Forum Moderators: rogerd
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Here is a quick and dirty course on how to get the most out of twitter. In brief, you need to get a LOT of people to follow your tweets, get them involved in a conversation, then slip in some sales tweets. Twitter is a great medium to reach new people, and lots of them. If you do this right, you can realistically reach thousands of people that have never heard of you or your company.
1. What is your twitter goal?
You sell a product. Your twitter efforts should support that purpose. The basic idea is that you get a lot of your product lovers following your tweets (which are usually about your product in some way), and a lot of people who didn't know about your or your company will become exposed to you and follow your tweets. Then, if you tweet a product or service offer, they will at least look at the deal and you might get some new customers.
2. Getting Followers
Only people who are following you get your messages. So, you need to get a LOT of followers. The #1 way to get followers on twitter is to follow other people - the edicit is that they will follow you back. Your best bet would be to login to twitter.com and use the search function to search keywords in your industry. Find the people already twittering about those keywords.
Follow all of those people, THEN follow all of the people that follow them (you can see who follows them from the right hand menu of their profile page). You can literally follow thousands of people and you can expect many of them to follow you back.
Reply to other people's tweets - especially famous people. Follow some famous people like jimmyfallon, zappos or jasoncalacanis and reply to their tweets with your opinions about what they say. Don't worry if they ignore you, but if they reply your twitter profile will be broadcast to thousands.
You should also do the normal promotion like adding your twitter url to your email signature, blog, etc.
3. Posting Tweets
Once you have followers, you now need to send "tweets." Do not think of twitter as a one way broadcast medium - twitter is a conversation. It is most effective when you post tweets that engage other users and encourage them to tweet about what you just posted. If you tweet something interesting others will either reply to your tweet (which everyone can see), or "re-tweet" what you said (resent your message to their followers). Either is good because it exposes your twitter profile to many people who are not familiar with you. You will pick up many other followers that way.
Narratives/biographical tweets about what you are doing is generally uninteresting: "Standing at checkout counter at Mervin's to buy tube socks." Other than your mother, who really cares if you are standing in line waiting to buy socks.
But, tweets that express an opinion (especially a controversial one) are more interesting to read and more likely to elicit response. "Buying tubesocks. I hate those socks with a heel - that is just a scam to make you pay more for socks."
Tweets that support your blogging activities are always good. Use tinyurl.com to generate a small url that you can include in your tweet. Let's say you just posted a blog article about Lafite. You want to get your twitter followers to read it, so you come up with a controversial title and include a link. Ask people for their comments to get people to twitter back.
"SoxAmerica is ruining socks! Agree? http://example.com/sad32"
I believe twitterberry and other twitter clients have built in tools to shorten urls.
Once you have a good number of followers and some twitter credibility, you can slip some sales tweets into your twitter stream:
"Just tried the 2009 Sock Master 3000. Great deal at $4.99. http://example.com/s43234"
That url should link back to a product page or blog post about your notes for the product and a message to email you to order some.
Keep sales tweets at a very low ratio - less than 10% of your tweets should be sales oriented.
4. Customer Service
Be sure to setup some rss feeds for twitter searches of your company and product names. People may be twittering that they hate or love your company/product. If you don't follow them you will never see it. The RSS feeds will allow you to keep on top of those people. When you see someone do this, always follow them and reply in the tweet stream so everyone can see it.
Follow craignewmark (founder of craigslist) to see someone who does a great job of this.
5. In Brief
Your goal is simple: increase the number of followers, post intersting tweets that elicit a response and every so often slip in a tweet that sells something. If you do it right, you can reach a lot of people in a very intimate way where they don't think you are selling them anything.
[edited by: engine at 4:46 pm (utc) on April 10, 2009]
[edit reason] examplified urls [/edit]
""Hi all, just going shopping - back in a few hours.""
Five minutes later... ""Scrub that, the car roof is under four foot of snow. Ork. Ork.""
Next day... ""Just cleared some of the snow off the car and now it has a Snowhican.""
It's like WebmasterWorld Foo all over again, but much more real-time. :)
It like an early warning system.
(and it was a Snow-hawk, not a Snow-hican)
And yeah, there's quite a few gems among all the banter.
Twitter is just different. You often won't see many of the benefits for a few weeks or months.
I registered a profile for my company a while ago with minuscule success. No measurable traffic or sales from it that I can tell.
I can't quite figure out how to get people to follow my company on there. Directories, posting non-self promo drivel, etc. seems to all bring the same type of results. So far the only people to de-follow are those that I didn't follow back. (Do people really expect this? It isn't MySpace. Why should I follow Joe Schmoe's twitter where he talks about crap I'm not really interested in, just so he'll follow ME?) I came to the conclusion their leave was due to this, because some of the have in their BIO "How to get me to follow you"..
I'm also following some celebrities on there and so far no one's really doing anything other peddling their wears or talking about what the dude in the urinal beside them did. (Although depending on how it's presented it can be comical, but does anybody really care about this stuff?)
