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James McBrearty (‘The Twittering Tax Man’), Managing Director of taxhelp.uk.com, talks about Twitter and its application in a tax context.

What is Twitter?

A way of connecting with people easily, both existing friends and new contacts, by the sharing of short 140 character messages.

One advantage of Twitter is that you are limited to the size of a standard text message, which means that it is quick to use as you do not have to spend large amounts of time composing articles.

Another key advantage of Twitter is that you can include links to other web locations and articles within the message, rather than try to condense what you are saying into a short message.

Quite often I will see a blog or article on the web that is of interest to people and I will send out a short message saying why I like it and providing the link so that people can access it directly.

With the 140 character limit there are many services that can shorten links into a few characters so that you are not using up the whole message with the web address.

Why Bother?

Dell Computer has made over $3 million from Twitter.

It is a quick and easy way to make connections with people and also to share information.

Many websites now have a share button, such as at the bottom of my homepage taxhelp.uk.com – by including these on your website people are able to share your site very easily with a couple of mouse clicks rather than having to copy the web address and then paste it into an email, for example.

By creating content online, that has value to people following you, you are creating greater interest in what you do and from that, you will find that hits on your website will increase over time.

You do have to ensure that you are providing information that is of interest and not just a different version of spam where you constantly just try to get people to look at your site and don’t engage in conversations.

Language

You will hear various terms mentioned to do with Twitter; the main ones are below and fairly simple to understand.

• ‘Tweet’ – this is like talking in open networking, it goes to all your friends and the web
• ‘ReTweet’ (RT) – telling your friends (and the web) something you heard from someone else
• ‘Direct Message’ (DM) – talking to someone in private

Note that Tweets and ReTweets are shared with the web and that they can be found by anyone who happens to be using a search term that is contained within your message. This is also a powerful way to use Twitter as you can search for key words that are of interest to you and then connect with people using them.

As Twitter search is real time you will get answers most closely related to what you are looking for. Whereas a web search may bring up articles and comments from months or years ago, a Twitter search will bring up what people are talking about now which may only be minutes old.

First Steps

Here are the simple steps to get started with an account on Twitter:

1. Go to Twitter.com and register for an account
2. Search for people that you know and connect with them
3. See whom they follow and if they are relevant then follow them too
4. Set up access on your mobile device – iPhones and Blackberries are particularly easy with good apps
5. Download Tweetdeck on your computer – it makes managing your account much easier
6. Regularly update – at least once a day. I tend to update at least 5-10 times a day.

The last point is very important, so many people say ‘I’m on Twitter’ or ‘I have a Twitter account’ but unless you are updating at least once a day on average you don’t actually have an effective account. When potential followers look at your Twitter page they will look to see the last time you updated to see if you are someone worth following. If you haven’t updated for several months then they are unlikely to want to follow you.

How to Use Twitter Effectively

For me I follow a process described by Penny Power, the founder of Ecademy.com, which is:

“Know me > Like me > Follow me”

You have to generate content for people on the first hand to have a chance to know you, which is your visibility. Creating content regularly will mean there is a greater chance of people reaching this stage.

From then the process is whether they will like you, or be interested in what you are saying. If you just keep repeating the same message as a type of spam then people are unlikely to, however if you are generating useful content and linking to useful information then they may do.

The final stage is whether they will follow you, or in other terms whether they will be willing to do business with you. This is the last stage of the process and can’t be rushed – you have to go through the other stages before you reach the stage of doing business.

As to what I Tweet about, I generally use the below mixture:

• 25% Business
• 25% Social
• 50% Connection

However, I don’t have a rigid set of rules that says I only Tweet in these proportions – it is me posting the messages on the account so I will respond as I see fit. It is very much up to the individual as to how they use Twitter, this is a guideline but there are no set rules apart from (not) spamming.

Next Steps

I highly recommend Nick Tadd, socialmediagraffiti.com, and his social media courses – where I’ve picked up most of my knowledge about Social Networking.