I get asked a lot about using social media to promote my business, and using Twitter to do so in particular. While I am far from an expert, I do try to take a stab at the question when it comes up.

First off, the most important thing I can stress is that there is not a single right way to promote your business on social media in general or Twitter in particular. Almost as important as that first point is this: no one has all the answers; different things work for different products and brands.

I do have 10 tips that I think you can use no matter how you use Twitter to promote yourself.

If you want more information on any particular one, leave me a question in the comments, or contact me.

1. Be yourself.  Let your personality come through, no one likes a robot. You will ultimately be more successful if your followers get to know you, at least a little.
2. Interact with your followers.  Don’t simply push out your message. Talk to the people that follow you. Get to know some of them.  Twitter is not a one-way communication device.  
3. Don’t Sell. Inform and engage your followers with useful information about your product or service, answer their questions, fill a need, but don’t just sell. After all. you don’t like it when people do it to you.
4. Interact. Find people or groups in your area that are getting together, or having Tweet-ups, and attend them and introduce yourself. Ask questions, explain what you do, network, but don’t forget tip #3.
5. Repeat Yourself. There is a fine line here, you can definitely do this too much. But Twitter is like a river, constantly moving. You can’t expect all of your followers will see every tweet you post. Tweets have a very short shelf life. They get buried quickly. Don’t be afraid to re-tweet your own messages, just remember not to go overboard.
6. Copy Others. I don’t mean I want you to infringe on anyone’s copyright. No, I mean find someone in a related or altogether different industry that you think is doing a nice job and use some of their ideas to fit your product or brand.
7. Be a Giver. Take a genuine interest in helping others in ways big and small. Retweet interesting things, promote something a friend is doing, or promote the friend in general. Whatever cliche you want to use for this: karma, paying it forward, etc., take some of your time to do something good for other people.
8. Use a desktop client.  I use Hootsuite, but TweetDeck is also popular, and there are others out there. Try a couple and find one you like. The point is that these programs extend Twitter’s functionality exponetially. You can group your followers, run searches, see all your replies and direct messages in different columns…the list of benefits goes on and on.  Try one and see what I mean.
9. Don’t Lose Track of Time. Twitter is fun, and interesting, and it can be very easy to spend all of your time there. Don’t let it take over your day, because after all…
10. Twitter is only one arrow in your quiver. Twitter is just one more way to market yourself, there are lots of others: LinkedIn, your own website, a blog, or a Facebook page. Make sure that the others are up to date and ready to go, too.

Also remember this: Experiment, refine your efforts constantly, and don’t be afraid to keep trying new things.

Good luck to you.

Let me know how it’s going for you.