Twitter: 10 Tips To Help Build Your Brand

As radio professionals we know all about how to jam a lot of information into a little space, that is one
of the reasons Twitter is perfect for people in media.

We can draw attention with a hook or a powerful phrase to something we want to talk about with more depth.

Here are some tips at managing your Twitter account and making the most out of this social media resource for your business:

1. Craft a Twitter handle that is easy to remember and represents you well. Twitter handles are like contemporary phone numbers, if its hard to remember you will be less likely to get direct tweets. I was lucky, I joined Twitter in the early days and got my name. Try to find something that identifies your business or is quirky enough that people will remember it. Nobody wants to be @JohnSmith34082!  @AnotherJohnSmith or @ThatJohnSmith work much better!

2. Interact as much as you contribute. What I mean by this is essentially, listen as much as you talk. Respond, retweet and discuss topics you see others posting about as much as you post yourself. Twitter is one big conversation and no one wants to listen to one person talk all day! Your Twitter account represents your brand to people you will never meet, make a good impression!

3. Use hashtags # and mentions. Hashtags are those funky symbols that you put in front of numbers or you call a pound sign on a telephone. On twitter they help you contribute to the global conversation about a topic. If you put #gross you are added to the discussion about everything that is #gross people post about. That is very general, you can also be very specific. For example, when I was tweeting from the 'Coke Covert Concert' in Calgary I used #CokeCovert and #Stampede101 instead of something general like #music or #concert. That narrowed my tweets down to a very specific topic, rather than a general one. It also connected me with everyone who was also talking about the exact stame event! This probably the easiest way to gain followers, if you are using hashtags to discuss something relevant like a sporting event or news your bound to attract attention and get followers!

Mentions happen when you use the '@' symbol to forward a message along to them. Be wary though, some users may not accept mentions from people they do not follow. In my tweet below I mention '@Dragonette' and '@DOWNWITHWEBSTER'. Often you will get a response or a retweet if you mention someone with a compliment or something witty/relevant to say!

Mentions use the '@' symbol. Hashtags use the '#' symbol. 

This is my very own personal Twitter
feed cover, I never follow twice the
amount of people that follow me. 

4. Limit the number of people you are following on Twitter to half of the number of people following you. Try not to extend your following arm too far, only follow people who you genuinely want to connect with. Or, follow back viable accounts and try to 'clean up' who you are following once a month. If their content is not doing anything for you, why follow them? Nothing is more annoying than a news feed full of crap you don't care about, it may be the case that you are more valuable to them than they are to you!



5. Track your progress. I know this is repetitive from my other blogs, but it is important to look at how many followers you have on a regular basis and evaluate how many people respond to your tweets.

Some people like to divide the number of followers they have by the tweets they send to give a rate called 'follows per tweet'. I am not a huge fan of this equation, but I think it is an interesting stat to keep in mind as well.  I think this equation is more important for brands and businesses rather than personal accounts.

Here are some questions to keep in mind when evaluating your Twitter progress:
-Which tweets are my best tweets? This can be judged by re-tweets, favourite-ing and responses.
-Am I responding to the tweets being sent to me in a timely fashion?
-What am I considered an 'expert' in? Am I tweeting enough about things pertaining to my field? These tweets will usually be the ones to help you gain followers. If you are tweeting about something you want to be considered an expert in you should be getting follows, re-tweets, favourites and responses regularly.

A few stats on my not so popular
source list.

6. Make Twitter lists. When I was working in a newsroom that did not have access to a wire service this was a huge time saver. All of the most important sources for news on Twitter, for my region, were separated for easy access and it saved me a lot of time. I still searched important terms using hashtags, just to see what I could find on a regular basis. This was my #1 source for news that wasn't being directed to me specifically from a source through e-mail.

My very own news feed from my listed sources. As you can see they all are keeping me up to date with what is going on in Nova Scotia news.

You can do this for other reasons as well, I like using it for sports and entertainment news as well. It can really cut down show prep time or help you out if your in a pinch and need something for a quick cut-in.

7. Update your biography and imagery regularly. Keep your profile fresh and relevant to your business. Can't think of new backgrounds or photos for your profile? Make them! Go with a seasonal theme or a promotion/contest you are running. If you have a personal account update it to reflect your current goals or objectives.

8. Be a useful source for information to your followers. This goes for any social media platform, it is easy and can gain you followers from outside your market, industry or client base. For a radio station a great idea for this is updating weather or traffic at a strategic time everyday, for example before the average person gets in the car in the morning or before they leave their desk to head home.

9. Tweet live from events. #7 is a pretty bland (but important) example of content your followers may
love. What I love is updating from live events... make people want to be where you are. Concerts for example could have a tweet like this "@CCKC889's @KateBruce is live at the #FleetwoodMac concert, they are opening with Second Hand News. The Dome is electric tonight!".

Pretty easy right! You pulled off your contest for tickets and now you are baiting people to your next event. You can always use it to execute a contest too for example, "Find @KateBruce downtown #Halifax near a famous tugboat and see may have 2 #NSTattoo tickets 4 U!". Vary your content, but execute your regular features with precision.

An example of a 'live' tweet from my personal account. 

10. Do not cross post between social media platforms. Above is an example that works both for #9 and point #10 as well. When you use other platforms to Tweet is can change the intent of your message. A lot of people will disagree with this point, but I really don't like linking people to other sites where they may not be a member. People on Twitter are there for information in 140 characters or less, if they want an article they will follow a link, that is fine. My beef is sending people to outside sources like FB for a post that doesn't fit in 140 characters.

Sometimes when you uses programs to post to both your Facebook and Twitter at the same time your Twitter messages get cut to allow more link characters... or you disregard the 140 character rule all together. Don't be that guy, take the time to follow the Twitter format and then link out (if you must).

The same can be said for Instagram (as per my example photo above). You photo is not actually a Twitter photo when you tweet through Instagram, it sends a tweet with the link (as pictured). The photo then does not stay in your Twitter media, it is treated as a link. In other words, this feature is great for Instagram but not for Twitter.