Twitter for Dummies - Laura Fitton [71]
Some find balancing your personal life and your professional life on Twitter tricky at first, but you can definitely do it. Give yourself time to discover what you’re comfortable doing. We don’t really know anyone who completely stops talking about work when out with friends — or vice versa — because work (whether we like it or not) is a big part of who we all are. Because Twitter is built for human communications, it can handle many facets of your life; you just have to find your own balance.
It’s all about balance
Balance is important on Twitter, as in life, if you want to connect with people in a genuine, mutually beneficial way. Twitter is a pretty “what you give is what you get” kind of a place. Your true voice is often the best bet, unless you’re really constrained for business reasons and need to rein it in. Accounts that are nothing but business (or worse, strictly business-promotional) all the time may have a pretty hard time growing much of an engaged base.
Want to be uber-personal all the time? There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it will influence the size and shape of your network. Don’t be offended if it’s not everybody’s cup of tea. Present yourself the way you feel most comfortable.
If you cover both business and personal stuff on your account but aren’t an official “for the business” twitterer, it can be good to go easy on how frequently you tweet about business-only stuff. We get asked for a specific ratio all the time, and it’s really hard to say. As car ads say, “Your mileage will vary.” Try a mix that’s comfortable to you and then just see whether you’re getting the results you hoped for. Also, please remember, the number of followers is much less important than the quality of the conversations. For long-term sustainable value, true engagement beats tonnage any day.
If you’re updating under your business handle (for us, it’s @dummies), followers probably expect that nearly all tweets from that account will relate to that business. After all, they’re following that account for business info! If you’re really inconsistent, off-topic, or overboard personally all the time, and violate your followers’ expectations too much, you may find your audience shrinking. Everyone needs to strike a balance, but most successful brand accounts stay relatively on topic. If you’re an individual twitterer, followers probably want to hear about you and how you’re going about your business. It’s a subtle difference but an important point to establish yourself as genuine, and not a selfish peddler of goods.
Your goal should be to permit your followers to get a good understanding of what your business offers and come to trust you as who you are. Make the bulk of the content that you add to Twitter about you and the value that you provide (as a person and through your work). Think of some updates as “give” and other updates as “take”: When you share or talk about things that are genuinely useful and helpful to customers, you’re providing something they want. That sets the stage for occasionally promoting the goods or services that you sell, because you’ve earned the trust and attention of your readers. Just remember that promotional tweets that aren’t framed from the perspective of your customer’s needs too often come across as a “take” because you’re asking for followers to buy what you’re selling.
Want to know if the balance you strike is effective? Re-read your tweets at the end of the day or the end of the week and keep an eye on replies, re-tweets, the numbers of people clicking links you share, and, yes, follower growth. If you feel that your update stream comes off as too sales-y, then back off on the selling and stick to providing value. Twitter’s about being a genuine individual. Over time, Twitter gives your followers a lot of information about you, who you are and what you represent. That builds trust, confidence, and interest