Social Media: Using Twitter to Grow Your Business

It should go without saying that social media should be a part of anyone's online marketing strategy, but it is amazing to see so many who do not utilize this powerful tool.  Amongst the top of the list of recommended social media outlets is Twitter.  Below will be a few things regarding Twitter and things to key in on when using the platform.  There are a wide variety of ways to utilize this wonderful tool, hopefully this piece will help to narrow the focus so that you, as a marketer, can be as efficient as possible while still conveying your personality - quite often overlooked.  Some of the key things that will be covered are: building your profile, building a followers list, Twitter etiquette, automation tools, and tracking statistics.

STEP 1: BUILDING YOUR PROFILE

Your profile is the first thing any potential follower and possibly customer will see, so be sure to do it right.  A photo of yourself is a must - if you are afraid to show your face how can someone else trust you?  Make it one where you are smiling and having a good time, possibly on vacation or doing something unique - this will help brand you.  As far as the name, feel free to put a company name or your own as the user name, just make sure that your name is in the profile so that the user ultimately knows who he/she is dealing with.  Finally, add some personality in the description, include some hobbies and passions.  While all of these seem like very simple thoughts, they will go a long way to getting you off to a good start.

STEP 2: BUILDING A FOLLOWERS LIST

This is ultimately the most important thing that you do on Twitter.  Building a list of quality followers and potentially customers.  This can be done several ways, but the easiest way to get people who are interested in your industry is to look at the leaders of the industry and people who follow them or groups that are dedicated to your work.  A quick Google search can get you any of the names if you do not have them, or feel free so contact me at jim.kernan@GripofDough.com for a couple of suggestions.  At that point, simply add the faces of the people on the list that look like they might be someone you want to do business with.  As you build a list of followers you can add the followers of the people following you to continue to diversify sources.  I would recommend starting in the range of adding 100-200 people each day to see how it goes - this way you give people a chance to follow you back and don't run into too much of a problem at the infamous 2000 mark where your follower/following ratio needs to be at 90%.  More on this in the automation section.

STEP 3:  TWITTER ETIQUETTE

This cannot be emphasized enough.  It is obscene how many junk ads are thrown on Twitter, differentiation is imperative.  First off all, all social media should be used as a way of connecting people and sharing information.  Even though Thomas Jefferson said, "Advertisements contain the only truths to be relied on in a newspaper," there is much to be said for not having your tweet list look like Times Square.  A good ratio should be at least 4:1 in relation to value adding content and actual adds for your company.  Make sure you are consistently delivering useful information - don't worry about driving traffic to your site, that will come with consistent good content.  People will want to see more of what you have to say.  10-15 tweets a day is probably a good baseline.  The next step is to make your ads not appear like one, but this article does not have enough room for copy write.

STEP 4:  AUTOMATION TOOLS

Ultimately the goal of any business is going to be to run an efficient operation.  Automation tools can do this and Social Oomph is the best around.  Pretty much any function that you want can be performed in this easy to understand platform, and virtually all the necessities are in the free package.  Set up automatic tweets throughout the day so that you can focus on other aspects of your business.  With the premium package you can set them up for longer with random messaging, but the free package is more than sufficient.

The one function that is notoriously difficult to perform is the unfollowing of those who don't follow you.  Twitter has put the clamps down on virtually all the sites that perform this function in bulk.  The best one that I have seen still around in Just Unfollow.  However, even this has limited the number (50) that you can do on a given day.  As Twitter makes this more difficult it is ever more important to keep your ratio close as you build followers and approach 2000.

STEP 5: TRACKING STATISTICS

This gets a bit away from Twitter itself, but when you do have ads on your page make sure you use different tracking codes for each individual link.  This means one for the main URL link in your profile as well as a different link for each ad you run in your tweets.  The importance of this is to analyze what you are doing.  This will show you that you are being rewarded for unique content when people visit your main URL and will give you an idea of the quality of your ads.  It is not uncommon to get a 1-2% click through rate for a well written ad on Twitter.  This is actually quite amazing when you consider the amount of information that is on this site, and best of all, it is ABSOLUTELY FREE.

CONCLUSION

This should get you off to a good start with your Twitter advertising.  The key through all of this is to follow the rules and be yourself.  People respond to personality and creativity so don't be afraid to show it.  Also, make sure that you are delivering value, ultimately that is what will make others want to work with you because they will want other information that you can provide.  Stay diligent in adding followers it will pay dividends for your business if you follow the guidelines above.

Regards,
Jim Kernan
GripofDough.com
My Blog