Top 6 Twitter Tips for Family Businesses in Hertfordshire

So you really want to maximise your use of Twitter for your family business based in Hertfordshire. But perhaps you’ve not done much since you set up (incidentally, did you know you can actually check out anyone’s first tweet?) Or, you know that you want to do more but are unsure how.  It can certainly feel like Twittermania out there, but help is at hand with our top tips and our Twitter training.

I’m busy. I’m tweeting.

Twitter Lists

Twitter lists enable you to organise the people you follow into groups and they can be public or private. You can also add people to your list without having to follow them.  Use Twitlistmanager to help you organise them. If you are unsure who to follow, start by looking at other accounts who use Twitter for local business in your area which will give you a good indicator as to who the main influencers are and the type of content being published.

Ashbourne Insurance, Foxholes Farm  and The Skin to Love Clinic are just some of the great accounts to follow as they’re family businesses based in Hertfordshire, have high influence, engagement or Klout scores. By the way, Klout is a great tool for measuring social impact and it’s a free application to download. It measures and assigns a number to your digital social ‘influence’ from 1 to 100 – based on the level of engagement you build through your social media channels.  The higher your Klout, the greater your influence. You’ll also need to tune into news, insights and developments so if you are already not following high Klout scorers like Family Business United then do, as well as @yohertschamber the Chief Executive of the Hertfordshire Chamber of Commerce, as they’re connected to hundreds of companies across the county. We’ve actually listed our Top 50 Hertfordshire Tweeters which may help you in deciding who to follow.

Research Tweets

Whatever your family business, whether you are B2B or B2C, you need to find people who share your interests.  Using the search bar or Twitter’s advanced search you have the ability to search every tweet sent.  This means you can reach people who may need your advice, expertise and very potentially could be a new customer. You can save your searches so that when you log in you simply select the search, click and start going through the tweets that interest you.

Content for Twitter  

‘Content is King’ and one of the best tips we can give you is to create evergreen content which never grows old or tired.  You can line up your tweets and just make minor changes, such as a new date for an event or a change of offer price.  Stockpile them so that you have them whenever required. Creating these means that you can schedule them for the next few weeks which will save you time and allow you to concentrate on using your lists and searches to actually engage with people.

If content is King then engagement is Queen.

How to maximise Twitter Engagement?  

If “Content is King then Engagement is Queen”.  A normal tweet may have an engagement of 1-5% but a tweet with an image can have an engagement rate of up to 25%. We live in a very visual society and you are more likely to draw interest to your text if you add an image.  Adding a video, link or image in fact all result in an impressive boost in the number of retweets you are likely to receive and will increase your potential reach and engagement rate. Also, make use of relevant #hashtags in your tweets as these will trend.

Timing of Tweets

Tweriod is a free Twitter tool that lets you know the best times to tweet. Establish the time most of your followers are online and it’s fairly likely you’ll increase your clicks, retweets and engagement.  You will also be tweeting at a time when your tweet will have maximum exposure. Another great time to tweet is on a Monday evening from 8-9 pm on #HertsHour. Here like-minded, Hertfordshire-based businesses tweet to share news and engage with other local businesses for support and new business opportunities. Simply tweet using the hashtag #HertsHour and join in on the conversation every Monday.

Schedule Tweets

To help you plan your time,  you can use scheduling tools like Sprout,  Buffer and Hootsuite. All of these will allow you to ‘schedule’ ahead and you will be easily able to pop in a week’s worth of tweets especially when you have a list of evergreen tweets to use.

It is not just about optimising every single tweet but about building a compelling way for your followers and Twitter users to connect with you. There are many sound business reasons for using Twitter. You can drive a lot of traffic to your website, gain valuable new business as well as engaging with people in a fun, friendly manner.  You will need to monitor, analyse and optimise your activities on an ongoing basis to ensure you are reaping the rewards of your investment in using Twitter for your family business. #Tweetup and good luck.

If this sounds interesting and you’d like to know more , then we would love to see how we can get social with you, talk to us on 01992 582 824.