HOW RECENT TWITTER CHANGES CAN BENEFIT YOUR BUSINESS

These three new Twitter changes may provide you with more opportunities to engage with your customers.

Writer/Author/Publisher/Speaker, Garden Guides Press
APRIL 23, 2015Twitter recently revamped some features and policies that may help you improve your social media strategy. Those changes include the ability to direct message anyone, even without following one another, and the prohibition of any posts that promote violence.

 Here are some of the most sweeping recent Twitter changes that could affect how you use this social media platform to build business and beef up customer service, with tips for making the most of these changes.

Direct Message Anyone on Twitter

It used to be that you needed to follow Twitter users if you wanted to direct message them. That method may have proved cumbersome and confusing and discouraged communication in the past, notes Tyler Sminkey, social media specialist and account executive for Insider Media Management.

 It’s important to monitor your Twitter account and hop on engagement opportunities ASAP. Answer questions and react to comments and complaints within 20 minutes of the initial posting. If someone was in your store, you wouldn’t wait to answer a question. Virtual customer service is no different.

“Now you can direct message anyone on Twitter, and that’s good news for small-business owners,” Sminkey says. “This change will encourage a more open form of direct communication for small-business owners. Direct messaging also enables small-business owners to connect and communicate with customers without sharing that information with the public. For example, we often request to obtain contact information from customers if they felt they could have had a better experience.”

Though private direct messaging could provide benefits, for the sake of managing your company’s reputation in the face of complaints, it may be a good idea to do that managing on Twitter where everyone can see, suggests J.P. Hervis, president of Insider Media Management.

“In most cases, management of an upset client on Twitter is still best done in front of everyone so other followers can see you are reacting to a potential issue and care about making it right,” Hervis says. “Those conversations can get into heavy detail and fill up a feed, though, so many times there is a point where moving to direct messaging is ideal—especially when obtaining the client’s personal information for a ‘make-good.’”

Retweet With a Comment

Click the retweet icon when you spot a tweet you want to broadcast, and you’ll notice a new “add a comment” link. Also known as quote tweet, this feature can make retweeting easier and offers the potential to share your insights about a tweet in a more meaningful manner.

Prior to this change, you could either simply hit retweet, which essentially reposted the tweet for your followers, or if you wanted to make a comment, you had to do a manual retweet that required you to cram your information in with the original tweet, with a 140-character limit. Now the original tweet is embedded and your comment can be up to 116 characters.

The new feature encourages you to add your own insight and voice to the tweet, which can be ideal for increasing customer engagement. By personalizing the tweet, you can also help build your reputation as a thought leader on certain topics.

Ban on Tweets that Promote Violence

This new policy, suspending any users that promote violence against others, may create a less contentious Twitter landscape for conducting business.

And while you probably haven’t threatened anyone on Twitter, it can still be a good idea to protect your company’s reputation by reviewing your Twitter behavior protocol on a regular basis and making sure all employees abide by certain standards, Sminkey claims.

He suggests asking the following questions before tweeting:

  • Does this tweet fit your brand?
  • Is it appropriate for your audience and the date/time it will be sent?
  • Have you left any questions unanswered?
  • Does the tweet negatively affect a customer or another business? “The first thought when sharing something on social media should be that you aren’t harming anyone or saying something that could be thought of as mean or negative,” Sminkey says. “This is a public forum, and your posts can live forever online.”
  • Are you abiding by Twitter’s best practices? Have you used shortened links and/or hashtags and tagged other profiles appropriately?

“For many small-business customers, Twitter is the fastest and best form to ask simple questions,” Hervis says. “That being said, it’s important to monitor your Twitter account and hop on engagement opportunities ASAP. Answer questions and react to comments and complaints within 20 minutes of the initial posting. If someone was in your store, you wouldn’t wait to answer a question. Virtual customer service is no different.”

Read more articles about social media.

Photo: Getty Images

Julie Bawden-Davis

Julie Bawden-Davis is a bestselling journalist, blogger, speaker and novelist. Widely published, she has written 25 books and more than 4,000 articles for a wide variety of national and international publications. For many years, Julie was a columnist with the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Chronicle and Parade.com. In nonfiction, Julie specializes in home and garden, small business, personal finance, food, health and fitness, inspirational profiles and memoirs. She is founder and publisher of HealthyHouseplants.com and the YouTube channel Healthy Houseplants. Julie is also a prolific novelist who has penned two fiction series.