3 steps to launch your company Twitter account

Twitter is an easy way for your company to keep up with what’s happening in your industry and around the world, and it’s a great way for your company to connect with clients and organizations in your industry.

Here are just a few of the benefits for companies using Twitter:

  • Reach new clients
  • Build relationships with existing clients
  • Collaborate with colleagues
  • Create awareness of your products or services
  • Learn about trends in your industry
  • Keep track of your competition
  • Drive traffic to your website
  • Find new employees

Three steps to Twitter success

Launching your company in the Twittersphere takes about a month and can be broken down into three basic steps: Setup, Follow, and Connect.

Weeks one and two: Setup

  • On day one, set up your page with your company logo, background or color scheme, and header image. Complete all the information in your “bio” section.
  • If you don’t already use Twitter, spend more time listening than tweeting, getting a feel for the types of information people share on Twitter. Work with someone who is familiar with Twitter to plan which messages your company is going to post in the first couple of weeks. Learn about using Twitter hashtags and plan which hashtags (if any) your company will target on your company profile.
  • Post tweets with interesting content every day for the first two weeks. Spread about 20 tweets of different types (good articles, news about events in your industry, a bit of company news) over the two weeks so at the end of the time period, you have a full page of tweets showing on your profile, and showing they weren’t all posted on the same day. This is so that when you start following people or commenting on the posts of others and they view your profile, they will have a sense of the types of posts you’ll be sharing and decide whether they want to follow you or not.
  • Your tweets can be about subjects that interest your peers, your customers, or others in the same industry. Try to share information that you find on websites that feature your industry or subjects of interest to your customers. Share some news from your company so that other companies or people with similar interests can connect with you. See Promote your business using social media for some ideas on what to post.

Week three: Follow

  • After your Twitter profile has that first page of content, someone will need to work in Twitter on a daily basis to build your network, post new content, and respond to content from others in your network.
  • Find and follow influential people in your industry, complementary organizations, competitors, and groups where your customers are involved. See who others follow and follow those people if they seem interesting. Remember, don’t start following people as soon as you sign up for Twitter because you want that two weeks of content to show up when they view your profile to help them decide whether to follow you back.
  • When someone follows your company Twitter account, visit their profile and check out their content. Follow back colleagues, competitors, current and potential clients, thought leaders in your industry, industry news sites, etc. Your goal should be to create a group of people and organizations that would be interested in what your company posts and that post content that would be beneficial for your company to read.
  • If someone sends you a message, reply as soon as possible. Learn how to retweet interesting posts. Comment on interesting tweets you read.
  • Find the conversations going on on Twitter, hook into Twitter communities that already exist, or create your company’s own new communities. And get your company involved in the conversation whenever and wherever you can. Follow keywords, brands, companies, people, and #hashtags on Twitter, and catch @mentions of your company Twitter accounts. Read how to set up an RSS feed to monitor what’s happening on Twitter that’s of interest to your company at Monitoring your online presence for free.

Week four and beyond: Connect

  • Every day: Keep up with what’s happening in your industry or marketplace. Share the most interesting web articles about your industry or clients. When you read a tweet that interests you, comment on it, or share something more, to engage in online Twitter conversations. When someone asks a question and you know the answer, feel free to reply to them. The more you help others, the more people will be interested in following your company on Twitter.
  • Every week: Spend a few hours participating in conversations with people in your networks. Share news, answer questions, comment on posts by others. Answering questions on topics you know about demonstrates your expertise. Tell people about upcoming events in your industry or area.
  • As needed: Post news about your company. Tweet about something new on your company website, in your blog, or news at your company. Be sure to limit sales or promotional messages about your company or products to less than 10% of your tweets. No one wants to follow an infomercial.

Keeping it consistent:

If there will be someone tweeting regularly, or if you will have several people tweeting for your company, you need a well-developed strategy that will guide your company in the best uses of Twitter, plus internal processes that make it easy for employees to learn from one another, collaborate, and keep the messaging on track. Be proactive and get involved and create standard processes for using Twitter.

The key is to provide information on your Twitter profile that is helpful and interesting to others, connect with companies and individuals who help you gain insights in your industry, build stronger relationships with current clients, and attract new clients.