STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO

FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

TWITTER

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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And while the “big” brands have plenty of time, people,

and resources to have a dedicated social media team,

the situation isn’t quite the same for most small and local businesses.

Which is exactly the reason why so many small and local businesses have

struggled to get going with Twitter.

Until now, of course.

That’s the purpose of this guide. We want to show you step by step how

you can get your Twitter account up and running.

This is a lot more than just “sign up and tweet” instead, you’ll learn how to

optimize your profile, how to find the right people to connect with, and

how to grow your account in as little as 15 minutes a day.

Are you ready to get started?

We all know just how important being

on social media is today. It’s where

you can find potential customers, promote your brand, and build authority online.

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

Table of ContentsSTEP 1 Create Your Twitter Account

STEP 2 Fill Out Your Profile Details

STEP 3 Set Your Twitter Objectives

STEP 4 Create a Social Media Policy

STEP 5 Assign Tweeting Roles

STEP 6 Find Content to Share

STEP 7 Set a Schedule

STEP 8 Follow The Right People

STEP 9 Start Tweeting

STEP 10 Engage Your Followers

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STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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Create Your Twitter AccountFirst things first, go to Twitter.com to get started.

It won’t be long before you have to make your first major

decision: what your user name is going to be. You want to pick

a name that is clearly identifiable as you or your brand. This

could be the name of your business, or your own name, if that is

easily recognized as the name of your brand.

STEP 1

For Example,

If you run Chestnut Book Shop, a great choice is going to be @chestnutbooks.

That way, your customers will know right away this handle belongs to your

brand. Keep in mind your handle is going to be limited to 15 characters.

Twitter will help you out there,

they let you know if your preferred

username is taken, they will also

give you a few helpful suggestions

as well.

If you want to save a bit of time,

use a tool like Namecheckr to

easily see if your chosen username

is available.

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STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

Here’s an example for Chestnut Book Shop:

Once you’ve chosen your username, follow along with the prompts.

Voila, you’ve got your account up and running! But, you’re not quite

done yet. You want to everything you can to optimize your account to

ensure your customers can easily find you online.

Fill Out Your Profile DetailsThere are a number of things you want to pay

attention to when setting up your profile. We’ll

cover the parts that you really want to pay

attention to.

STEP 2

ABC Shop

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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Header Photo

You can use your own creativity and a tools like Canva or PicMonkey to

create your own header photos that include things like an image of your

shop, or an image of some of your work, and your business name and

details. Include your website URL and phone number, for instance.

If you don’t have the time or the know how to create your own header, use

99 Designs or even Fiverr to hire someone who can create a header for

you. Be sure to give instructions as to what you’d like listed in the photo.

This post from HubSpot has a number of great examples of headers you

can use for inspiration.

Profile Photo

For your profile photo don’t make it too detailed, this photo should be clear

and quite easy to see. Your best bet is to use your brand’s logo, since you

want to be as consistent as possible across brands.

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STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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Set Your Twitter ObjectivesBefore you get too deep into Twitter, take a minute and think about your

Twitter objectives. Social media should be an important part of your

overall content marketing plan, so you want to have a solid strategy for

how you are going to use Twitter to promote and distribute your content,

as well as drive traffic to your business, increase engagement, and build up

your authority.

STEP 3

Bio

This is the other place where you want to pay the most attention in your

profile. People will be able to search for your brand using the information

you post here. Your bio will also show up in search engine results for your

brand or username, so it’s key to think about this in terms of SEO (search

engine optimization) as well.

So include things that are going to attract and interest potential customers

in 160 characters. Don’t forget to include a call to action also (i.e. “visit our

website). Sprout Social has a post that highlights four keys to a great bio:

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i Be informative

Be personable

Be strategic

Be action oriented

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You want to ensure that you’re setting the stage to see a nice return on

investment when it comes to the time you put into Twitter.

Now, one thing to keep in mind is that your objectives are going to be

different based on the type of business you have and the types of

customers you serve. We’ll look at each.

Business to Business

For a business to business (B2B) brand, customers are going to be other

brands. So some key objectives are going to center around things like

growing authority in a particular niche or industry as well as driving traffic

to your site.

HERE ARE A FEW EXAMPLES OF COMMON OBJECTIVES

FOR A B2B BRAND:

Sharing industry thought

leadership

Becoming an industry influencer

Providing customer service

Improving your brand’s reputation

Establishing brand leadership

Recruiting potential employees

Establishing relationships with

industry news media

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Business to Consumer

While it’s certainly true that a B2B and B2C brand can share certain

objectives when it comes to setting up their Twitter strategy, there are

some important distinctions. Here, a B2C brand should really be focused

on interaction and engagement with their potential customers.

AS SUCH, HERE ARE A FEW COMMON OBJECTIVES FOR A B2C BRAND:

Once you have a handful of objectives set for your brand, it makes it much

easier to know exactly who you want to follow on Twitter and interact

with, as well as what type of content you want to share as well. So, don’t

skip out on this part.

