This is the second post in a series on how to succeed on Twitter.
Before you create a Twitter account for your company, there’s something you need to know: you must reply to tweets.
If it’s good or bad, reply
If someone mentions you in a tweet, reply to them.
If it’s positive, say thank you. If you’re a business owner, you probably don’t hear positive feedback much. When you do hear it, validate it. Reinforcing gratitude, recommendations, and championing will build loyalty in your customers.
If it’s negative, apologize and find out how you can make things better. Don’t justify your actions. Acknowledge the wrongdoing, take responsibility for it, and try to remedy it.
Respond quickly
Also, be sure to respond quickly. You don’t need to be on Twitter constantly—social media users expect some delay in responses—but not responding to a tweet for a week (or even never) is pointless at best.
Use Twitter for customer service
If your company prides itself on great customer service, make sure that flows into social media. Consumers view social media accounts as ways to engage with the companies they love. If you’d treat your customers with respect in person or over the phone, make sure you do on Twitter, too.
If you don’t care about customer service, don’t join Twitter. Bad customer service on social media has the potential to spread quickly. There are countless examples of companies who performed poorly online then had to deal with publicity nightmares.
Twitter’s a fantastic medium for generating publicity and spreading it widely, for good and bad.
If you can’t commit time and resources to engaging with people, don’t bother with Twitter. Don’t even set up an account. You need to interact with others.
There’s a reason it’s called social media.