How to: Not look like a Twit.

Now, I won’t patronise you all by suggesting that you don’t know much about social media.  I mean, the truth is – you would have had to be living under a rock/Mildura for the past couple of years to not know about it.  But using it for the sake of using it, and making the best of it – are two entirely different things.  Let’s start with Twitter.

Twitter is probably most recognisable for its use of ‘the #’.  In 2006, Twitter finally managed to find a use for that curious looking symbol that was previously little more than a key that got in the way of our attempts to hit enter.  It is now such a phenomenon that it is not uncommon to hear it vocalised by the Twittaddicted - during moments of absolute ecstasy ‘OMG that party was HASHTAG-totes-amazing.’  (NB only people below the age of 15 and the Geordie Shore cast can get away with this). 

So Twitter contributes to the Social Media channels – but don’t let the ‘social’ part fool you – they are also super relevant for business too.  When I asked Nicola Groag, founder of www.lacoquette.com, whether Twitter is just a hobby she responded: ‘Twitter is a vitality important tool for small business, it’s free (most importantly) and it enables you to reach a huge audience that you wouldn’t be able to reach through many traditional forms of advertising.’

Companies and brands now use Twitter as a way to actively engage with their audience.  It is great for updating your followers with company and industry news, and also to provide faithful followers with latest promotions and offers.  Many consumers now go to Twitter with their customer queries rather than the website/phone line as it is often a quicker way of getting a response.  It is also a great way to promote brand recognition, by sticking in the minds of potential and existing customers. 

Try to tweet often, but tweet interesting.  Similarly to Facebook, we do not want to know how many calories you burnt at the gym last night. 

Twitticionary

# - used before a word of phrase to make it easy to search for tweets that have a common topic.  For example, if you wanted to tweet about my blog (hint, hint) you could tweet ‘I love @AlexShea0’s blog #talesofadigitalnewbie.’  And so anyone who would search #talesofadigitalnewbie would see a list of people who had tweeted with that hashtag. 

Tweet – a message that you send on Twitter.

Handle - basically your user name, always with the prefix of @.  Mine, for example, is @AlexShea0.  People can then mention you in Tweets via this. 

Followers - You can follow people, and you can also be followed.  It is basically a subscription button so you only see tweets from people you are following in your feed. 

Nicola Groag, founder of www.lacoquette.com, will be speaking at the Digital Marketing Show in November.  You can glean some more wisdom from Nicola in our video interview with her here.