We’ve all heard about how Twitter and other social media platforms have proved to be excellent tools for business. Perhaps you’ve even created a Twitter account yourself – you might even be quite active in using it for the business. If so, then you would also have been exposed to the issue of personalization.

Good business communication with the public depends on many things, and one of them is showing the “human” face behind the business façade. On Twitter, one problem that may arise is if you have several employees maintaining one account. How would people know who is posting which message?

Luckily, the people at Twitter are trying to address this issue. They are currently trying out a feature wherein business accounts can have personalized notes which give an indication as to the identity of the person posting the tweets. Unfortunately, this is still NOT open to the public.

To get an idea of how it works, check out @Starbucks. You will see a small note at the bottom of the post telling you who created the message. You can then click on the Twitter name to go to the personal account of that employee.

So what is the point? Again, personalizing your business Twitter account will help you reach out to more people out there. After all, people would rather interact with a live person than some lifeless drone that they cannot connect with. At the end of the day, you want them to think of your business as human, and not some machine.

Less than a month, and it’s Christmas Day! During this time of the year, people look forward to lots of gifts and freebies. Why not take advantage of the prevailing spirit and promote your business as much as you can?

One way by which you can do this is to use your business Facebook or Twitter account (create one if you haven’t already!) to launch a contest. This is a great way to promote your business without costing you much. In fact, it could very well be a free thing for you as well.

Why hold a contest? As I said earlier, people love freebies, and contests give them an opportunity to get something without paying for it. The good result for you is that you gain more attention and, hopefully, new customers as well.

Here are some things to bear in mind when holding a contest.

One, make it easy. Contests are supposed to be fun. Do not make the participants jump through hoops just to qualify. Being a follower on Twitter or a fan of Facebook should be enough.

Two, make it worth their while. What’s in it for the participants? Make sure that they will want to join and win. A good idea is to provide a gift cheque for your product or service – it’s a win-win situation.

Three, get the word out. You can hold a contest but if you do not let people know about it, no one’s going to join. So more than announcing it once on Facebook or Twitter, be more aggressive about it. Use other means to promote the contest – your web site, for example. Also, make sure that the rules and stipulation are clear so as to avoid potential problems.

Photo via National Bingo Online