Want to convey how great your home improvement company is without being too longwinded? Twitter is the perfect social media tool for you! Each tweet is allowed a maximum of 140 characters, which means that everyone has to be short and sweet when posting updates. Twitter boasts 255 million monthly active users, and 500 million Tweets are sent per day.
Why 140 characters? In his book, Things A Little Bird Told Me: Confessions of the Creative Mind, Twitter found Biz Stone writes, “The international limit for text messages is 160 characters. In our early prototypes, the amount of characters you had to compose your tweet was 160 minus however long your name was. It occurred to me that it wasn’t fair that I got more characters because my name, @biz, was so short. So we decided to standardize on 140 characters. We wanted every tweet to be created and consumed in its entirety, including the author’s name on any device.”
One of the biggest perks of being part of Twitter is that more than 3/4 of their users access the site through their mobile device or tablet. That means that people are able to see your updates while on the go. If you have a mobile website as well, you’re well on your way to easily gaining new leads and customers.
If you haven’t joined Twitter yet, don’t worry! The setup process is easy. Simply choose a Twitter username (preferably the same as your company name), upload a profile image, and begin following others. Twitter will automatically suggest some initial people to follow, but you’ll have the freedom to follow or unfollow others as you go forward. It’s best to only follow those Twitter accounts that are relevant to your company and line of work. You should make it a habit early on not to mix your personal contacts with those of your business.
Within your profile, be sure to link back to your company website. On your company website, let your visitors know that you are active on Twitter by utilizing social media links and buttons. By cross promoting your company site and social media accounts, you’re making yourself as accessible as possible and provide people with a variety of methods to learn about and contact you.
Finally, be sure to utilize hashtags and search for relevant ones as well. Try things such as #homeimprovement, #painting, #interiordesign and #hvac to help others find you who may not be initially aware of your company. Happy tweeting!