“Too many tweets make a twat” - David Cameron
Twitter is a microblogging service through which users can chat to any other user with short, SMS
style messages
Twitter is probably the most social of the social networks. You are not limited to friends or connections; you can tweet to anyone. And good etiquette - helping others out and thanking those that help you - is the very foundation of Twitter.
It is little surprise, therefore, that as a couple of social halfwits, we’re bloody hopeless at it!
Oh it isn’t through lack of trying, but social media is as much about finding the right platform for your personality as it is about finding the right platform for your business, and in the real world we’re that awkward bastard that walks into a networking event, heads straight for the food table and then stands in the corner staring at his blackberry pretending to send emails. So we keep up appearances (a bit) and have impressive looking backgrounds, but between you and me, we’re a waste of Twitter space.
HOWEVER, “do as I say not as I do” as the saying goes. Twitter, honestly, is brilliant. We know more businesses, particularly SME’s, that successfully drive business through Twitter than ANY other social media platform, and if you have even an ounce of social ability, then you can too!
For
Those that enjoy a good virtual chinwag with anyone and everyone
Benefits

• Develop new relationships
  
• Increase traffic to the website
  
• Gain brand exposure amongst your target audience (Twitter is the second most populated social network after Facebook)
  

Twitter Tip Top Tips
Okay, following my intro we’re probably the last people you feel you should be taking Twitter advice from, but we do understand this stuff and work with loads of people who live their lives (both personal and professional) through Twitter. Here are a few of the things that they do to make the most of it:

• Keep it personal – people want to connect with real people with real faces, so unless you’re a charity or popular brand with an extremely loyal following then personalise your Twitter and deal with people authentically.
  
• Branding – I’m doing a very slight U-turn here. Do keep it personal but ultimately this is about you representing your business, so brand your background (including your other contact and social media details/icons) and make sure it looks professional.
  
• Create a targeted following – have a strategy. Who is your target audience within Twitter and are they following you? If they are then are you making an effort to forge a relationship with them?
  
• Metrics – Use bit.ly.com to measure the number of times links on your tweets are clicked. You also need a basic system for recording those relationships that started/developed on Twitter and went on to lead to cold, hard cash. Even a simple Excel spreadsheet will do it. Your time is a cost and you need some way of tracking the return.
  
• Don’t miss a day – in the early stages it’s all about building momentum. Don’t slack.
  

• Third party applications - Experiment with Tweetdeck and other apps. Believe me, they will make your Twitter life soooo much easier. For example, I have around 1000 followers (god knows how) and I’m following about the same. There is absolutely no way I can listen to all that noise, but by using Tweetdeck I can check it once a day and immediately see what my “primary tweeters” (in other words those people I actually know and care about) have been tweeting.
  
• Tweet on the move! – All smart phones have great applications now that make social media management more efficient than ever. Download a Twitter app and, as much as possible, try to restrict your tweeting to those occasions where you’ve nothing else to be getting on with.
  
• Combine with your blog – the next time you find yourself about to send out a tweet with a link to an interesting article somewhere on the web, stop! For the 10 minutes it would take you to write a 100 word summary of the topic with your spin on things, wouldn’t you rather your website got the traffic instead?
  

Twitter Action

Twitter has the potential to benefit just about any business. It really just boils down to personality. So give it a go for a month (without missing a day!) and if you don’t enjoy it then you never will, so stop. You’re time will be better spent elsewhere.