Tweet, Tweet...What You Should Be Doing With Your Twitter Account Everyday

Twitter logo

Let me set the environment for this article.You are a technical sales professional. You have, among several social media accounts, a Twitter account. You want to use the Twitter account to increase your personal and company brand presence, with two goals in mind:

Grow your contact base

Develop your brand image as a serious, knowledgeable, engaged individual in your industry

Notice that I did not mention "grow sales". The target audience of this article is professionals engaged in technical sales. The nature of technical sales generally requires a level of consultation between the seller and buyer to confirm a match between the product capabilities and the application requirements. Rarely are orders for significant items placed without personal contact between buyer and seller prior to the sale. As a tech sales pro, you just want to be contacted when an application arises, so you can have the opportunity to match your product to the customer's needs...and get the order.

The purpose of Twitter for you, tech sales pro, is to keep your name top of the customer's mind for all matters relating to your product offering.

That would be perfect! Whenever the customer thinks about anything related to your products and their application, your name smoothly drifts into their thoughts. Don't expect to be 100% successful at that, but it is possible to achieve a substantial level of recognition, and keep your name in the forefront, by investing time to establish presence in your industry. Twitter is part of that investment.



How do I make Twitter work for me?

Twitter is easy to use and does not need to take up big blocks of your time. With the app on your smartphone, you can do what needs to be done in some of those small stretches of nonproductive time you have during every day. Here is what you need to do:

Find sources of interesting and relevant industry news and information, preferably pertaining to the types of products you sell and their application. You can subscribe for free to many sources and set them up to feed stories and news to your inbox. Once you get them set up, there will be little need to search for news. It will be handed to you.

At least once per day, share an interesting article. Many articles and news items will have a Twitter share button. You can just click the Twitter icon and the article will be shared to your page and the news feed of your followers. You will have an opportunity to add your comments to the Tweet before it is posted. If you comment, say something relevant that will be construed as unoffensive by everybody on the planet, or say nothing at all. The point is to attach your name to the interesting article and deliver it to your followers. Simple. Do not assume that everybody reads the same publications and sources you do. They may subscribe, but don't have or take the time to read everything. You are picking the best content and showing it to them. Share often, share at different times during the day. Avoid sharing on weekends and evenings. Twitter is a real time feed. As new items are posted to your followers' feed, the older posts get pushed downward on the page. That is why posting often is necessary, but avoid repeatedly posting the same item. Each post should be unique. Here is what you get when you share and article...

This is a sample Tweet that shares a link to an article I found.

The more you do it, the easier it gets, the less time it takes. Research has shown that higher levels of posting activity will produce more followers. Followers are people that will see the items you share and be reminded of who you are. 

The most important aspect of this strategy is consistency.

Effectiveness emerges as you develop a habit of tweeting several times per day. The tweet I created above required less than one minute to complete, most of which was spent reading the article. Avoid overthinking whether your audience will like the article you selected. If you think it is relevant to your field, tweet it. In very little time, you will become a master and start to see results as your follower base expands.

Retweet Icon

You can also retweet content that is shared by others. This is real easy to do. At the bottom of every post there is an icon that will retweet the post. The icon looks like two arrows extending around a rectangle. Click and you can ad your own comment, or just let it fly as is. Retweets do not share the promotional impact of an original tweet because your profile picture does not appear with a retweet, just your name. The name of the original poster is displayed on retweets, which is why you want to be the originator of good content. When your content is retweeted by others, your name gets shared to new potential followers.

Twitter users will follow generators of good content.

If you have created original content and want to share....Bravo! Twitter provides capability to share a link to your content, along with your personal comment. Include images that relate to the content for greater promotional power for your tweet. You can delete a tweet after it is posted, so do not be afraid to practice. Your company's blog provides ready made content for your original tweets, as do the press releases and articles produced by the manufacturers you represent.

Build a habit of tweeting throughout the business day. Keep an eye out for content everywhere. Build your follower count and become recognized as a trusted and authoritative source of information. The essence of your Twitter presence is summed up in the short video included above.

Follow, comment, contact me with your questions. share this article with our coworkers. I can be contacted directly at CMS4i by putting @TomO in the message section. At CMS4i, we are here to help you make things work, so contact us anytime.