Hey – welcome to Twitter!

We’re really pleased you’re here. 🙂

So, you’ve got yourself a new account set up, and you’ve posted your first tweets.

Now what?

We put together this quick guide to get you up and running in no time, and with absolutely no fluff or BS.

We’ve added a load of brilliant (and FREE!) guides for you to download and keep, too.

Getting Started:

1. Sort out your profile

Your profile has four components: your profile pic; cover photo; bio; and link.

Here’s how to make the most of them:

A. Your profile pic

I had a rant about this over on this blog post, but in short – show your face. People like faces.

B. Your cover photo

This is a great space to use for marketing stuff, so make the most of it. We use it to share our Facebook Messenger Code, for example. Share promotions, offers, or more information about your business. It can be a lot more valuable than just space for another image.

C. Your bio

You’ve got a short space to describe yourself, so be smart about it. Don’t waste valuable characters explaining what you do – instead, explain how your customers benefit. If you can add keywords relevant to your industry, even better.

D. Your link

Again, be smart about where this points. Sure, you can just point straight at your homepage. But if you can point it at a dedicated page for visitors from Twitter, even better.

2. Follow the RIGHT people

This one’s easy. Don’t follow your competitors. They’re not gonna buy anything from you, so don’t waste your time.

Don't follow your competitors. They're never going to buy from you. Click To Tweet

There are limits to the number of people you can follow – based on the number of people that are following you – so make yours count.

Write down some details about your potential customers – and follow them instead.

3. Plan your content

To avoid Twitter taking up ALL your time, it makes sense to plan what you’re going to post about and when.

Find a blank sheet of paper, and make a broad plan of the sorts of topics you’re going to cover each month, each week, or each day.

Grab this free content marketing calendar to get started.

4. Sign up for the right tools.

While the native Twitter app is great (and it really is – it never gets any credit. but it’s pretty awesome), there are loads of other tools out there that can make your life easier.

We put together this free guide about the Top 5 Tools we use when managing huge social media accounts. Grab it – it’s yours to download and keep.

We’re putting together a post on the best social media management and scheduling tools – pop your details below, and we’ll let you know when we post new content:

[av_mailchimp list=’71ee98164f’ on_send=” sent=’Thanks for signing up! We’ll let you know when we post new content! :)’ link=’manually,http://’ color=”] [av_mailchimp_field id=’0′ label=’Email Address’ type=’text’ value=” disabled=” check=’is_email’][/av_mailchimp_field] [av_mailchimp_field id=’1′ type=’text’ check=” options=” disabled=’aviaTBaviaTBdisabled’ label=’First Name’ width=”] [av_mailchimp_field id=’2′ type=’text’ check=” options=” disabled=’aviaTBaviaTBdisabled’ label=’Last Name’ width=”] [av_mailchimp_field id=’av-button’ type=’button’ check=” options=” label=’Tell me about new content!’ width=”] [/av_mailchimp]

5. Learn the best hashtags

Hashtags are the beating heart of content curation on Twitter.

They’re used to group together all the posts on a certain topic.

For example, do a Twitter search for #BBCQT every Thursday evening, and you’ll see a rolling (and often hilarious) feed of posts about BBC Question Time, as it broadcasts live on TV.

Similarly, #Etsy posts are more than likely to be about, well, Etsy.

There are hashtags for pretty much everything – including towns and cities, industries, products, and events happening in real-time.

Find ones that are relevant to your business, your product or service, and – most importantly – your customers.

Find hashtags that are relevant to your business, and - most importantly - your customers. Click To Tweet

6. Be disciplined with your time

Some social media “experts” will tell you that you need to be on Twitter all the time.

But, here’s the best advice when it comes to social media “experts”: ignore them. Ignore them all.

Welcome to Twitter – Here’s our Quick Start Guide Click To Tweet

At best, they’re misguided – at worst, they’re deliberately trying to make you feel stupid so they can sell their services to you.

The most important thing is to make sure that you’re making the best use of your time on Twitter. It can quite easily soak up huge swathes of your day if you let it.

So – be focused; plan what you want to achieve, and how you’re going to achieve it. Set aside some time each day to tackle your Twitter account.

7. Work on your messaging

You only get 160 characters per tweet (at the moment). Make the most of them with the following FREE download:

Plus, check out our sister article on how to craft the perfect marketing tweet: The Anatomy of the Perfect Marketing Tweet.

Don’t do this alone

We can help with all aspects of managing a business Twitter account: from training, to management, or a full digital marketing service.

Even better, we’re giving away FREE digital marketing workshop sessions – request yours NOW.

Spaces are limited, so click below to claim your spot.