In this concise instructional video, Shaun Whynacht of Blue Cow Creative Design and Productions Limited shares five practical strategies for small and local businesses to leverage Twitter for promotion. He begins by explaining how to create effective hashtags—using the # symbol, avoiding spaces, and tailoring them to specific events or locales (e.g., #SmallBusinessNovaScotia). Next, he emphasizes the importance of “making friends” on Twitter: daily direct interactions, answering questions, and conversing with other businesses or community members to grow a supportive network. The third tip stresses variety and timing, advising businesses to post diverse content (sales pitches, personal introductions, directions) at different times to reach followers who may miss earlier tweets. The fourth recommendation encourages using visual‑focused platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest to share photos and attract attention, positioning these as “social media toys” that complement Twitter. Finally, he advises maintaining consistent brand identity—using the business logo as the avatar, keeping the bio, name, and links aligned with the brand, and explicitly naming the business in tweets. Shaun concludes with contact information (email and Twitter handle) for further social‑media assistance.
Chapters
Hey folks, my name is Shaun Whynacht with a company called Blue Cow Creative Design and Productions Limited. We do a lot of work in social media with our clients, and one of the key questions that comes up all the time is, how do I use Twitter to promote my business? So that's why we put together this presentation here for you today. It's, it's going to be quick, it's not going to take too much of your time, but we come up with the 5 ways to promote your business using Twitter. Now the first one is put a hashtag on it. Now what a hashtag is, it is a tagged subject matter. So they look like this. Basically it starts with, with a hashtag, so a hash sign, a pound sign, a number sign, whatever you want to call it, and then it is followed by the topic of choice. Now the topic cannot have any spaces in it. If for some reason you need to have a space, use an underscore for that. So if you're having a shoe sale, you could do #shoesale. In there, and this can show up throughout the entire sentence. So it could be, you know, come on down to the store, we got a great shoe sale, and before the shoe sale could be the hashtag sign. Now the key is that people will search through Twitter for different topics and different ideas, so make your topics very specific if you're looking to promote a specific local event or idea. So if it's, in our case, we are a small business in the province of Nova Scotia, so we could do a tip here when we post this video, and it could say #SmallBusinessNovaScotia or #NovaScotiaSmallBusiness, whatever, whatever we choose to help it get out there. So that's one way to promote yourself. Now the other thing is to make friends. Now this will be much easier on Twitter than it was in grade school, so trust me here, Twitter is your social space, and businesses sometimes forget that when they're promoting their brand, they need to take the time every day to interact with someone directly on Twitter. Now, respond to someone's question or throw out a question out there and see what you get back. Have a conversation with another local business or community member using Twitter. It can be a small talk or it can be planning to change the world. Whatever you want to talk about, the important thing is to engage others. Your Twitter community will grow and your opportunity to promote your business will grow along with it. Now, the next one is variety is key. The thing about Twitter is that it works in real time. Even though you have interested followers, they won't always be able to catch your tweets. That is why it's important to get your message out there in a variety of ways at different times throughout the day. Now, if you're promoting a store sale, there's so much more that you can say beyond, "Come on in and check out the sale." You could ask, "When was the last time you treated yourself to," and then mention one of the products on sale, or post directions to your location. How about this? Even introduce yourself or another staff member and invite people to come down and say hi and and check out the sale. So keeping things changing, keeping that variety there is key when promoting yourself with Twitter. Now enjoy the social media playground. I like this one. Now, you know, back in grade school again, you know, or elementary school, wherever you went, remember that social media is meant to be fun. So try playing with the social media toys available to you. Instagram is a great one for, for posting photos from your camera. Even the newest one out there called Pinterest. We have an article on that too. If you go to our website, you can find out more, but there are two of the latest obsessions that are participating in these, and if you're participating in these right now, it's a great way to grab people's interest. You can take advantage of the last thing that promotes your business. It's also a great opportunity to learn something new, have fun, and engage others and grow your brand. So people love pictures, people love to see that, so find some of the cool toys that are out there and promote it through Twitter. Now put yourself out there. This is one of the last ones we have there, and it comes back to your brand recognition. You should be taking advantage of every opportunity to promote your brand on Twitter. Make sure that your logo is featured on your Twitter image, AKA your avatar, and that your name, bio, and links are consistent with your brand and up to date. Use your business name whenever it makes sense to do so. For example, instead of saying, come on down to our store, say, come on down to your business name. So come on down to Blue Cow Creative, whatever it is. Make sure you use that business name and build that brand recognition and be active on Twitter. Is being personal, engaging, and excited about what you do. People will start to pay attention if you start enjoying the real value of Twitter. Like I said, my name is Shaun Whynacht from Blue Cow Creative Design and Productions Limited. If you have a question about any of your social media needs, send me an email at shaun@bluecowcreative.ca. If you're on Twitter, why don't you follow us at twitter.com/bluecowcreative.
