The power of social media like Twitter and Facebook can't be denied in today's world of online business. While promoting yourself on sites like Reddit or Facebook may be pretty straightforward, many people struggle to use Twitter effectively. The good news is that if you're using it the right way it can be a true branding and marketing powerhouse. Branding is all about making your company and your overall brand as well known as possible. The ultimate goal is to develop a sense of brand recognition and brand loyalty in the hearts and minds of your customers as well as the public at large. Twitter can be another powerful tool in your branding arsenal if used correctly.

1. Choosing the Right Twitter Handle

When you create a Twitter account for business you must choose a handle that is both easy to remember yet also encapsulates what your business is all about. This can be tricky at times due to Twitter's character limit but a basic strategy would be to simply use your company name. If you have room you can follow that with your first name as well in order to make it more personal. An example would be MicronAdam, if your company's name was Micron and your name was Adam. If you run a business that has multiple employees make sure that the twitter account they use for official company business includes your company name. If it simply has their own name no one will immediately recognize that they're tweeting on behalf of your company. This is especially important for marketing tweets.

2. Using a Custom Background

Your Twitter background on your profile page is fully customizable and you can upload pretty much any image you want so long as it falls within the Twitter community guidelines. Take this opportunity to show off your company logo, your company name and maybe even pics of your products/services. You want to create a strong visual impression on visitors who land on your twitter page and ensure that they recognize and remember your company. If you have employees ensure that their company Twitter profiles have the same background as the main profile for your company. This consistency will server to reinforce your brand in the mind of visitors and familiarity leads to greater brand loyalty in the long run.

3. The Power of Consistency

We just briefly mentioned how important it is to stay consistent with your profile backgrounds on twitter if you are setting this up for multiple people. Consistency should also be applied to other areas of your Twitter marketing efforts as well to further increase your brand recognition. Two great places to apply this is to your profile images and your file names. For the profile images you can take the simple rout and just use your company logo for your main account and all employee accounts. Alternately it can help to appear more personal so you may want to use real photos. If you do this keep it consistent by using similar lighting, positioning, and backgrounds. Hiring a professional photographer to take a few quick pics of you and your employees to do this isn't a bad idea if your company is large enough to justify it. As for file names just make sure that all files shared via your Twitter account have your company name in them. Doing this will not only quickly identify the file as being related to your company but will also remind people of your company when they come across your file on their computer.

Bonus Tip: Use a URL Shortener

Using a URL shortener like Bitly Pro is a great way to make your URL's more attractive and once again display your company name. This will also help when others retweet to share your links.

Sam is a blogger and contributing writer for the digital marketing agency Quick Sprout where he works alongside Neil Patel.