In my last twitter post I talked about how companies should set goals for Twitter before they start tweeting and how you company’s Twitter strategy should directly relate to your company’s goals. I just listened the webcast, “How to Use Twitter for Business” hosted by Hubspot and I thought I would share with you my notes from the webcast. ENJOY!

Build profile

• Put in a bio in your profile to gain more followers, optimize bio
• Identify as a professional, expert in your industry if applicable
• Make sure to include a website

Build your Network(how do you get followers)

• Go through your email contacts
• Twitter Grader – list of top users
• Follow the people your followers are following
• Follow the people who are following you
• If you don’t follow anyone you look like you are not open for communication
• Ex. @BarackObama is following all of his followers and more, while @hillaryclinton doesn’t follow anyone! Who looks like they are more open for a conversation?
• Use search.twitter.com

How to Twitter

• Use the favorites tab to star the tweets praising your brand/company, so if people go to look at your favorites, it is one giant ad
• Twitter events using hashtags, so people can follow along
• Avg tweets/day = 22 (Don’t be concerned with the numbers but more the content of those tweets)
• URL shortening

ReTweeting

• Important to get retweets for: followers, buzz, traffic
• ReTweet=Link Sharing
• Popular retweet words: you, twitter, blog, please, retweet, free
• Offer Values: how tos, news, warning, freebies, contests
• If you ask for retweets you will get a better chance of actually getting one
• Between the hours of 11am-5pm you are more likely to get your tweets retweeted
• The likelihood of a tweet being ReTweeted increases dramatically each time it is ReTweeted

Metrics for Evaluating Twitter

• Number of followers
• Twitter Grader – Inputs include followers AND follower influence
• @replays – how many people are talking about you/your company
• Hubspot has software that tracks your targeted keywords mentioned in Twitter (for free trial go to here)
• URL shortening, tracking the number of people clicking on the links
• Track hashtags (hashtags.org)
• Track leads/sales you get from Twitter

If you want to listen to the webcast yourself, check it out!