Once you’ve got yourself set up on twitter, and you’re following some people and hopefully some are following you, the next challenge is to come up with interesting stuff to tweet about. So how do you do that?
Ways to come up with content
Install a tool such as Hootsuite that installs a button on your web browser, enabling you to easily tweet when you land on an interesting web page. Often, when we browse the web looking for information about something, we find useful or entertaining articles. If you think your twitter audience would like them, tweet them with a little introduction.
Create themes – you could have several broad themes you tweet about that relate to your business, and either mix them up each month, or dedicate a week or a month to each theme.
For example if you run an image consultancy your themes could be:
- Autumn/winter outfits
- Spring/summer outfits
- Favourite shops and online stores
- Make up and accessories
- Special occasion outfits
If you’re a painter and decorator your themes could be:
- Paint (styles, suitability for purpose/colours/how to)
- Wallpaper (styles, suitability for purpose/colours/how to)
- Interiors (inspiration, tips and ideas)
- Exteriors (inspiration, tips and ideas)
Don’t forget to retweet others’ posts too. If you see something relevant to your audience, retweet it as this shows that a) you’ve seen it and are interested in it and b) you are providing something different for your followers.
Strike up conversations with others – it not only engages them, but also shows the rest of your followers that you are interested in others.
Schedule some tweets in advance. To have all your tweets pre-scheduled defeats the object of twitter. It’s not supposed to be a broadcast medium, it’s intended to be a 2-way conversation. But pre-scheduling means that you can always have something up-to-date. There are various tools such as Hootsuite.com, twuffer.com or futuretweets.com
Different styles of tweets
Whatever you do, don’t just send out links to your website or your own articles. Mix it up. Try these different styles, and if there’s room for a *hashtag # then add a relevant one:
- A piece of advice, delivered in 140 characters
- An inspirational quote or saying
- A picture, preferably with a caption but if it’s self-explanatory, there’s no need
- Ask a question
- Make a statement or an observation
- Reply to someone else’s tweet – start a conversation
- A link to someone else’s article that is relevant to your audience
- A link to one of your own articles
*A word about hashtags
Hashtags are a great way to pull together tweets from lots of different people about a similar subject. Before you use one, check who else is using it and what sort of tweets are displayed.