Have you Launched your business on Twitter but are not sure what to Tweet?

It’s easy to open an account, but less easy to know what to tweet. Should you tweet promotions, funny stuff, company news? What works on Twitter?

Read on to get top tips about the type of content that will reach your customers and prospects.

If you haven’t launched, then do check out this blog post on How to Launch Your Business on Twitter.

Mix up your content categories

Don’t sell, sell, sell with every tweet. If you do, you’ll quickly lose followers or get zero engagement. Trust me, look at any company that is just selling only on Twitter, I bet they have 0 likes and 0 reshares. 

Instead, try a balance of

  • Promotional (e.g. product launches, promotional offers, service offers)
  • Brand awareness (e.g. explaining what you do and your value proposition, customer testimonials, case studies, your podcasts, blog posts, white papers)
  • Educational / Infotaiment (e.g. offering tips and tricks related to your business). This should be the majority of your content.
  • Thought leadership (e.g. your opinion about what’s going on in your industry),
  • Fun (e.g. content that is relevant to your customers – not in-jokes!)
  • Retweets (e.g. retweeting tweets from other people in your industry, or relevant articles that will be of use to your customers)

Make the majority of your tweets – infotainment or educational of some kind. Show your community that you are a valuable contributor to the Twittersphere and the conversations in your industry.

Twitter content Ideas for businesses

  1. Tweet what’s happening now
  2. Tweet short text-only statements
  3. Ask your customers questions
  4. Tweet about trending topics
  5. Tweet pictures or video of you or your team at work on on a project
  6. Take your audience behind the scenes
  7. Show work in progress videos
  8. Use Tweet Threads
  9. Share tips
  10. Run a poll
  11. Use @Mentions
  12. Try thoughtful and relevant retweets
  13. Promote your core content – blogs, podcast, videos
  14. Share GIFs
  15. Create a buzz with a countdown series
  16. Pin tweets

1. Tweet what’s happening right now

Twitter is great for sharing what is happening to you right now and commenting on what is trending right now.

Share unique content made for Twitter that is ‘of the moment’ and share what’s happening in your business.

Or you could jump on and tweet about a national day like #nationalballoonday. Or check out a trending topic that’s related to you. Twitter displays them by region on the right side of your screen.

2. Tweet short text-only statements

Simple text tweets do just as well as multimedia laden ones. Comedians are great at the one-liners.

This tweet was after Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram went down across the globe for 14 hours! Just one line had 111.5k replies.

3. Ask your customers questions

On my gardening account I sometimes just empty my brain of my gardening questions to my community, like ‘what plants would you take if you had to move?’

These tweets have done better than anything I’ve shared or promoted because they are engaging. 

Don’t be afraid to write about what’s trending in the news if it’s related to you and newsjack. Big events like the Superbowl always get a lot of tweeting action and reflected engagement. Like Oreo tweeting about the power outage at the 2013 Superbowl.

Tweet what your customers, community or industry talking about

Meriam Webster – the dictionary did this very well after the Capitol riots and impeachment of Trump.

The absolute KING of this is Burger King. Any mention and I mean ANY mention of the word burger and the King is on it, quipping and retweeting and digging on the tweeter. They are also very good at newsjacking – which simply means jumping on any trending hashtags or news content for their own brand.

This was posted around the time Trump had his Twitter account suspended.

5. Tweet pictures or video of you or your team at work on on a project

Why not share images from a project meeting, away day, or just day to day life – working hard – in the office.

Showcase your professionalism, attention to detail or new products being developed.

6. Take your audience behind the scenes

I love behind the scenes. It doesn’t matter what it is. I want to see inside that CNC precision engineering machine carve some metal, I want to see what a bunch of accountants are having with their cup of tea. I don’t see that very often.

Your back office is infotainment. You may think that just cutting fabric, fabricating boxes, mixing batter – IT IS FASCINATING TO OTHER PEOPLE.

Just turn your camera on and start shooting.  A short video around your workspace, factory, or office will let followers know more about you and your business, without the typical promotional graphic.

7. Show work in progress videos

This is a great way to take your audience behind the scenes.

8. Tell stories using Twitter Threads

If you want to tell a longer story, instead of posting separate tweets, you can use a cool feature called a Twitter thread to link the tweets together. That way you can neatly weave together short tweets to tell a LONGER story. To do this when you start to write a tweet on your phone, swipe down and you will see the option to add to thread.

Innocent is great at maintaining a narrative thread to its tweets. When launching its dairy-free product range, it released a series of tweets between the makers and their innocent boss who is apparently incapable of marketing. They also pinned the main tweet (that means the tweet always remains at the top of your profile and doesn’t disappear down the timeline)

Southwest Airlines told a beautiful story about a mom who wanted to get a puppy for her kids for Christmas. Her sister finds one but he was 9,000 miles away!!! The story is told in a thread.

9. Share tips for your customer

Sharing tips is a great way to build trust.

Plus, if you are providing value, people will want to share that with their friends.

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10. Run a poll

Polls are a great way to build interaction and find out more about your clients and customers. 

Why not see what your followers think about a new product design? Get them to pick which one they like better.

11. Use @ mentions

If you want to mention another person or business that is on Twitter then you need to find their Twitter username which is prefaced by an “@” sign. 

Mentioning other Twitter users is a way to increase your exposure, as they will be notified when they are tagged.

Why not post a progress update of your work and tag the client.

Tweets like this automatically say – hey client – share this update with your followers.

When it’s finished share a link to your full written-up case study on your website.

Even better, share a customer video testimonial, customer quotes, or even – a bad review – and show how you’re addressing it

12. Tweet thoughtful and relevant retweets

When you retweet, try and add your perspective or thoughts on the content. It’s easy to tap retweet, but much easier to give followers your opinion. 

13. Promote your core content – blogs, podcasts, videos

Share quotes or extracts of your blog post like @brainpickings.

14. Share GIFs

A GIF can say a hundred words, which is good when you only have 280 to play with. GIFs can add an extra dimension to your text so use OFTEN!

15. Create buzz with a countdown series

Twitter is great for events, building a buzz, and having a countdown. Wendys is great at doing this and uses multimedia tweets from teaser videos, polls, and gifs to build up a frenzy on their Twitter account.

16. Pin tweets

Use the “Pin” function to pin your most relevant tweets or those with a call to action.

Just remember to check that your content is relevant and to update your pinned tweets.

Are you ready to start tweeting?

Hopefully, that’s got you started on Twitter. If you are still stuck for ideas, Twitter’s business section has loads of good tips and inspiration to make you a Twitter expert.

Now go out there and start chatting with your customers.

What’s the worst that can happen? Er…you say the wrong thing, it goes viral and you end up in the middle of a Twitter storm. No. Just be sensitive to your audience.

If you need help launching your business on Twitter and need a custom header or template or if you just need some help planning a Twitter content schedule for your business just get in touch.