500 million – that’s the number of users Twitter boasts of on this date. Like most of social media, Twitter comes free of cost (there is an option to pay though) and not using it as a business tool would be missing too big an opportunity. Whilst owners of large businesses have got a hang of Twitter as a marketing tool, many small businesses are still trying to catch up rather than keep up.

So what do you need to dig out maximum benefits from Twitter:

Start Trending: Twitter hashtags are a way of spreading the word. They get your business in the loop, by not just creating news, but also by bringing out the opinions of the commoners with regard to your business

Listen to the Feedback: You would find a lot of Twitter users giving their opinions about a certain product. Feedback must serve as an eye opener. Having said that, it won’t be recommended that you accept every criticism coming your way (as most customers have tendency to take out their rants at the slightest sign of trouble).

Conversations: You can take it a step further by getting involved in 2 way conversations. Hire someone who can directly take the user queries/complains and responds to them promptly.

 It’s all Real-time: There is no better way of making your offering go viral than Twitter. Everything happens there and then. You launch a product, you tweet about it, and they will know about it. With platforms like Twitter, there is not even a nanosecond of a gap between the time of initiation and the time of going viral.

Avoid Aggressive Marketing: Now that you have garnered a fair number of followers, don’t post tweets regarding your promotions and offers only. Aggressive Twitter marketing will not bring more followers to your Twitter account, which would be lost in social media universe. Users don’t need too many reasons to hit the ‘Unfollow’ button and you are giving them one. Post tweets that have some sort of connection with your offerings but at the same time are interesting and worth retweeting.

With Twitter, it is even possible to get your small scale business boom like a giant. As an active social media platform, the bird-like marketer carries messages from where they start to those who relate with them, in less than 140 characters – Perfect retention and attention tactics. Beat that!

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The fact that Twitter empowers you to build a huge audience base and serves as a boon to your business is no news. But do you realize that tweeting a more too often can make you a better writer? Well, credit the 140 characters limit for the effect:

Get to the Point Faster, Shorter

A tweet forces you to be brief. It requires you to get your message across in the simplest of language. Whilst you may be the guy who searches for long and flowery adjectives while writing, Twitter does not give you room for that. And before you know it, you are conveying a message or an idea without using too many layers. You begin realizing that you don’t have to be descriptive while describing something in the most explainable manner. You can directly get to the point, without a prologue and still garner readership. The Twitterverse has redefined penmanship.

Exercise Your Vocabulary, without being Extravagant

Since 140 characters are all you can write, you need to shrug yourself off the rich words that force readers to scramble for dictionary. On Twitter, you readers won’t do that. They would just rotate the mouse wheel to scroll to the next Tweet and there goes your chance to gain new readers. So while you start getting accustomed to writing simple, adequately descriptive and yet a mix of words in your tweet, it shows on your blog/article site. You get better at using verbs as well.

What to Leave Out

When you are writing a blog piece, you are eyeing, let’s say, 400 words. There is a lot of redundant information that is included with or without intentions. Inevitably, while drafting long write-ups, you sometimes lose the sight of what your readers might be interested in reading. On Twitter, you have to write the action-oriented words that have the best possible chance of drawing response from the readers. Just get the message across. Writing ‘about’ that message can be done on some other platform, on some other day.

Linear Writing

Blogs and articles give you the freedom of being all over the place. You start writing on a topic, meander off it and then come back. Whilst this might interest a segment of readers would like your article to be not one dimensional,  there are those with a lesser attention span who would only jump the paragraphs. Blogs make you ponder over words and sentences – at times disproportionately, but a Tweet lets to eliminate the redundant thought process and impede your though right then and there, without spending dime of an extra second.

You might argue that Twitter is an oddball platform for improving your writing style,  but as an under-literary way of writing, Tweets can help you curb the on-line blabbering and write with more focus.
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Little did you know that a tweet of yours on your account could dictate what you watch on TV. At least that is what’s happening in Australia and may be followed suit by the makers in other countries as well.