Promoting special offers, sales, or coupons

Customer service

Establishing relationships with product influencers

Rewarding customers with loyalty

Creating an active community of customer

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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Create a Social Media PolicyIt’s always a good idea to have a solid social media

policy in place before you get started. Keep in mind

this can always be tweaked and improved upon

later as you (or your team) get more comfortable with social media.

The policy by no means has to be in depth, but you want to have a few

guidelines set in place to cover general rules.

Smart things to include would be any topics that should be avoided, these

would include anything that might be a controversial subject like politics

or religion. How to respond to negative interactions or comments, and

even the type of tone to take in tweets.

It might seem like something unnecessary, but many brands have been

sunk by bad PR after having an errant tweet go out.

While many such infractions can

be minor, the last thing you need

to worry about is a very angry

customer base, or even a lawsuit

from a mistaken tweet.

STEP 4

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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Assign Tweeting Roles

STEP 5

This really goes hand in hand with the above step.

Because just as it’s very important to have a Twitter

policy, you also want to be sure to know who is

responsible for the social media duties for your brand.

There are a couple of important reasons for this. Most importantly, you

want to maintain a consistent voice across your social media platforms. If a

number of different people have access to the Twitter account and all

approach tweeting a different way, with different styles and tones, then

that can actually end up confusing the customer.

Avoid that by assigning the role to a specific person.

If you run your business on your own,

Then this is pretty easy, you will be the designated “tweeter” for your brand.

If you have a larger brand that has a few people with access to Twitter,

Then be sure to highlight your social media policy amongst all of them. Here,

you can also assign specific roles within Twitter. For example, one person

could only tweet out with respect to interacting with customers for specific

customer service needs.

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Find Content to Share

STEP 6

There are two main types of content you want to

gather. First, your own content, and also high

quality educational, entertaining, and relevant

content from other sites and brands that your

target customer will really respond to.

TO FIND CONTENT FROM OTHER SITES TO SHARE,

USE A COUPLE OF THESE TOOLS:

Feedly

Allows you to compile feeds from a variety of online sources that you can

easily then load into your Twitter sharing tools.

BuzzSumo

Use this tool to find the most shared content by keyword, website, or

influencer, you can also use it for your own content creation ideas.

AllTop

Visit AllTop to find the most popular stories both online and within a

category that you can share.

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The first place you want to start is with your brand’s blog. If you don’t have

a blog, now is a very good time to start. There are three huge benefits to

having a business blog, as noted in this post:

To drive traffic to your website

To convert that traffic into leads

To build authority

A blog should be a huge component of your overall content marketing

strategy. If you do have one, then this is where you are going to be pulling

from quite a bit to share on your Twitter account.

Here again, we can break this down by B2C brands vs. B2B brands when it

comes to the types of content to share.

Business to Business

When it comes to creating blog posts, you can never go wrong with

anything that is going to help your ideal customer and build your own

authority within your industry.

FEATURE POSTS LIKE:

Slide decks

Infographics

Videos of speeches

Audio of interviews

Buyers guides

Comparison guides

White papers

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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Remember to look at other content you can share from what you’ve

already got on your website or your inbox, it doesn’t just have to be about

blog posts.

Business to Customer

There are no shortage of available topics or content for a B2C business

blog. Here is where you want to educate your customers and help them

fall in love with your brand.

If you’re struggling for topics, use crowdsourced content around your

industry that ties back to your product or service.

FEATURE POSTS LIKE:

How to posts (especially how to

use your product/service)

Customer testimonials

Customer case studies

Unboxings

Guest posts written for

complementary brands

Buyers guides

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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Set a Schedule

STEP 7

Growing a social media channel seems daunting to

many, but even more so to small business owners

who are typically quite busy and wear a number of

hats within the organization.

The good news?

There are tools that can help. Using these tools can help you share both

your own content (new and old) as well as other content that will engage

and interest your core audience consistently.

Buffer

Allows you to easily share content across a number of social media

channels at set times, also has a very useful Chrome extension to easily add

curated content.

Edgar

Lets you share content across a number of social media channels and has a

library system for you to consistently share evergreen content at set times.

TweetDeck

TweetDeck is a Twitter specific tool that allows you to easily set and

schedule tweets, monitor lists, reply to followers, and retweet others.

HERE ARE A FEW GREAT TOOLS TO HELP WITH YOUR SOCIAL

MEDIA AUTOMATION PROCESS:

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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Using these tools are going to help you take care of one part of the

equation, getting your tweets out there. Next, you want to be sure you’re

scheduling your tweets at the best

possible times for the most

engagement and views.

Keep in mind, as you tweet more, the

best times to tweet are likely to

change, so re-check your schedule on

a quarterly basis to make sure it’s up

to date.

THERE ARE A COUPLE OF TOOLS THAT CAN

HELP YOU WITH THAT AS WELL:

Buffer Optimal Scheduling

Lets you know the optimal times to post for accounts linked to your Buffer

account.

Tweriod

Allows you to see when the best time to tweet is for your brand, based on

both your tweets and the tweets of your followers.

