Tweeting with Purpose: A Strategic Approach to Twitter for Your Business

Congratulations! You launched your business and have it off the ground and flying high. As part of your social media marketing strategy, you set up a Twitter account and have done a good job attracting some followers. So you're ready to tweet, right? Well, maybe. But first, as with anything else involving your business, make sure you have clear objectives and a strategy.

If you start without that plan, your well-intentioned social media campaign may be received by your followers as annoying, frivolous, or worse-spam. So it makes sense to ask a few questions prior to tweeting.

What does your business hope to accomplish? First, you want to prove valuable to your followers in some way. Just because someone likes your business doesn't necessarily mean they will be interested in following your Twitter feed. As long as you provide something in return, you should plan to reap the benefits of information, interaction, and immediate user response to products, ad campaigns, and other promotions.

And just as importantly, how will your followers benefit? Simple entertainment is reason enough if you're clever; however, you can't go wrong with special offers for free or heavily discounted products or services. Another way to make your followers feel valued is to share ongoing changes within your company and allow follower feedback to help shape those changes.

Keeping in mind your business goals and the benefits to your customers will ensure that you get off to the right start on Twitter. And don't forget to keep it real. People like to connect, and establishing a real, conversational tone goes a long way in bringing customers closer to your business. And that's brand loyalty in the making.