Everyone in the industry is talking about their ‘Twitter Presence’ and you don’t have a Twitter account for your company? Or maybe once upon a time an account was started with good intentions but it’s still just sitting around in a dusty corner of the web with only a handful of followers?

Well, no worries! Just keep reading and we’ll teach you how to optimize your company’s Twitter account, why it’s so important of late to develop a following on Twitter and a few good practices to take with you on your way!

Whether you’re just starting out..

 Creating a Twitter account is the easy part, but starting off incorrectly could hurt a little in the long run. Here are some tips when creating your account that you’ll want to keep in mind:

• Pick the shortest version of your company’s name to be your Twitter handle – it’s easier to remember and also will be less characters when people tweet you (including a twitter handle in a tweet takes away from the maximum number of characters (140) that you can use).

Hear David Biggs at Cabinets & Closets 2015.

• Choose a professional, but still eye-catching avatar for your account – you’ll generally want to use either an abridged version of your logo (we just use a stylized and recognizable ‘W’ for Woodworking Network, for example), or something that everyone from your industry will instantly identify (a national park may use a photo of a bear, or a forest, etc).

• Next, choose a header image that attracts a lot of attention – you’re looking for something that expresses who you are as a company and/or includes photos of exciting products or services that you are offering to the marketplace.

• Finally, you’ll need to enter in a description – 160 characters is not a lot to work with but you might as well get used to being concise now because everything going forward will need to be expressed in even less characters! Remember to grab people’s attention by including the juicy stuff first: What is your company an expert in? What services does it provide? Try to approach this by thinking, “Would I follow this profile?” It’s also helpful to include a link back to your website, or promotional materials that may go into further detail.

Or are looking for a boost in followers..

When you’re just starting off or haven’t had much luck out there (to this point) in the Twitterverse, it can seem like a daunting task to get more followers for your account. It’s actually not as difficult as you might think, but it will take a little legwork and ingenuity:

• Make sure you are marketing to people every day – this doesn’t necessarily mean asking people directly to follow the company on Twitter, but just the small step of adding your Twitter handle to emails, business cards, promotional materials (digital and printed) and other social media sites should help draw new followers.

• Committing to several tweets a day is important – that’s not just promotional material(s). In fact, the posts that your company puts out each day should ideally consist of a 50/50 split between posts highlighting or promoting your products and/or services and also information relevant to your audience that does NOT come from you. Sending out information that may not help you directly will still do so indirectly, and this behavior builds trust in your brand as an expert in your field.

• Twitter recently allowed for images to display in their feeds – you should absolutely include images in the majority of your posts. It has been statistically proven that tweets including an image receive a substantially higher level of interaction. And that’s what we’re aiming for, after all! Here is some more information and helpful tips on how to format the images you include: http://www.reviewzntips.com/why-and-how-you-should-use-images-on-twitter/

• Hashtags may seem gimmicky (and some are) – but they are a great source of new followers. (We're using #WNLive to help people find news about our events, such as Cabinets & Closets Expo April 15-16 in Chicago) They give your tweets visibility to people that are searching and/or monitoring those hashtags on Twitter. It would be a grave mistake, for example, for a company that manufactures a fruit juice not to include #juice on relevant tweets! Other companies should think the same way about their industries. It’s good practice to include a relevant hashtag, but don’t overdo it or be too specific… then the audience goes POOF.

• Include links on your tweets – make sure that when you reach your audience, they know where to go and what to do when they get there!

• Don’t be afraid to ask for people to retweet your posts – whenever you think that something may be super-relevant to your audience, you should ask for a retweet. Make sure these tweets are shorter than normal so others have room to add in a comment of their own.

Engaging with your audience on Twitter works!

Just registering a Twitter account and going through the motions is not enough to really engage your audience and reap the benefits of having a Twitter presence for your business. But in order to get motivated to go that extra few steps, it’s important to see why you’re doing it in the first place:

• Driving traffic to your website – an important part of all social media and outreach in general, there is certainly an opportunity here to send your audience offers and promotions and link them back to a landing page on your site.

• Industry and media networking – by following and starting conversations with other companies in your field and/or the news outlets that cover them, your raise awareness of your company and the products or services that you offer.

• Use your audience for research – ask questions about your products or what other things you could offer or improve upon as a company that people may be interested in. Find out what they have problems with in their fields so that you can come to their rescue with a solution!

• Customer service for small matters can be handled quickly –if it is, that person will likely come away thinking how great your company is and become a more active member of your audience. Several customers that participate regularly and retweet/favorite your posts can make a huge difference!

• Refining your brand – the social ‘voice’ of a company is not always well-developed until it has been ‘speaking’ for a while. Every brand has a unique perspective and engaging your audience on Twitter can help to bring out that voice and make it sound like a million bucks.

 Make sure to follow Woodworking Network on Twitter (@WoodworkingBiz)