For even more Twitter tools, check out this list.

Once you’ve got your content scheduled, you can focus your time on

Twitter to interacting and engaging with followers and customers and

following your Twitter objectives.

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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This part of your Twitter strategy shouldn’t take long.

One way to tackle this in an organized way is to set it in your calendar.

Schedule yourself anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes a day as your “social

media engagement block.” You could do it all at once, or say 10 minutes in

the morning and 10 minutes at lunch.

In this time don’t worry about sharing any new content, this is what your

automation is for, instead you want to focus this time on speaking directly

with customers, influencers, industry leaders, and followers.

This is where you truly work on connecting and engaging with others (we’ll

cover a bit more of the “how to” later in this post). It’s the engagement that

is going to grow your brand.

Follow The Right People

STEP 8

A big part of success on Twitter is following the

right people. You don’t want to just go around

following people willy nilly, that’s not going to

help your brand. You have a strategy and

Twitter objectives you want to hit, remember?

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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Who to follow is going to be different depending on what type of brand

you are and what kinds of products or services you provide. So, once again,

let’s break things up into B2B and B2C to make things easier.

Business to Business

To start, you want to remember that a big goal is to build your authority on

Twitter, so you’ll want to follow what’s going on in your niche or industry.

HERE’S WHO TO FOLLOW TO GET STARTED:

Industry leaders

Industry influencers (bloggers,

consultants, etc.)

Industry specific news sources

and journalists

Industry specific communities

(forums, membership groups)

Local or area groups in related or

complementary industries

Complementary brands or services

(especially if you work with them locally)

Conferences (plus the people who run

them and recent speakers or attendees)

Your customers

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Once you start adding more people to follow, chances are you’ll start

spotting new sites, brands, news sources, and influencers you can keep

following that pop up frequently.

HERE’S WHO TO FOLLOW TO GET STARTED:

Industry sources (news, influencers, journalists)

Local news sources and journalists

Influencers in your niche and complementary niches (i.e.

bloggers, podcasters, Instagramers, etc.)

People who participate in Twitter Chats in your (or

complementary) industries

People who mention your product on Twitter (do a search

to see what comes up)

Your customers

Business to Customer

A B2C brand has a bit more flexibility when it comes to adding followers

on Twitter, especially locally.

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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Start Tweeting

STEP 9

Are you itching to start tweeting by now?

Good!

By the time you’ve gotten to this step, you’re in very good shape. You’ve

got a plan to put in place, you’ve optimized your profile, you’ve created

content to share, you’ve automated the process and set up a schedule, and

you’ve followed the right people.

Now, you can start actually tweeting.

Beyond the content you’ve collected and scheduled, both from your own

business blog and other content you feel like your followers will really like,

you can add a few more ideas into the mix:

Inspirational quotes

Quote photos (you can

create these on Canva)

Links to any of your other

social media accounts

Videos you’ve created on

YouTube

Contests

Product photos

Coupon codes or

discounts

Customer generated

content

Memes

Gifs

%

GIF

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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While you always want to keep a proper and professional tone, don’t be

afraid to have a little bit of fun when it comes to Twitter. People often

respond most positively to brands that are willing to showcase their per-

sonality online. Here are a few more examples.

A couple of other tips when it comes to tweeting:

Include images whenever possible

Don’t go hashtag crazy! One and a maximum of two per tweet will

suffice

Try to keep tweets under 125 characters, it allows others to retweet

them more easily

Don’t make your tweets all about you, share other content at least

60% of the time

Retweet other’s content

Include a call to action in your tweets, ask people to click links,

favorite, or retweet

Create a Twitter account that your customers will fall in love with and be

excited to see what you come up with next.

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO TWITTER FOR LOCAL BUSINESS

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Engage Your Followers

STEP 10

Far too many brands ignore this part, they

simply share content and forget about engaging.

Not only is it boring, but it doesn’t make

customers feel very warm and fuzzy, does it?

Creating engagement is all about being willing

to communicate and sharing some personality.

You can find out quite a bit about how you brand is doing online by doing

a simple search on Twitter. This opens you up to a ton of ways to engage,

so during your scheduled engagement time, be sure to include searches

for your brand name, local area, and specific keywords for your niche or

industry.

Here are a few tips to increase your engagement:

Respond to everyone who tweets at you, especially if the comments

have a complaint

Favorite or retweet (positive) comments about you

Jump into conversations that feature your product or service

Offer help when you see people asking a question (even if it’s not

directly related to your own product or service)

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Target 2-3 new people every day in your industry and tweet at them

(introduce yourself, tell them you like a post, ask their opinion of your

new infographic, etc.)

Add your Twitter username to your website, email, newsletters, etc.

Be active about your location, connect with other local brands and

showcase them

Follow back those who follow you

These are just a few tips,

If you consistently spend time on a daily basis focused on growing your Twitter

following, posting great content, and engaging with others, then you’re going to

see results, even in as little as a few minutes a day.

Further Reading

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