Twitter is designed for text message blasting and like Facebook is a free social networking website! Messages sent out through Twitter are called "Tweets" (both are forms of communication between birds) which are brief 140-character messages that are displayed in chronological order on your follower's profile pages and they can automatically have tweets forwarded to their cellphones. Due to most cell phone providers capping the text message character limits of cell phones at 160-characters, the guys at Twitter decided to limit tweeting to a 140-character message and an additional 20-characters to add the sender's username to identify the source of the message.
Understanding Twitter is about as easy as understanding how, when and what you should be sending your potential customers.
How:
How to send from and manage your Twitter account is very important and there are many 3rd party programs available to help you do this. These outside programs typically include advanced organization features, which can allow you to categorize your followers into as many different groups as you would like. Other programs can automatically track what people are saying about your dealership and some programs will even scan Twitter to find potential people you should reach out to based on advanced search criteria.
When:
When to send a Tweet is very important as your followers are receiving Tweets from sometimes hundreds of other people over the course of a day. Because not all Twitter users have Tweets forwarded to their cell phones, if not timed correctly your tweet will be pushed off of your follower's home page before it is even seen. A good way to gauge the best Twitter time for your dealership is to review your website's daily visitor traffic statistics (Google Analytics or other website tracking software) to determine your busiest internet traffic time of the day. This will tell you between which hours your potential customers are typically online with free time to maximize your chances for exposure.
What:
Tweets can be about practically anything. It's ok to tweet about a sale you are having or a service special but be careful to not only tweet about this. Try tweeting a link to an interesting RV story or informative website. Send tweets to introduce new staff members or maybe ask people opinions on a product. You only get 140-characters so be direct and to the point. If you have long story, put it on your website and tweet a link to it. There are many free websites that specialize in shortening URL links so that you will waste less space providing a link.
Now that you have an idea about how, when and what to tweet to your potential customers, be sure to integrate your Twitter presence with your dealership website and Facebook account. There are many widgets available that can automatically display your most recent tweets on your website and allow other people to forward your tweets onto their friends with the click of a button.
Remember, "Don't be Unsociable" and be sure to check back next week, as I will be covering the advantages of the business professional networking website LinkedIn.
