So you've set up a Twitter account for your business, now what? You've probably noticed that most company websites you'll visit have their Twitter widgets on prominent display, but this alone is not enough to attract and retain followers and put this platform to productive use for your online visibility. The micro-blogging capabilities of Twitter have been available since 2005, and there are still many business entities and individuals (my Los Angeles website design clients included) that are only now discovering what it can do. Utilizing social media, especially that which is free like Twitter, can be a very effective traffic-boosting tool, but you have to be aware of some basic guidelines.

Set Up a Profile to Impress - Unlike Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, or other sites, Twitter doesn't let you include a ton of information and text in your profile, which is what a user sees immediately when they click to be taken to your feed. You get one image (this should be your logo) and a character-limited space for text. Obviously, work your company name into your handle and add niche-related keywords to your description. Needless to say, add your URL.

Follow and Follow Back Judiciously - When first getting started with Twitter, it is natural to want to build up a big following quickly, but if half the accounts you follow (and vice versa) are spam bots, porn, or totally unrelated other companies, it detracts from your credibility and focus. It is much more beneficial to 50 followers that interact with you because they have used or are interested in your products or services, than a motley group of followers that don't equate to relevant traffic.

Tweet to Entice, Not Just to Sell - Don't limit your feed to just talking shop about your business. You'll bore your followers and make them very much aware of the fact they are being marketed to, which can lead to unfollows. Instead, have fun and think outside of a conventional sales pitch. Think polls, discount vouchers, contests, or videos. Give individual attention to questions and comments, and run polls and competitions that you think address less obvious concerns and ideas of your prospective clients, and reward their enthusiasm and responsiveness with @ mentions, Follow Fridays, and retweets. You might be surprised how many reciprocate the love.

Use Twitter Tools to Juice Up Link Love - Your feed should offer more than just manual tweeting, and there are plenty of tools, software, and programs to help you do just that and manage your account more easily. Hootsuite is great for automating actions like linking blog posts and articles. Bit.ly shortens URL's so they fit the character limit and look cleaner, but with no expense to SEO. TwitPoll helps you streamline the creation of the aforementioned polls and surveys that can engage your audience. The particularly helpful Tweet Adder will help connect you to more relevant feeds based on preferences, interests, and location so that all you have to do is try and start up a conversation and grow your traffic.

Thanks for reading. Jason.
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