Jessica Sanders offers a guest post about Twitter for us today, discussing some options for following back your Twitter fans.
As a company on Twitter, or any other social network for that matter, it’s critical that you show your fans and customers that they are very important to you. Social networks are for connecting with others on a personal level, thus customers connect with you to engage and communicate. Following your Twitter fans back is critical to gaining their respect and loyalty, not to mention it’s an efficient marketing model to create brand awareness.
“Twitter has millions of users and more people are joining it every day, which makes it one of the best places to look for potential customers … Not just that, businesses can also connect with their existing customers and interact with them to know more about how the business or brand is being perceived in the market.”
Manual
If your business is just starting out or is only taking in a few new followers a week, you will be able to manually follow your new tweeps back. When you do this manually, you have the freedom to customize and engage with your fans. This is ideal for building a strong customer base that is dedicated to your brand.
- Thank them: Always thank your fans for the following. Customers want to be appreciated.
- Customize a message or Tweet: Tell them what they can expect from your Twitter account, i.e. offer discounts, exclusive deals, etc.
- Ask an engaging question: What do you want to see here? How can we make your experience better? Do you have any suggestions for us?
Automatic
Auto-tweeting is quite the debate and a hot topic for large corporations. Because Twitter volume is often too high to maintain manually, companies have turned to automated following processes to sustain the connections while saving time.
If you choose to utilize an automated program, be sure to include a message for each new follower. It should sound natural, personal and avoid the cookie cutter feel. To get started, check out some easy to use automated programs.
- Tweepi: This is your all in one tweeting dashboard. Perform bulk follows, view stats and send Tweets, all from one place – and all for free.
- Friend or Follow: As a basic tool, this will do exactly what you want it to, and that’s about it. However, you must be a Gold Member to follow or unfollow in bulk batches.
- Refollow: You get 100 free unfollow/refollows before having to pay. It’s great for organizing followers, both old and new. The sorting tool will also allow you to organize things such as accounts that have mentioned your company, which allows you to engage more.
Manage New Followers
The built in Twitter feature, Lists, allows you to focus on smaller groups, as opposed to the whole. In a large corporation, this is an easy way to follow everyone back, but weed out the potential bots or uninvolved accounts.
- Set up your list: You can choose to make this public or private, though I would suggest keeping it private.
- Add your followers: Create lists of new followers, older followers, niche followers, etc.
- Give attention: Focus on those within your lists – you may create one list for new followers, and devote a month to them; getting them involved, engaged and interested, then switch them out for a new batch.
Following your fans back is critical to having a successful Twitter presence. There are a variety of ways to do this; simply choose the one that works best for you to get started right away.
Jessica Sanders is an avid small business writer touching on topics from social media to telemarketing services. She writes for an online resource that gives advice on topics including payroll processing for lead generation resource, Resource Nation.
Lucy is Editor at Corporate Eye