Can attention whores and sellers co-exist? I see no purpose for twitter other than to sell something (or yourself /privacy/personal life, of course)
Are people using it for other things with success?
That whole Bacon Explosion thing a few months back started on Twitter. Ask those guys how well Twitter works for marketing.
For those that may be questioning the validity of Twitter as a business medium, check this!
Bakery uses its loaf and turns to Twitter
[google.com...]
That is just one of many, many articles now appearing publicly. Early adopters are taking advantage of it while they can. Late adopters will be left gnawing on the bones that may be thrown your way. In some circles, it is referred to as dumpster diving. :)
Twitter Blog
[Blog.Twitter.com...]
^ A great place to keep track of some of the more notable Twitter happenings.
I created an account:
and got this:
Twitter is over capacity.
Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again.
Daily I get requests to follow me, because I've turned off the feature that let's people follow me in hopes that I follow them back. Once in awhile I'll check them out and it's always some fledgling IM'er acting on what they read in a $27 WSO.
It undoubtedly can work for the dedicated tweeter that tries to build a real relationship as opposed getting a huge following and then broadcasting your sales tweet. Also I would think it's much easier to leverage twitter for services than product.
Neal? Death to most Auto-Follow programs! RIP
i'd second that motion; however, more than a few most followed breathe life into their lazarus servers to heighten their notoriety ;) believe that.
Bakery uses its loaf and turns to Twitter
[google.com...]twitter essentially is the yeast
Twitter is over capacity.
Too many tweets! Please wait a moment and try again.ahh... moby twit strikes again. a few f5's should lance a blubber sinking harpoon at him
Also I would think it's much easier to leverage twitter for services than product.Twitter has made Dell $1 million in revenue [venturebeat.com]
[edited by: nealrodriguez at 7:22 pm (utc) on April 13, 2009]
Are people using it for other things with success?
i have personally seen it help companies in terms of page views that grow exponentially once retweeted. i tweeted an article that got retweeted through my outreach that got me like 277 links in 2 days. i have also seen pics that have cross pollinated onto other social networks receive hundreds of thousands of page views when retweeted;
of course it is trial and error; if the content doesn't pop it doesn't pop; i also tried a similar experiment with some outreach but less viral content that got less than 100 visits in a day.
it has to do with your kind of following; you can't serve skirt steak to vegans no matter how much you love making your lips shine ;)
definitely hit the search engine, follow and ENGAGE people that twit your keywords and have them in their profile bios. looking back i know that the content that has popped for me has catered to my audience; and don't forget to engage, and talk to people; it is a 'social' network after all.
I see people commenting on using Twitter to get business, or business relationships that have developed from using Twitter, how ever one phrases it.
But considering what and how much some folks reveal about themselves on Twitter, any thoughts on how much business people lose because of the way they use it?
But considering what and how much some folks reveal about themselves on Twitter, any thoughts on how much business people lose because of the way they use it?
they lose the monotony of being just like every other company in their vertical by establishing a unique position in the consumer's mind, by virtue of their transparency.
Twitter API Wiki / Terms of Service
[APIWiki.Twitter.com...]
"4. Do not create a bot to promote mass following. Twitter enables users to find and connect with people. Mass following does not help users find interesting connections. Applications found to be promoting valueless mass-following or following-ponzi schemes will be promptly blacklisted. So please, spend your time developing something that helps users find people with interesting connections."
I don't recall seeing that there a couple months ago, I could be mistaken. I think this sends a clear signal to app developers that certain activities won't be allowed. Auto-Following in mass is one of them.
My advice to most just starting out is to observe and learn first before jumping in with the Sharks. Pick a small group of people to follow based on your interests and go from there. Its a slow process and in the end run, it will be more rewarding for you personally.
I typically won't Follow anyone who is Following a large number and has few Followers. That is a clear sign of attention desperation. Do it gradually and select your Following carefully. Make that first person you follow your significant other or you'll be in trouble later. Your Following is listed in the order you Followed them. I like to think as my first 20 as close family. That could change though. ;)
Welcome to WebmasterWorld SEO Positive Limited!
You're allowed more than 140 Characters if you wish to get involved. :)
[edited by: pageoneresults at 11:18 am (utc) on April 14, 2009]
I don't recall seeing that there a couple months ago, I could be mistaken. I think this sends a clear signal to app developers that certain activities won't be allowed. Auto-Following in mass is one of them.
i am all for doing it right;
nonetheless, we all know that kids will keep feeding ducks alka seltzer, throw cats in the lake, throw hookie jams for the whole lunch room in their mother's bedroom, and still get a shiny bmw 3 series, so he doesn't go to the army;
that said, everybody, behave and engage your following organically; follow people using targeted keywords in their tweets and profiles. the truth is all those automated options aren't worth the hourly rate they purport to save.
seems like one did just that: [webmasterworld.com...]
