For those with something to promote online, Twitter can be a powerful and extremely effective marketing tool. You have to build an audience and attract lots of followers. Here are some tips for doing just that –
(1). Create a Bio that is Compelling – Believe it or not people do read the bios. When they see your profile you want your biography to be interesting and compelling. It has to seem real and not contrived, honest, and down to earth.
(2). Make Sure You Use Your Real Photo – Using a logo is alright when you are trying to brand a business. However, for obtaining personal followers you need to use your own picture. Let people really get to know who you are and make up their own minds about you. Honest and trustworthy goes a long way.
People are very social creatures and they like knowing who they’re talking to or listening to. They will respond quicker to honesty and trustworthiness than anything else. When they smell anything ‘scammy’ or ‘phoney’ – they run.
(3). Reply to your tweets openly and publicly. You have the option of replying privately via direct messages, and to keep your response secret. However, keeping them secret cuts down on your overall response numbers. When you don’t respond often, people get the feeling you are stand-offish or unsociable. Stay public and interact often.
(4). Follow people who are experts within your niche. Be sure to follow those who have already established a solid position within your niche. This can help you get noticed, and for the right reasons. It also gives you a chance to see what the experts are doing and saying.
(5). Make it your goal to help others. People join social networks like Twitter to share their ideas and interact with other people with similar interests. They want to be engaged in conversations about their favorite topics. If you come across as only wanting to make money you are doomed from the start.
Twitter users are very intelligent and can smell a salesman a mile away. They know if you are there to engage in conversation or strictly to make a buck. Twitter is, however, still an excellent place to promote your business.
A good rule of thumb is to have 1 tweet for promotion and sales for your business out of every 20. The others should be non-promotional and strictly useful and informational. Having a blog to help promote your business is one of the most effective promotional methods out there. You can build your audience by creating helpful blog posts and not have them feel you are being pushy.
Twitter is all about communicating and socializing. It is wise to use it more for branding than for selling. That helps create trust and makes you a respected part of the Twitter community.
(6). Post tweets that are easy to understand. You want to make sure everybody gets what you are saying.
(7). Make a Great First Impression. When you are obtaining new followers you need to be memorable. Because they don’t know you it’s important that you make them feel like they want to. If your page is a business page, there’s still no reason not to give it some personality.
(8). Use your bio field for identifying actual human responses. When multiple people are handling the same account, they need to find a way to identify who tweets what.
Make your profile page personal and people will like you more. Keep in mind that Twitter will not display any search results for anyone who doesn’t have a fully completed user bio.
(9). Include your location. Just as the honesty is revealed through your other personal info, your location should be treated the same way. It makes you more real. It’s amazing as time and conversations go by, how much of where you’re from shows through. People can tell. Be general without nailing down your exact location, but close enough to give people a feel for who you are.
(10). Take advantage of Twitter’s search tool. You can find people very easily with this tool. It gives you a way of seeing just who is interested in your niche. If you have a health niche, then searching fitness, diet, or exercise can reveal some potential clients.
(11). Offer your followers some great resources. Always be supportive and giving in your dealings with followers. Answer questions appropriately and respectfully. Trust is the lifeline to online success. It is something you NEVER want to play around with. It makes or breaks success – period.
(12). As mentioned before, make sure your content is always top quality. This will bring you more re-tweets and more followers. Give them something worth reading. Only share your best and never compromise just to ‘fill in’ the holes.
(13). People love stories, so tell them one, preferably one long one with many sub-stories running behind the scenes. It keeps readers engaged. Create stories that are about you, your business, your friends, and things you like. Use videos, pictures, and tweets to entertain your followers. You want them to look forward to your next transmission.
(14). Take part in the #FollowFriday. Keep track of those who re-tweet and who leave a positive impression. Give them a #FollowFriday recommendation. Most of the time people you recommend for this will do the same for you.
(15). Always try to write killer headlines because that’s what grabs people’s attention. It is an effective way of increasing your Twitter following.
(16). Always lean toward the positive side of things and avoid negativity. Twitter is seeing a sad infusion of complaints and negative tweets. This can cause a negative tidal wave with your followers. Don’t get drawn into any negative banter.
(17). Take a uniquely different approach that offers a different point of view without changing who you are. Blog posts that look at things a little differently from the average posts stand out. It’s provocative and it’s what you need to aim at being. Anybody can just ‘roll with the flow’ but being able to stand out will get you more followers.
(18). Take the time to analyze what your followers say and then optimize the experience. Being able to read into the reasons behind the tweets gives you the power to optimize your responses and to build a larger following.
(18). When making introductions be subtle. When you are following somebody new make sure you look over their tweets to find one you truly relate to. That will let them know you are actively paying attention to what they say. Never send anyone that old generic ‘Thanks for Following Me’ line.
(19). Post stories that have a point and some meaning. Make them interesting while at the same time getting your point across. That will cause people to re-tweet your stuff and to refer you to others.
(20). Never’ Auto-Follow’ anyone. You do not want to make it look like you are in agreement with someone you don’t even know. Always look to see what they are about and learn about them before you follow them.
Doing this also increase your risk of being spammed by spammers who can really do some damage to your credibility and the trust you’ve worked so hard to build.
Try to brand your twitter channel as well as yourself. Fill out your entire bio and put your own mug-shot on there. Add your own style to your messages and let people know you are real and have something important to say and to add to the conversation.
Authenticity can keep you memorable in the eyes of others and keep your followers list growing on a daily basis.
Twitter is a powerful tool and social media has created many true success stories. The tips above will help to give you a guideline for creating the kind of professional persona that people will trust and respect. They need to know you take things serious and honestly want to be a contributor. In return, they will take you serious as well. It is the kind of give and take that makes things work online.
I know many people have read the line from Internet marketers — ‘The money is in the list’. Well, no business can survive without customers, so if you use Twitter as a promotional tool, the methods above will make a great foundation for constant growth and increased business.
