Twitter Tips for Beginners

Everyday the effectiveness of Twitter for businesses is regularly debated across the world wide web. Some say that it’s a waste of time. Others find it to be an integral part of how they communicate with customers.

We’ve been using Twitter for almost 3 months now and have seen it to be a very useful way of talking with and listening to customers. When Twitter is used correctly it can provide great value to an online brand. When it’s managed improperly it can lead to a lot of wasted time and poor returns.

This week I wanted to provide you with 3 useful tools/resources to help you get the most out of your current Twitter efforts. These aren’t groundbreaking tips for Twitter addicts but can help you avoid wasted time when you are starting out on Twitter.

Know what Tweets bring visitors
There are hundreds of url shorteners out there. All of them do exactly what they say on the tin and shorten long urls. However, Bit.ly provides you with a lot more information. Bit.ly allows users to view complete, real-time traffic and referrer data, as well as location and metadata. In short, Bit.ly lets you know how many times the links in your tweets were clicked on.
With this information to hand you can tailor the type of messages and the time of day you Tweet to bring the highest number of visitors to your website.

Find Twellow Twitters and be found by those who matter
Twellow is the “Yellow Pages” of Twitter. In its own words; “Twellow.com has been designed from the ground up to help you “cut through the clutter”. It’s free to get yourself listed on the Twellow directory and can provide a great starting point for those new to Twitter who are unsure of where to find people within their industry or those with shared interests.

Put everything on one screen
When you log into Twitter.com to access your account your public timeline will be displayed. However, if you want to see who’s sending you direct messages or @ responses you will need to open up new tabs/windows and refresh them regularly to check for new messages.
TweetDeck is one of the greatest time saving tools for Twitter users. You can download this desktop application for free here and all the Twitter information you’re interested will be automatically fed into the dashboard. Tweetdeck is especially useful to those who regularly use search.twitter.com to keep an eye on mentions of their brand or phrases related to there company.

I hope you have found this post useful. Please feel free to share other Twitter tips by leaving a comment. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter too!