation. Twitter is not intended as a platform for monologues, it’s a space for open discussion and sharing ideas.

A great way to provoke meaningful engagement is posing questions and reaching out on Twitter. This increases your visibility and makes people take notice. Hint: pose a question or start a poll - people love answering and seeing the results!

You want people interacting with your brand on Twitter, so invite lots of comments. If people are reaching out to you on Twitter, it’s really important to engage with them! If they ask questions, get right on answering them!

Get Twitter-savvy today

Want to step up your tweet game and win more customers? Enrol in Sookio School’s Twitter basics for business course and master Twitter like a pro!