Many businesses use Twitter as a marketing tool because they get value out of the time they spend tweeting. But there are still many people who do not understand how Twitter can be of value for their business.

It’s not easy to see the value Twitter can bring because success involves Twitter tactics corresponding to specific business goals within a more comprehensive social media marketing plan. And you may not have the same business goals for Twitter and your other social media marketing.

It is important to understand how your Tweet Plan works with other social media marketing tactics. Twitter provides extra value to your other social media platforms and overall social media marketing strategy. The lead player in your social media mix will depend on your business and your audience.

With this in mind, you still probably want to take a closer at what Twitter can do for your business. But again we run into a road block. In order for you to find out how your business can use any social media platform, and Twitter in particular, you need to spend time participating in it.

Don’t despair, though.  Read carefully through the 3 Twitter tactics below. These 3 Twitter tactics are all you need to learn to find out how to use Twitter effectively for your business. These 3 tactics also provide a good basic framework of an effective Tweet Plan for most businesses.

Here are 3 ways for businesses to tweet, why they are important and what goals they accomplish within a social media marketing plan.

Twitter Tactic 1 – Engage With People

Instead of thinking in terms of B2C and B2B environments, you need to think of social media as a P2P environment. A person representing your company engages with people on Twitter. This is how all social media platforms work and Twitter is the most personal environment of them all.

It is natural for businesses to hesitate engaging in this P2P world, but the trend has been going on long enough now. There are more and more case studies of businesses successfully using Twitter as they figure out how to use it to apply their business goals and within a social media marketing plan.

Business Objective: One of the main reasons why businesses tweet is to connect with people. People from many different backgrounds.  You can connect with just as many different types of people on Twitter as you have in your business network. As you engage with people on Twitter you will find the best group of people to connect with on this particular social media platform. You can use Twitter to connect with:

• Prospects to create awareness
• Clients to offer customer support services
• Possible joint venture candidates
• International business networks

On Twitter you can create a more personal connection to make it easier to build these relationships. Another important advantage is the real time connection, but this is also a challenge – read the next tactic for more.

Problem: The problem is in the numbers. Followers do not have any real value without a real connection. This is the reason why most businesses hesitate to engage in social media and Twitter in particular. And they are right. Twitter can only help you increase your business if you bring people back into your business world. Success lies in having the talent to find the best way to do this.

Solution: Focus on implementing a plan to connect outside of Twitter. It is easy to get caught up with Twitter tools, etiquette and personal preferences in what to say and how to say it. These are important. But you can waste energy here. You will always find your best answers in how to communicate on Twitter if you concentrate on finding the best ways of taking these conversations outside of Twitter. This is what creates real relationships of value to all businesses.

Unfortunately this usually requires some Twitter and social media skills and experience. You need to spend some time engaging with people on Twitter before you find the most engaging ways to get people to connect with you outside of Twitter.

So, how can you increase your power of engagement?

Twitter Tactic 2 – Share Useful Information

People follow your tweets and click through the links you put in your tweets when they are interested in the same topic and find them useful or interesting. They will get bored of your tweets if you only tweet about you and what you sell. In fact, they are much more interested in information useful to them right now.

Business Objective: When sharing useful information you need to first establish the topics of interest to your Twitter followers at some intersection between:

• Your specific expertise
• What you offer
• What your audience wants to find on Twitter and in the form they want to get it
• When your audience is available to read it on Twitter

This requires simple monitoring practices and a little time.

Remember, your goal is to connect with people who share your interests. And you also want to become the source of information. It is easier to do this by providing links to useful information from all over the web and not just back to your own website. If your company decides to only link to in-house content, you will need lots of interesting content, and some good incentives to click through.

Problem: There is one big drawback on Twitter. Twitter is real time search, which is great for immediate feedback from your audience. But this also means that Google has a hard time delivering precise information from Twitter. Your tweets have a very short life span. The time you spend creating content can be lost if you do not repurpose and publish this content elsewhere.

Solution: Once you have established what type of useful content to share and engage with on Twitter. Make sure you get good value out of the time you invest in creating this content. Some businesses use Twitter with outside promotion activities to generate immediate sales. This is great, but not all businesses can do this over and over again.

So, when you create your tweets of useful information, remember to repurpose this information on at least one other social media platform which provides a longer return on your investment and where you, your audience and Google can find it easily. The 3 most logical options are on:

• Your blog
• A Posterous page redirected to a domain you own
• Your Facebook Fan Page

Use your useful content tweets to build resources elsewhere on social media platforms so everyone can find them easily. Your time spent on Twitter will then continue to provide value for your audience and engage with them in a variety of different places.

But do not stop there… there is something else you should be sharing.

Twitter Tactic 3 – Share Your Expertise

This is a hard one. It can seem to go against good business sense. But the companies that “get it” get more business, even if they are not as good at what they do as you are.

This is because people come online to find solutions for their problems. After all this is the basic function of Google search. The more content you have out there providing solutions, or partial solutions, for other people’s problems, the more visibility you’ll have. That’s part of the reason why you should share your expertise online.

On Twitter it also establishes you as the person to connect with on your area of expertise.

Business Objective: When you share your expertise, you stay focused on your areas of expertise which means you get better business results out of your time tweeting.  Your Twitter feed is has a business focus.  Yours.  And this also helps to build your credibility.

Problem: This is the step most people forget to do. Part of the reason most people do not even try to share their expertise in tweets is because one of the first guidelines on Twitter is to avoid looking like spam. It is not easy to find the right balance in sharing your expertise without sounding like a sales pitch.

Solution: The best way to share your expertise in tweets is to create short evergreen tips based on your keywords. But you can also provide strategic evergreen links and other useful bits of information you want to be associated with.  This hints to the value you can provide and your keywords will also get your tweets to show up on the right Twitter searches.

A Successful Tweet Plan For Businesses

These 3 Twitter tactics work well together and can be used effectively by most businesses. They provide good Twitter tactics to address the business goals of:

• Engaging with your audience where communication is easy and in real time
• Becoming the “go to” source of information in your field
• Using Twitter for a business focus to increase visibility on social media

You can stick with these 3 tactics, or you can add in a different Twitter tactic or two and switch them around to match your business goals as they evolve. You will probably find yourself concentrating more on one particular Twitter tactic at a time. The main thing is to remember your business goals for your social media marketing plan while you tweet and to actively work on meeting those goals.

As you work on your Twitter goals remember how these fit into your overall social media marketing plan.

• Create opportunities to feed your Twitter content to other social media platforms where appropriate
• Spend a little extra time repurposing the content in your tweets to leave this on other social media platforms
• Share the content from other social media platforms on Twitter

This is how you create a fluid environment for your audience to connect with you and where Twitter adds extra value throughout all of your social media marketing.

Twitter is a great social media marketing tool for businesses reaching out to all North American audiences. It also merits serious research for any other English speaking audiences.  Although your success in different regions of the world will depend on many factors, do not underestimate the value of using Twitter for international business networking.

Want to learn about more Twitter tactics and how they may apply to your targeted business goals? Sign up for a brainstorming session for ideas on how you can use Twitter effectively for your business.