Microblogging is a form of communications that uses a range of formats, such as text, photos, videos and audio clips, to quickly express ideas, thoughts and feelings in a very concise way. It is typically used on social media platforms, such as Twitter, and when compared to blogging, involves far less detail and is much faster to produce.
Although generally used in a personal and informal setting, microblogging has grown in popularity in the business world and is now utilised to raise awareness of a business’s services, products and any promotions it may have, as well as helping to engage potential customers. In fact, research suggests that businesses that use Twitter to talk to their customers are more likely to increase their online sales by as much as five times more.
But, before you start microblogging, understanding a few general guidelines and best practices is essential to ensuring maximum success.
Be Part of The Conversation
The success of microblogging lies in the conversation. It is important to start conversations, to interact with customers, to respond to their questions and to direct people to specific, relevant content. Doing this encourages customers to become involved and invested in your business and its services.
Length
When writing a post for microblogging, it is important to remember to keep it short and to the point. It is estimated that the ideal post should be around 100 to 115 characters in length, the equivalent of around three to four sentences.
Share Quality Content
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Microblogging is not just about promotional messages, sharing quality and relevant content with followers should be the aim. When generating a post to share with followers, it is important to consider the post’s purpose, who it is likely to resonate with, how interesting it is and, ask yourself, would you click on the post if you saw it?
Scheduling
Scheduling posts can help ensure you remain active on social media and it is possible to do this through various scheduling and planning tools. A key thing to remember is that you must remain active, otherwise followers will lose interest and people will stop engaging with you.
Engage Your Audience
Providing feedback and responding to followers shows them that their thoughts and opinions matter, which then helps to build relationships. Finding ways to create personalised relationships with customers can be done in many ways, such as hosting a competition, asking questions, joining in conversations with other relevant brands, as well as asking followers to post questions and getting them to use certain hashtags.
Be Patient
Microblogging is a great way to quickly get your message across, but it will take time to build up relationships and increase followers. Consistently providing followers with quality content and finding ways to create conversations with them will help to build relationships, over time.
As you can see, microblogging is a great tool for businesses to utilise in order to promote their services and engage potential customers. It is also important to remember to ensure posts are concise, quality content is shared, engagement is key and to be patient. If you follow these simple guidelines and maintain a conversational attitude, microblogging could open up a whole new world of business opportunities.