The Downtown Boston Business Improvement District is the definitive resource for everything going on in the downtown area – news, events, food, shopping. and much more. They’re always on top of what’s going down, and found their way into our social media hearts with unconditional love for and promotion of local businesses (which is why we included them in our Twitter Guide under Neighborhoods). @DTownBostonBID’s communications and social media manager David Ertischek shares what he’s learned while manning the account:
1. Add personality to your tweets. You don’t want to come off as a robot to people. Even a simple response like, “Awesome!” or “Cool!” or favoriting someone’s tweet is helpful and lets people know that there is a person behind the Twitter account.
2. When looking to follow people, organizations, et al, I often go to the account and scroll through the tweets to see if the person provides information that would help the Downtown Boston Business Improvement District’s Twitter followers, or help me do my job better. My job and mission is to promote the Downtown Boston BID and all the great things happening in Downtown Boston, so I keep that in mind. It all depends upon what you want from your Twitter account. Is it a personal account? Is it for a non-profit such as the Downtown Boston BID? Is it a for-profit company? Keep your mission in front of you and always in your mind when tweeting.
3. Use the Twitter search function, because it works quite well! Search hashtags that you see to note if they are being used by other people and businesses. I searched a popular hashtag for a big business and there were four total tweets for the hashtag. If a big company isn’t even bothering to push their own social media hashtags then you shouldn’t bother with it either.
4. Engage with people! Be engaging by asking questions to Twitter handles you feel are interested in the topic you’re tweeting about. Don’t go negative. When engaging, try not to use your full character limit, because you want to provide them an opportunity to respond. You can also fire off several tweets asking the same question/comment to different handles, so don’t feel like you need to say everything in one tweet.
5. If you can, try to physically meet with people who you often tweet with if you don’t know them already. Putting a face to a name or Twitter handle encourages people to share your tweets, content, etc.
