Best practices for putting your business or brand on Twitter

Twitter is known as social networking tool that allows people to connect with the individuals whose activities and opinions they care about. Businesses are also getting in the act, and here are some best practices to help them.

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I’ve written about the business value of using Twitter, have offered a list of techies worth following on Twitter, and have provided a list of tools for Twitter power users. But, now we’re seeing businesses and brands taking Twitter just as seriously as individual professionals.

Jason Snell over at Macworld has written a piece called Nine Twitter tips for business that pulls together some excellent best practices to help companies understand how to engage with customers and fans using Twitter. He also offers some important advice on what not to do.

You can find me on twitter at twitter.com/jasonhiner

Snell notes, “Even if you’re not the type of person who uses Facebook or Twitter yourself, there’s no denying that these new forms of connection and communication are powerful and becoming increasingly important. That’s why your business should be on Twitter now.”

Here is Snell’s list:

1. Don’t automate it
2. Be conversational
3. Follow people who are relevant
4. Make sure your people are on Twitter, and refer to them
5. Answer your mentions
6. Search for your name
7. Consider creating sub-accounts for sections of your business or customer base
8. Use Twitter to ask your customers questions … and get good answers
9. Be a good Twitter citizen

Read the full article where Snell goes into detail on each of these nine points.