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Richard: For this week's podcastsinenglish.com business podcast, we're talking about Twitter because it's actually a very useful business tool. So Jackie, what top Twitter tips do you have?
Jackie: Well I have three, Richard, and they're all interconnected really.
Richard: Okay
Jackie: The first one is to find the right followers. A lot of people, you know, they use Twitter socially, don't they? And they like to have hundreds, thousands of people following them but in the business world, quality outweighs quantity. It's best to follow and be followed by interesting, influential and useful people.
Richard: Useful for your business.
Jackie: Yes. Yes exactly.
Richard: So how do you get the right followers?
Jackie: Yes, that's a good point, Richard. On... on Twitter search for your business name and the keywords related to your field of work. And then when you see the same names um... and faces turning up a lot for these results, you know that um... these are the people that you should follow and with luck they'll follow you too.
Richard: Now you mention keywords, Jackie.
Jackie: Yes, that's the second point. Now you find the keywords that we need for our website. How do you do that?
Richard: Well, you should know in your business what are the keywords, I mean for us it's English language, English teaching, those sorts of things.
Jackie: But if you don't know how would you find out?
Richard: Well, one useful tool you can use is the Google Keyword Tool.
Jackie: Is that like Google Analytics?
Richard: Yes. It's all wrapped up, it's very similar. And if you go onto that site it gives a lot of help in determining what your keywords are.
Jackie: By putting in the name of your website.
Richard: Exactly
Jackie: Right, okay so they'll do that for you. So once you have these keywords, you go back to your Twitter account, you put a search in for these keywords and then Twitter will identify conversations people are having about these selected keywords and these are the most appropriate people you want to communicate with.
Richard: Fantastic
Jackie: Related to that is the third point, which is to research and identify your hashtags.
Richard: Hmmm
Jackie: You know the hashtag is that funny little symbol, isn't it?
Richard: Yes
Jackie: Okay. Probably underused a lot by people in the business world because they're not quite sure what that's all about that but basically a hashtag followed by a phrase or a word means it's a topic that is being followed by a lot of people. If you join a topic, a hashtag topic, then also you're going to connect with users who have similar interests.
Richard: So the hashtags will all be linked to your business and therefore the people that you want to connect to.
Jackie: Exactly. Um... and to create a... a hashtag you simply put that little symbol in front of a word. So then when you write your next Tweet, and you put the hashtag, everybody who is interested in that topic who is also using that hashtag, they will all see your Tweet, and of course remember Richard, that the Tweets that you make are public, they're not private. So another way of connecting with all the people who are relevant to your business.
Richard: But remember only put two hashtags per Tweet.
Jackie: Don't put too many, it becomes very difficult to read.
Richard: And obviously, it's got to be within your 140 words.
Jackie: 140 characters.
Richard: Characters, yes.
Jackie: Mustn't forget that. Yeah. Keep it simple um... and er... yeah, Twitter, have a go.
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