The most useful features for your local business on Twitter are Lists and Hashtags. Why? Because they help you connect with people in your area. Try searching on Twitter for hashtags like #cleveland or #NYC and look at how many people pop up from those cities talking about what is happening in those cities. You can click thru on their names and see if they are located in your area, find new people to follow and show your support for them by re-tweeting interesting posts by these people. Drill down to specifics like #Cavs or #Browns or even #Buckeyes and you will find more people from your area talking about the latest and greatest rumors or score updates, again a great way to network with people you share a common passion with. You can make up your own Hash Tags or simply use common Hash Tags out there in the wild. Either way, start using them!
How should you be using Lists? Create a list for your local area, look thru your followers and add them to this List. Yeah this takes time and brings on Carpal Tunnel. Your List become really useful for filtering thru all of the noise and finding out what the people in your network are talking about quickly. If you are feeling aggressive you can add people you are only following to Lists as well and increase the odds of them following you back. You can make a List for whatever your niche is, you don’t have to limit them to location. As you look for followers, check Lists by relevant people and find Lists that work for you. Look thru the people they are following on the List and find new relevant people to follow. This is a great way to fish for followers in your very own niche specific local pond.
Oh yeah, check out the new location based topic trending, it is kind of interesting. Cleveland is not on the map yet, but it was interesting to look at a few cities and see what people are talking about there. Start playing with search, hashtags and lists on Twitter – You will find these to be very valuable tools in your social media utility belt.
