{"id":1348,"date":"2013-11-07t22:09:08","date_gmt":"2013-11-07t22:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/?p=1348"},"modified":"2013-11-07t22:09:08","modified_gmt":"2013-11-07t22:09:08","slug":"pro-tip-how-to-manage-your-business-twitter-for-beginners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.catharsisit.com\/blog\/pro-tip-how-to-manage-your-business-twitter-for-beginners\/","title":{"rendered":"pro-tip: how to manage your business twitter, for beginners"},"content":{"rendered":"
i can\u2019t say that this statement was always true, but after spending a lot of time on the site, i can proudly say that i love twitter. here at magoosh, we use twitter to connect with students and partners, and to show the world what we\u2019re all about.<\/p>\n
if your business isn\u2019t on twitter these days, you\u2019re missing out. there are roughly 231 million monthly active users<\/a>\u00a0on the site\u00a0and 33% of those users follow a brand<\/a>.\u00a0what does that mean? your customers (and potential customers!) are likely already using twitter, and just waiting for you to show up.<\/p>\n step 1: follow industry leaders and customers…and things you like!<\/strong><\/p>\n sounds pretty obvious, right? in order to engage with the right people on twitter, you\u2019re going to need to build up your \u2018following\u2019 and not just your \u2018follower\u2019 count. there are 3 categories of users you should follow on twitter:<\/p>\n 1. industry leaders<\/em>: these are the \u2018big shots\u2019 in your space. as an education company, we follow users like @ucberkeley, @berkstartups, @khanacademy, @udemy, etc. these people will help keep you \u2018in the know,\u2019 and provide you with interesting info to retweet to your followers (easy content!). pro-tip: you can also follow the people who follow thought leaders, since these people are more like your peers (ie, you\u2019ll be able to more easily engage with them and put yourself on the map!).<\/p>\n 2. your current and potential customers<\/em>: this is a no-brainer. seek out those who are interested in what you\u2019ve got. you can do this by searching relevant hashtags (for us, an example is #gre) and following those who are tweeting about this hashtag. more to come on this later.<\/p>\n 3. things you (as a company) are interested in<\/em>: this is what gives your company personality! for example, we love playing bananagrams, and so we show that love to the world:<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n step 2: make tweeting easy.<\/strong><\/p>\n tweeting does not have to take a lot of time, trust me! here\u2019s how to spend only about 20 minutes (or less) on twitter a day:<\/p>\n 1. i\u2019m guessing (and hoping!) that you are already on top of the news for your particular industry. great! this makes it easy to find cool stuff to tweet. if you\u2019re not, here are some other places to find tweet-able content:<\/p>\n 2. automate, automate, automate. i like to schedule out tweets a month in advance. two great tools for doing so: buffer<\/a> and hootsuite<\/a>.<\/p>\n step 3: direct existing customers to twitter<\/strong><\/p>\n considering how many people use twitter, a lot of your customers might already be active there. the easiest way to build up your follower count in the beginning is to lead your current customers, en masse, to your twitter account. this, too, is easy to do. here\u2019s what we\u2019ve done to spread awareness within our user base:<\/p>\n cross promote on other social media channels (ie, facebook) – let your fans know you\u2019re on twitter<\/p>\n<\/li>\n write a blog post about it<\/p>\n<\/li>\n include your handle as a ps in your email campaigns (ps. love magoosh? follow us on twitter!).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n for that matter, send an entire email that lets people know about your twitter. we send an email to users who use twitter (and find this out via our messaging system intercom- link), since they will be more likely to follow.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p>\n step 4: engage new customers<\/strong><\/p>\n now that you have tweets and followers, it\u2019s time to find potential new customers. our favorite way to do this? read on.<\/p>\n search relevant hashtags and engage with those people.\u00a0for example, when i search #gre, this is what i get:<\/p>\n
\nand using twitter doesn\u2019t require that much effort. really! below are some quick and easy tips to help you get started. tweet on!<\/p>\n\n
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