It’s great to see new businesses and organizations join Twitter! I’ve had the pleasure of sitting down with a few of them and share tips on how to use Twitter.
Here’s a few I think are helpful:
Keep in mind you only have 140 characters. Why is this important? There’s a good chance that every now and then you’re going to want one of your tweets to be retweeted. When retweeted, the tweet also consists of RT @username. Try to save 15 or so characters when tweeting.
Hashtags. Hashtags are used to organize and spread information on Twitter. Use them. For example, let’s say you’re a restaurant in Lawrence, KS that’s running a Kansas basketball gameday special. When tweeting this promotion it would be good to use a popular Kansas basketball hashtag like #kubball and #lawrence.
Let them know there is a real person in there somewhere. Too many businesses only use the service as a feed for their discounts, coupons, promotions, etc. When a user sees a constant stream of links to follow for more information they feel that they’re interacting with a robot. Interact, comment, reply, let people know that you’re a human being and they’ll be more likely to want to interact with you rather than just read your tweets.
Stay connected. Set up texting under your Twitter settings or add a Twitter application to your phone. Try to respond to @replies in a timely manner. Also, there are other things to use to monitor and Tweet besides having to go to Twitter.com. Look into using something Seesmic or Tweetdeck.
Photo credit Abigail Silvester
Jacinta and Jesse are web marketers with expertise in social media and building brand equity. 
