Twitter is rapidly growing in favour as a social media must. The micro-blog platform, released first in August 2006, boomed in popularity last year, thanks in no little part to celebrities like Stephen Fry using it.

The micro-blogs on Twitter, whose updates are called tweets, are no longer than 140 characters long and can be about anything. They may contain links, and a simple @Name tagging system links references to other Twitterers automatically, creating an instant network for the blog.

Why Twitter? Twitter gives you the kind of one-to-one contact with your customers that will enrich your business’ relationship with them. Twitter has thousands of users and the number is still growing. Just like the new bar which everyone is hanging out at, Twitter is the place where any smart business will want to be mentioned.

Twittering is very easy, possibly a little too easy. You just have to think up a catchy user name, which can be the name of your business, create an account and start Tweeting. Twitter provides a handy plug-in for your web site to feature your tweets, automatically updated.

The tricky thing is that every one of your tweets is a reflection of your business. You need to be smart about what you talk about, while at the same time keeping the content friendly and interesting for your viewers. You need to be careful to insert your keywords, but with only 140 characters you also need to keep things simple. Tweeting regularly and well can be difficult.

There are ways to give your first forays into Twitter a greater chance of success. First of all, talk to your SEO consultant. Our experts at SEO Consult can help you select the appropriate keywords to use in the specialised blogging form that is Twitter, and can also help you with content. Your SEO consultant can also help you in choosing your Twitter name, which needs to be easy to remember, catchy, and relatively short so that others can mention you easily in their tweets, known as being ‘tweetable’.

Your user name, or handle, is just one part of the branding you need to decide on for Twitter. Your account name is also important. Although your user name will appear next to all your tweets, your account name will feature on your profile. Use the extra space here and craft a name that best describes your business.

Use the 160 characters for your bio in your Twitter profile to further solidify your brand image. Condensing your business image into 160 characters may be hard, but it’s definitely good practice for your tweets!

When you have created your account, build links to your Twitter identity just as you would for your own web site. As Twittering aims to ultimately bring people back to your site, time invested in letting people know you’re now on Twitter can be time spent wisely.

There are rumours abounding that Google will soon update its algorithms to offer real-time search. This means that the already-important forms of social media such as Twitter will need to feature even more strongly in a good search engine optimisation strategy.

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