Brands convey messages about the company. A brand is similar to the company’s promise to deliver high-quality goods and services to the market. However, the market is changing and brand building methods must evolve to keep up. With the advent of the Internet, social media has offered a new way to reach the millions of people that go online. One of the largest social media outlets is Twitter. Twitter alone has more than 140 million members actively posting online, sharing 340 million tweets a day. Businesses need to know how to take advantage of this new technology in order to build their brands properly.

How to Build Your Brand on Twitter

Tweet useful information

Each tweet should provide useful information to the reader. People only choose to retweet tweets that they find interesting or valuable. It can be any form of information such as a link to a blog post, a news report about the industry, a study or a set of statistics.

Do not use it to sell

Avoid using Twitter to sell the company’s products. Although the account is part of the company’s efforts in building a brand, people do not like constantly reading about new products, offers or promotions.

Look for potential leads

There are tools that businesses and companies can use to find people and potential leads. For instance, use Twellow to find people who may be interested in the company and its offers. The tool groups Twitter members into different categories, depending on the individual’s profile and the type of messages that the person tweets about.

Respond to comments and complaints

Allow people to air their grievances against the brand or company. Do not ignore people who are complaining about the brand. Instead, use Twitter to amicably respond to their complaints or negative comments. Offer to help or provide a solution to their issues. This helps create a more personable identity to a corporate brand and may help relieve the complainant’s anxiety. Proper handling can turn a complainant into a loyal customer. Other people who are monitoring the situation will use this as a basis to see how the company handles the situation.

1 Tweet Changed This Business – Video

Twitter Tactics

Share news

If you have the uncanny ability to discover stories before they become breaking news, you can share the story to your followers. For bloggers who are just starting out in the industry, their tweets may not automatically become news. However, do it often enough and they may become a source for news.

Build an audience

It is easier to build a league of followers using Twitter than encouraging people to subscribe to your feed. People can quickly choose which people to follow. Use Twitter to get more subscribers by picking the best post and share them with followers. However, be cautious about tweeting your own posts. Most of your subscribers may already have read your post. This would be considered as self-promotion, which most followers often frown upon. Already remember that the aim is to build a credible reputation.

Converse with experts

Build a reputation first. Follow the influencers in the community and start small conversations. These experts can provide useful information for people who are just beginning to establish their name or brand in the industry. Well known personalities may have thousands of followers. A simple mention of your name on their tweet can alert these followers that you have some level of credibility to garner the blogger’s attention.

Give back

Loyalty goes both ways. People feel loyal to a company that values their loyalty. This means offering something that only members of your Twitter community will be able to access. Offer vouchers or coupons that your followers can use to buy on your website. Conduct contests for your followers that allow them to tweet their entries. Offering fun contests and prizes will encourage your followers to retweet your tweets.

Monitor your reputation

Tweets can spread quickly, depending on the size of a person’s network. Brands should constantly monitor what the people are saying about their brand. Monitoring tweets will allow brands to handle negative situations before they become worse. Although this may seem like a gargantuan task, there are tools which can help you in this endeavor  Use search.twitter.com or Tweetbeep to send you alerts of any discussions concerning your brand.

About the Author

Bethany Wesch writes about blogging, branding and online marketing. She writes for Quantumlinx.com.au – a leading SEO Sydney company which specialise in providing online marketing solutions to small businesses and sales people