[ibimage==35782==Large==none==self==ibimage_align-center]5 Ways to Tweet for Local Relevance

1. Craft your bio:

It's important to have a bio that acts as an attention-getting element while also performing the functional role of including keywords and important hashtags.

As far as how one can garner attention in one's bio, there is a plethora of good writing amidst the interwebs on that very topic. My favorite is an article in Buffer by bona fide social media guru Neil Patel. The long of the short of it is be pithy (by necessity: there are only 160 characters one is limited to), be funny, be genuine.

The tricky part from a self-promo standpoint is to include an accurate professional description, along with a link (or links) to any biz-related sites and/or other business Twitter accounts one has.

2. Use tools to identify local influencers:

This is crucially important. If one is selling a book, there is no material difference between Boise, Idaho and Orlando, Florida. I mean, if one is going to an Amazon author page and clicking on your book, the first location is effectively no different than the second. However, if you are trying to acquire more patients for your dental practice in Denver, Colorado, then the Yipsilanti, Michigan based dude who follows you is of little or no discernable value. This is a sticky wicket. One simply has to pursue local influencers and local followers to make a Twitter account relevant for a local service/business. The tool I'd most highly recommend is Right Relevance. It has a great feature where in one can identify articles, influencers and conversations that are happening on Twitter delineated by topical keywords/keyphrases:

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Take note of the green circles (I guess they're ovals, actually): the first shows how each topic of interest to you is saveable, and requires only a click to access all the elements named above (i.e. articles, influencers and conversations). Secondly, I've circled one of my most important topics. The fact that I am able to use this feature to identify articles to share, people to follow and key conversations saves time and energy wading through twitter merely using the far blunter instrument of hashtag searches.

3. Engage by being helpful:

Be willing to retweet, be willing to give pointers. Be genuine and remember that is a human being on the other end of that tweet and/or direct message. Ask if there is something that other person needs to have retweeted, or if they have a page to be "liked" on Facebook.

4. Retweet:

Try to be selective. Try to find the sweet spot as far as being as active as possible without being annoying. The threshold for Twitter tends to be significantly higher than on Facebook. There is plenty of room for argument for different approaches. There seems not to be a cut and dried rule, and in some ways more is more. To wit:

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5. Tweet:

This stage of the game holds last place intentionally. Often one's own tweets take a back seat to retweeting others, especially in the early stages of building an effective account. The rationale is twofold: (1) it is the strategic, building relationships with others, and (2) no one wants to be sold to. Make sure most of your tweets are just fun, funny, interesting things that you'd be likely to click on if it came across your newsfeed.

Above all, and overall, use your human, social instincts to govern how you behave. Build engagement and relationships with others through genuineness and helpfulness.