Twitter is a social media platform that is growing in popularity, with over 300 million users ‘tweeting’ on a regular basis. Our customers often ask me about Twitter, and with this series of blog posts I hope to explain how you can use this social networking tool to your advantage.

Firstly, you need to get familiar with Twitter and understand the way it functions. Twitter is known as a ‘micro-blogging’ website because users post updates, known as ‘tweets’ in 140 characters or less. This doesn’t give you much room to get across what you need to say – so you need to be savvy with the Twitter techniques that you will find below…

You type your tweets in this box.

*Top Twitter Tip – If you use Facebook for personal use, it’s helpful to think of Twitter as being similar to the Facebook newsfeed, with a tweet being comparable to a Facebook status update. Your followers on Twitter can be compared to your friends on Facebook.

• # – this symbol is called a hashtag and converts text into a link.

e.g ‘eSterling provide web design and SEO services in #Birmingham’

Twitter users can then click on #Birminghamto see other tweets related to this topic.

• @ – use this symbol to reply to another user, or mention them in your tweet.

e.g ‘@eSterlingGroup Thanks for helping me with my website today.’

or ‘Just ordered my new website from @eSterlingGroup – can’t wait to see the results.’

The user you mention will be notified of your tweet.

• Re-tweet – forward another user’s tweet to your own followers. You can do this by hovering over the tweet and the selecting ‘re-tweet’. This will then appear in your followers’ timeline.

• Links – use your tweets to link to your products and services, which is the ultimate goal for using Twitter for business.

e.g ‘Take a look at our blog post about web design and SEO: https://blog.esterling.co.uk/2011/11/15/web-design-and-seo-go-hand-in-hand/’

Twitter will automatically shorten any links you include in your tweets.

Once you’ve mastered these basics, you will be able to construct tweets that your followers will find interesting and helpful. And this will in turn gain you followers and spread the word about your business. In the next Twitter blog post, I will be discussing how to gain followers and keep them – so don’t forget to check the eSterling blog next week to find out more.