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Twitter's European communications manager has advised businesses to be authentic and experiment on social media in order to engage their customers.

Rachel Bremer told the organisers of the Social Media Results for PR and Comms Conference that organisations should inject some personality into their social media efforts while maintaining authenticity in order to enjoy profitable results.

"With social media, the communication between brands and consumers has evolved from broadcasting to conversation," she noted, adding that conversations are "much more enjoyable" when all the parties are being themselves.

Secondly, she advised businesses to not be fearful of experimenting on social media. Ms Bremer said companies may be surprised by which content marketing ends up taking off and getting a lot of social interaction such as retweets and favourites.

"It's not always what you would expect and you won't know what works unless you try different things," she added.

Being authentic on social media

Individuals and brands alike build their digital footprints every day. With every piece of content they publish, they are telling people – whether that be an inner circle on Google+, a big group of acquaintances on Facebook or the world at large on their blog – who they are and what they stand for.

The challenge for small businesses is to try to ensure everything published online by and about them accurately represents them. ContentPlus guest blogger Ian Pettigrew recently wrote in a post that this is actually not that hard. "Be 100 per cent truthful and real. Just be yourself, be authentic," he advised.

It is therefore also important for small businesses to ensure their employees understand and live the organisation's values. Ian wrote: "Being 95 per cent authentic isn’t enough. I believe that you will get found out on the 5 per cent and that will destroy trust in you."

Read the full post here.