So you have been Twittering for a while now and you are starting to gain a good number of followers, the question now is.. what next?
I want to give you some tips that will help you succeed in Twitter, which are typically best practices that people successful in social media, live by.
Engage People
Start a conversation, and sometimes this is often best done by starting a question about an interesting subject. Answer other people’s questions especially if they are going to help them out, they would appreciate that greatly. Comment on other people’s tweets, but make sure it is also something helpful.
Don’t Just Sell
People hate marketers. We know that as fact. So if you start a conversation, or if the first message you send someone is an ad or a link to something you wish to promote… you are going to piss people off.
Retweet Messages
By retweeting you are passing off other people’s tweets to your followers, when you found that tweet useful. By retweeting you put that message and the author of that message in front of all your followers, giving that person more coverage and potentially more followers, as there is a chance that your followers who found that retweet useful will also follow that person.
Provide Value
Don’t simply put out crap and inconsequential messages, remember that you want to provide something that your followers appreciate and not regret following you and getting your updates. Unless of course all your followers are friends and family who don’t really care what it is you are mulling over. However if your Tweeting is for business, be selective of what you say.
I just spent the entire evening putting together a free Twitter guide for friends of mine who did not quite get Twitter. Hopefully this sheds some light into the nature of Twitter and well, I hope they find it helpful.
Today I also came across an article that talked about Twitter’s lack of user loyalty, indicated that a number of Twitter subscribers do not continue maintaining their accounts past the first month, and while there could be several reasons for it and I can only assume that is due to their being used to other social networking sites that are laden with so many features.. while Twitter simplifies things and focuses on one feature which is its being a microblogging platform.
So here is that guide, temporarily available through this link. The file is in zip format, you may need to unzip it first after downloading. The ebook is in pdf format.
In this post I will show you how to use Twitter in business, especially for those whose business has an online presence. You can use Twitter to get people to your website to promote your product or service, and I will put this in a Do’s and Don’ts format.
Do make it personal, networking is all about building a relationship with your market or audience.
If you represent a company or product don’t put a company logo or a picture of the product on your Twitter profile, YOU represent it by putting your face and your credentials on the profile… answering the “who you are” and “what you can do for your market” will help a visitor to your profile page decide whether they would FOLLOW your or not.
Do use a keyword in your profile name that you believe is a word that your audience is searching for to add to their network. For instance when people want to search for people to follow or add, they would click the add button on the right side of their page, then choose “find on twitter”, then type in a word or phrase that the results of which would yield people who have that keyword in their account names and One Line Bio. People would typically go through these selecting who to follow.
Don’t simply put your company name but if not too long, your company name together with the keyword, especially on your One Line Bio (inside profile settings). This One Line Bio is what appears on the list of results.
Do make regular posts or tweets that have keywords you believe your audience is looking for. People looking for information on Twitter use the Twitter engine to find posts by other people that have the keywords they are looking for. This is done by going to http://search.twitter.com/ and you can check what other people are tweeting about that relates to the topic you are interested in. Your tweets can be about your product or service, focus on content marketing. Provide people with helpful and useful information that they can use which is related or can tie in to the product or service you offer.
Don’t be too hard-selling, nor simply talk about features of your product. Instead focus on benefits… and here is an example. My suki example has always been Island Banca Cruises which is run by a good friend and of course owned by someone I know.
What IBC would do is to make a list of keywords that are related to their services….
- island hopping
- beach
- cebu
- and even more
Then IBC would need to write down as many Tweets on a draft that all have the keywords in the sentence. Instead of making a post saying, “check out our island hopping summer promo of XXX amount”, you can instead publish a tweet saying ” go island hopping this summer for cheap and dive into the clear waters off Mactan, see pictures.” Right after that, there is a link to the photos, and what this kind of post does is it gets attention and interest all at once, and the interested reader would click the link to see the pictures, the pictures would then show people enjoying the scenic cruise and photos of the clear waters plus other photos that highlight the amenities of the services.
What you have done is built the readers DESIRE for the service. Immediately right after or beside the photos you should have a conversion button, a link that would lead them to a page they they perform that action you want them to do. The action you want them to do is contact you to book island hopping cruises, so you can create a LINK that says “Go Island Hopping this summer, avail of our XXX promo, ALL-In, click this link to inquire or make a reservation”. That entire line is a link that leads to a contact us page that they can fill up and submit. The last portion is a strong call to ACTION, where you are able to get the person who Do what you want them to DO.
Don’t simply put a call to action on a Tweet because if they do not have a desire for the product, they will not perform the action you want them to do. You have to build that desire and I showed you how to do that step by step.
Then IBC can make at least one post per day, each Tweet is a line that catches their attention, and has a link in it that sends them to a page on their site that will build a reader’s interest for the service.
Do keep adding people to your network, follow people who you believe would be interested in what you have to offer. Once you follow a person, they receive a notice via email that you have followed them, typically they would check you out to see who you are and if you or the product/service you have is interesting to them, they would follow you back. The best thing is a lot of people use the auto-follow feature where they automatically follow you back when you follow them.
Don’t follow too many people that are not related or would not be interested in what you have.
The best way to add people? Go to http://search.twitter.com/ and type in keywords to find posts by others, posts that have those keywords in them. You can go through the profiles and choose who to follow. Alternatively you can also use the ADD feature in your account as described earlier.
Do reward people for following you or following you back. Appreciate the fact that they have opted to receive your messages, and offer an item or something of value or benefit to them.
For example, each time someone adds me to their network or follows me, I would send them a direct message thanking them for the follow and give them a link to a freebie of some sort. If I have a Twitter account that sells myself as an expert in Internet Marketing, I would then send them a link to a page where they can download a free EBook on Internet Marketing. People love freebies, especially freebies of value.
Finally, the best part about Twitter marketing is, all of the processes I described above, every bit of action or activity can be automated and you are spared from the manual hassle of adding people, followig back those who follow you, making posts or tweets and sending them a direct message with a thank you.
If you are new to Twitter, learn the ropes first manually as I described above… then when you got it down, expand to using software and applications to do that for you and free up your time.
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Free Twitter Guide
"Hello! Nice To Tweet You" is an easy to follow guide to setting up and networking on Twitter, in includes tips and recommended free software to help make the Twittering experience both enjoyable and easy.
This is available FREE for a limited time. So download it now.