The most obvious alibi for the move is that makers not only understand the value of audience’s feedback, but also realize the power of social media and how it has replaced the mouth-to-mouth publicity with great aplomb. By the virtue of the increasing reach of the social networks, any negative feedback on a show’s page about the show is read by millions countrywide, which might also dissuade new viewers from watching it. More than anything else, the makers of the show can build a whole feedback graph covering extensively what viewers like and what they don’t like.

One of the shows which saw a huge makeover after carefully assessing the conversations happening on social media was Bondi Rescue that airs on Channel 10 in Australia. The show had a documentary-style feel to it owing to its voice over which wasn’t garnering them positive responses from the viewers. Makers also realized that the storyline of the show wasn’t impressive enough so they revamped their show by doing away with voiceovers and completely changing the storyline.

The critics and the general viewers have found a great platform on social media for voicing their opinions – mostly grievances – with the shows. The producers have assigned dedicated teams to assess the social media discussions about their reality shows or dramas and gauge if they are hitting the right notes with the viewers.

“I found when I was monitoring social media people were really frustrated by it, so in the second season we were quite keen to present a different kind of relationship where they got together and it was about what happens after,” he said.

The feedback from social media helps more explicitly when a show is being aired season-wise. Social media monitors can scan the Facebook and Twitter for comments on the shows’ official pages or other user-created pages and write scripts according to what ‘consensus’ they receive. The producers can also get the audience involved by asking specific questions about characters or episodes and gauging their replies.

Though social media can’t wager that viewers will have a good time watching a re-written show, but it can sure communicate the opinions to the makers in real-time.

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Microblogging site, social networking platform or an IM – call it what you please – Twitter is the rage of the day, week and era! So, if you love to interact with people and stay connected, and then increase your followers by following some writing tricks for Twitter.

1. For Retweets, Tweet with Minimum Characters: There are many tweets which followers love to retweet; therefore you must leave room for retweeters to exercise, as they may want to add a point of their own.

2. Come in the Limelight by Using the Right Keywords: The use of keywords in your tweets is very essential for search purposes, as people track conversations based on keywords. For instance, if you are having a conversation on time management, then use the word ‘Time Management’ instead of time mgmt or efficiency.

3. Avoid the Use of Abbreviations: People don’t wish to spend several seconds deciphering your tweet. Therefore, avoid short forms and keep your message clear.

4. Tweet Regularly: You can also grab a lot of attention by posting your tweets on a regular basis, as no one is going to follow you if you haven’t tweeted in a long time. Try to tweet at least a few times in a week or maybe on a daily basis.

5. Followers: By posting something exciting, people will automatically start following you. Generate meaningful, interesting and unique content so that you can organically increase your followers.

The experience of using Twitter is considered as a skill through which people get a chance to share their thoughts and views and also promote their business. It is not just communication but a channel of conversations.

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The world now mobilises with the help of Twitter. The “SMS of the Internet” has pervaded into the life of more than 500 million users worldwide. Naturally, Twitter is eyed as a one of the most lucrative platforms by marketers and advertisers.  However, marketing on twitter requires a little slant in your approach.

1.    Trigger Grapevine: Twitter is purely people-to-people communication. Marketing strategy should focus on engaging people and initiating them to talk about your brand. Rather than disseminating promotional messages, give people something to talk about.

2.    Go Personal: On Twitter you cannot adopt your run-of-the-mill mass communication approach. When using social media for marketing, it always pays to target people individually. Twitter is about real people and adding a personal touch to your tweets helps to actually connect with people.

3.    Reason to Follow: This goes without saying that sans followers all marketing strategies would amount to nothing on Twitter. Listen to people, talk to them and help them out. Unless you offer some value in your tweets, people would not have a reason to follow you.

4.    The Syntax: On Twitter, you have to follow a specific syntax to be heard. Twitter is about being crisp and to the point sans the fanfare. Your hash tags also play a critical role in making your tweets more prominent to your relevant demographics. It also helps to maintain a syntax that can be re-tweeted easily along with comments.

In the realm of Internet marketing, Twitter is a unique platform which is exceedingly nifty and instant.  The most apt use of twitter is not as just another channel of communication but as a catalyst of conversation.

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