As a business owner, you have likely heard of social media marketing. You may even have been curious enough to investigate it. And you may have been overwhelmed by the many options available to you. Between Digg, Delicious, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and all of the many others, it is difficult to know where to start.
Twitter is one of the newer entries in the social media marketing field. Launched in 2006, it has become an enormously popular way for people to connect and keep in touch. Like any form of social media, it has also attracted businesses keen to get on the bandwagon of social media marketing.
Using Twitter as a Marketing
Twitter is often referred to as a micro-blog. Instead of posts, you write “tweets” of 140 characters or less. You can follow other users with similar interests, and they can follow you. Each time you add an update, all of your followers receive a message. They can choose to respond or not.
As with any social media marketing site, using Twitter requires you to be involved. You need to follow and be followed. You also need to provide information of value to the people who follow you. One example is links to your blog or other relevant information on your site.
Using Twitter for marketing does take time (as does any attempt at social media marketing). You need to build a community of followers and engage with other users to create credibility. To make links, you have to have something interesting to share with people, which means you need to spend time creating enough current, relevant, interesting and (occasionally) thought-provoking content for your followers to read.
Tips for Using Twitter as Part of Your Online Marketing
There are some basic rules to follow when using Twitter for marketing. In fact, many of these rules apply to other social media sites too, like Facebook.
• Do not spam or engage in hard selling. Remember to be sociable and offer information of value. Blog posts on the benefits of your product or services, interesting conferences or professional development opportunities that are coming up – these are good examples.
• Always link back to your site or blog. That is why you are doing this in the first place.
• To get followers, put a link on your site or blog inviting people to follow you on Twitter. Twitter provides the code for a “badge” that you can drop into your Website or blog.
• Search Twitter for likeminded users/businesses and see who they are following. You may be interested in following the same users.
• Follow the lead of those who came before you. There are users with hundreds of followers. Check out what they are tweeting about so you can get ideas.
Use Twitter as Part of a Detailed Social Media Marketing Strategy
Of course, if you are using social media for marketing, you need to have a comprehensive plan. To create a plan like that, you may need help from a search engine marketing consultant. In addition to tweeting on Twitter (which can eat up a lot of your time) you need to have a schedule for blogging and writing articles to link to.
As part of this strategy, develop a plan for your content. Don't throw any old thing up there just to have something to link to. A consultant can show you how to create compelling copy that makes your blog, articles and Website work with your social media marketing, so that you are drawing traffic through as many channels as possible.
