Lookaly Blog - What's happening on Lookaly

Twitter has been around for more than 3 years now but only in the last few months are we seeing local businesses setup and engage with the Twitter and Northern Ireland community.

Why Tweet?

• Engage with your community
• Receive feedback
• Stay up-to-date with the latest news and trends
• Keep your followers up-to-date with what’s happening
• Form connections
• Contribute ideas and useful resources

Twitter is one of those things that you may not get at first, but once you start using it, it’s hard to stop.

So how can you use Twitter effectively?

1. Complete your profile

Make sure your profile is complete. This means filling in your name, location, description and website. Don’t leave any of these blank.

2. Add your photo

People like to see who they’re dealing with. It’s a good idea to add a photo of the person running the account, or the person behind the business. If more than one person is going to be using the account, then add your logo.

3. Provide value

You’re only going to gain followers if your tweets have value. Keep non-value tweets (e.g.”eating lunch”) to a minimum and try and help your followers by sharing links to useful, interesting or funny articles (and not just your own).

4. ReTweet other tweets

Retweeting is useful in 2 ways; you’re sharing an interesting link with your followers and you’re also paying kudos to the person that first tweeted it. Trust me, they’ll appreciate it, especially if it’s linking to their own content.

There are a couple of ways you can retweet. The most popular is:

RT @lookaly: This is a cool video http://bit.ly/xB3a

Or you can put your own spin on the tweet.

Laughed at this video http://bit.ly/xB3a (via @lookaly)

5. Engage with your followers

Actively engage with your followers. Reply to what they’re doing and see how you can help them.

Remember, it’s not just about constantly tweeting about your ‘special offers’.

6. Tweet regularly

Try to tweet at least a couple times a day, otherwise your account will become dormant and outdated, which is no use to anyone. Assign someone the specific role of tweeting so it’s clear whose job it is.

7. Don’t overfollow

Yes it’s good to follow people but if you’re following 1,000s and only have 10 followers then you look like a spammer so only follow a handful of people at a time. Keep your followers to following ratio low.

8. Follow the right people

Use the likes of Twitter search, TweetNI and WeFollow to find people in Northern Ireland that you or your brand is interested in and follow them.

9. Promote your profile

Nobody’s going to find you on Twitter if you don’t promote it. Add your Twitter link to your website or blog (there are various badges available). Add the link to your email signature, add it to your business card, mention other twitter names in your tweets, add tags to your tweet e.g. #tweetni #NISW. All will help.

10. Join TweetNI

TweetNI is a Twitter directory for Northern Ireland that lists people from Northern Ireland on Twitter. It’s easy to join, just tweet this message.

Just joined Northern Ireland’s Twitter directory http://tweetni.com #tweetni’

Bonus: Follow us on Twitter

Ok, this isn’t as important as the other 10 points but we’re on Twitter if you would like to follow us. We tweet the latest reviews from our site and share interesting & helpful blog posts, similar to this one.
Is your business on Twitter? How do you Tweet? Any useful tips for businesses new to Twitter?