Benefits and tips for using Twitter for your business or yourself

You are one of two people: you either don’t get Twitter, or it’s the social media platform where you spend most of your time.

I’m in the second category. I found my tribe on Twitter. There are several people on Twitter who led me to join closed Facebook groups.

I celebrated my 30th birthday yesterday on 19 June 2017. One of my friends, Megan, send me this birthday wish via a tweet.

The best and biggest of blessings and love to the ever humble, stunning and sweetie pie @melissa_nel . To think #Twitter gifted you to me😘😍🎂

— megan du plessis (@shakeface) June 19, 2017

Megan du Plessis and I met on Twitter a few years ago.

Before I get into my relationship with bestie, Megan, I’d like to share some benefits of being a social butterfly on Twitter. Well, I’m not really a social butterfly, but a few months ago I intentionally started doing brand marketing on Twitter. I did this because:

1. I want the world to see the content I create.
2. I needed to get more followers on Twitter
3. I just didn’t get Twitter.

The benefits of Twitter I have learned include making friends, earning trust, making money and getting brand awareness.

BACKGROUND OF HOW WE MET
I was the junior news editor for The Cape Flats Flats in Bonteheuwel in 2011. While in this job, I created the newspaper’s online presence through Facebook and Twitter.

I didn’t know much, but I tried to post things daily on these social media platforms. I’d tweet about events happening in and around the Cape Flats. I tweeted about people I met during a job or shared stories I had done. The Cape Flats News’ mission was to highlight the good news of the people living on the Cape Flats in the Western Cape.

Megan is originally from Mitchell’s Plain on the Cape Flats. She worked outside the South African borders at a mine as an engineer when we met online. She would then whenever she had visited home (her parents in the Plain), also meet up with friends like me.

One of the events we went to was a cookie share in Cape Town somewhere. This is the one major thing we have in common: the love for good food and we prefer people cooking for us.

Each participant (guest) of the cookie share had to bring a bowl of cookies, whether sweet or savoury. For me and Megan, it was food heaven. I enjoyed tasting so many different people’s baking.

The time when I worked at the Cape Flats News, people like Megan enjoyed reading about things we as the news team shared. They loved hearing about things going on in the areas where they grew up. I even had people from as far as New Zealand contacting me to say “hi” and “thank you for this”.

MOVING ON
A few years later, I worked in Port Elizabeth. We would then do live tweets at news events we had covered. I would also tweet before or after I had done an interview. This was to entice our readers. The newspaper I worked for, Die Son, would then retweet it.

I live in Johannesburg now and I still sometimes do that.

Meanwhile, I met other people via Twitter. I also became known in Twitter chat groups like #JobAdviceSA, SABizChat and #WeTalkBiz. This is where my tribe hangs out.

EARNING TRUST, MAKING MONEY
Through Twitter I do networking. Sometimes I find stories for work on Twitter and sometimes I look for people on Twitter. Once I find them, I direct message (DM) these people to let them know I would like to interview them for a story.

Through this social media platform I got to empower myself with knowledge. For instance, sometimes the #WeTalkBiz chat would have an expert as a guest who will talk to us about a topic like “Doing public relations for your business” or “Tips on doing content marketing”.

The Twitter chats helps you get to know people who have similar interests as you. This works especially if you become a regular to these chats.

It is through Twitter that I helped a guy to get on a television show to talk about this project he is working on.

I also met mentors through Twitter and I am forever grateful for them. It’s amazing how easy it is to gain insight from somebody by just using social media.

Recently, one of my Twitter buddies referred me for a Writer job. It was a once off gig and a great experience.

PROMOTING CONTENT & MY BRAND
If you have your own business or you’re busy building your brand, the question on your mind is probably “how did you grow your followers on Twitter?” Well, I do not have a lot of followers on Twitter. I have about 2100 followers at the moment.

I learned to write and publish content that is shareable. Here are some blog posts I shared on Twitter:

Entrepreneur: “Some days I want to cry & some days my heart is so full of happiness, it could burst.” #WeTalkBiz https://t.co/f1eidw05QD

— Melissa Javan (@melissa_nel) May 30, 2017

“I was going to entrepreneur like no one else entrepreneured before. Boy was I wrong!” #MondayMotivation @KaLo2511 https://t.co/MYHniJ0p9c

— Melissa Javan (@melissa_nel) May 29, 2017

Related blog post: How to start blogging for business or yourself

I learned to take out quotes from my stories. These quotes pull the readers in emotionally. For instance, entrepreneurs with startups identified with this quote: “Some days I want to cry and some days my heart was so full of happiness, it could burst!”

Here’s one of my own quotes I used to promote a blog post on Twitter (the image is created on Canva):

Those who are bookworms or aspiring authors enjoyed seeing a quote about the Durban author who told about her struggle to get her book published.

Durban author about hustling to get her book published: “You must pick yourself up and persevere. Keep at it.” https://t.co/fFADRWgUFe

— Melissa Javan (@melissa_nel) February 6, 2017

I even went as far as using the free tool, Canva to create a social media poster that has a quote of one of my own experiences in it.

What do you think? How do you find Twitter? Let me know if any of the above is helpful to you. Thank you for reading!