Small Business Blog

9 Steps to Twitter Success – Simple Twitter Process for Small Business

Wouldn't it be easier to cut the clutter and follow a simple process designed for small and medium businesses to get twitter success? For small business owners and managing directors of SMEs, Twitter and the world of social media can seem like a foreign language. I've been monitoring this area for some time however, I only recently started to actively pursue a Twitter Strategy, the main excuse I was hanging on to ... "I don't want to invest the time until I can be sure I can invest the time consistently for a sustained period".

I got over that one, and so can you. Like many things in business, you need to ask questions on ROI. If a project or strategy in your business passes the ROI test, then off you go. Twitter has now passed my own ROI test, if it passes yours, go for it.

So, I've now started and I thought I'd share my simple Twitter Process, specifically designed for small and medium businesses to get the outcome they want.

Twitter Process

1. SETUP TWITTER:
   Setup twitter account. http://twitter.com
   
   
2. ENHANCE TWITTER PROFILE:
   Complete and enhance your Twitter Profile, with this question in mind... What are my ultimate online business goals? e.g. 1) increase visitors to xyz website landing page, 2) increase landing conversion rate to generate leads. example @jamesMcooper (this is me, follow me, shameless plug!)
   
   
3. MANAGE TWITTER:
   Setup TweetDeck App - http://www.tweetdeck.com . Add multiple twitter accounts (business + personal), linkedin profile, facebook account, facebook business account, etc. The more you use twitter the greater the value and understanding of what the different columns in tweetdeck can provide you. In short, it should help you manage your online marketing systems in relation to social media accounts.
   
   
4. TIME FOR TWITTER:
   Set aside a daily Time period or block for twitter and/or social media development. i.e 20mins a day at 5:40pm. Whatever works for you. Some might be doing it all day, others are busy with customers doing whatever it is you and your business does. Remember to receive an output you must invest an input. If you can't or don't want to invest the time, outsource your internet marketing strategy .
   
   
5. TWITTER GOAL 1 - QUANTITY:
   Start following relevant industry influencers - find in http://wefollow.com and http://search.twitter.com and http://twitter.grader.com/search . Search under tags or terms that are relevant to you and your business, then start following the influencers. What about the followers of the influencers? What about who the influencers are following? You get the idea. You'll find people will soon start following you. It's basically, 'You follow me, I'll follow you' ... but keep it relevant. Follow the twitter/entrepreneur/blogger/social media experts too, you'll learn faster this way. e.g. @chrisbrogan , @GuyWawasaki etc. (PS this is an ongoing step).
   
   
6. TWITTER GOAL 2 - QUALITY:
   With some quantity achieved then use http://friendorfollow.com to unfollow those that don't follow you and have no relevance to you, or in general clean your list from spammers. Quality and relevance is important! (ps this is an ongoing step).
   
   
7. TWITTER GOAL 3 - ENGAGEMENT:
   Then, there is no point being connected to people unless you communicate and have a relationship with them. Give love/value to receive love/value. Start with RTs of valuable content, and @ messages, replies to DMs, search and interact with those that mention you, etc. If you don't know what these terms are just yet, you'll get the idea once you reach this stage.
   
   
8. TWITTER GOAL 4 - INFLUENCE:
   And ultimately, if you're a good citizen and have played nice it's likely you'll develop a level of influence with your followers, and this is how you can ultimately get value from twitter... by others having trust and interest in you, what you say and your recommendations.
   
   
9. INCREASE TWITTER ROI:
   Getting higher ROI and ROE - Test and try the tools/apps at http://oneforty.com to improve your return on investment and return on effort... make life easier for yourself by systematising. Use tools to improve management and get more valuable information by reviewing analytics. Although, be mindful you don't remove the human element that gets you meaningful engagement, as meaningful engagement directly relates to your level of influence. Through out this 9 step process I have assumed you'll already have good analytics (website stats) systems for your website / blog / conversion pages. If you don't, setup google analytics for free or invest in internet marketing software like hubspot. This way you can see the ROI directly related to visitors from each source (in this case we are interested in twitter), and the number of leads from twitter, and ultimately the number and value of clients/sales.

Action Points

At the very least protect your business name / Trade Marks and person name (if possible) by setting up a business twitter account and personal twitter account. Then if you decide you can commit to ‘TIME FOR TWITTER' then follow the process, and let me know how you go! If this all just seems too hard, then you can always get some to "do it for me".