Are You Using Twitter for Business?

Now there’s a simple question. Are you? Because, if you are not using Twitter for business, you really should consider it.

Think about it…

There are 200 million people on Twitter. It’s the #10 most visited website in the world. If you are not using Twitter to build your network marketing business you are really missing out on a great marketing tool that could help you get more leads.

Remember, the more fishing poles you have in the water the more fish you will catch.

Just in case of the very unlikely event that you don’t know what I am talking about. Twitter is a free micro-blogging platform that lets you quickly share information in 140 characters or less.

While you can tweet (share information) about your company or products I would recommend that you build a relationship with people first and then keep promoting your products or services to a minimum. Because, Twitter is first and foremost a social media tool just like Facebook.

But first things first – Setting up your profile

If you are using Twitter for business, your profile should look very professional. It’s best to use your real name if it is available or a variation of it when you set up your profile. Write a short bio about yourself, make it fun and personal, so people can learn a bit more about you and include a link to your website. (Tip: Twitter displays only 17 characters of your website. The rest is not visible to your visitors. So in order to show as much of your website address as possible omit the “www.” Example: http://yourwebsite.com)

What should I tweet about?

Always share value first. A good example would be inspiring quotes. Send these in the morning. People like to start their day on an uplifting and positive note. By the way, quotes get high re-tweets too. You can also share links to great websites, marketing tools or techniques that have worked for you or your own blog posts.

Share engaging tweets. Questions work very well to engage your followers. Ask for book recommendations or the latest movie reviews. If you need help with your business ask questions about that. Start a discussion about something. Make it interesting and fun.

Remember that only 10% – 15% of your audience will be online at any given time. For example if you tweeted your blog post in the morning, send it again in the afternoon as many of your followers may have missed it. Choosing different headlines may get you more click throughs.

Stand out from the crowd by re-tweeting other people’s content. This is not only a nice gesture but also helps in building relationships with other networkers. Remember the 140 characters limit. So to make it easier for other people to re-tweet your content, keep your message under 120 characters. That way people can include your name as the original author.

Apropos name … putting the@ symbol in front of a name alerts that person that you are directly talking to him or her.

Whom should I follow?

Follow people in your niche, your company, and/or leaders that you look up to and want to learn from. If you follow people with larger followings your follower count will jump up as well if they re-tweet your content. Think quality before quantity though. It’s better to follow and be followed by 500 quality people than 5000 who have absolutely nothing to do with your niche or industry. A great tool to find people in your niche, even locally in your neighborhood is Twellow.com

Some of the benefits of using Twitter for business.

Keep up with the latest news in your niche. Monitor what is being said about your company, products or people you know. Meet like-minded people and share ideas and build a relationship of know, like and trust.

You can also link up your Twitter account with Facebook, LinkedIn and Plaxo just to name a few for updates and additional exposure.

Do you see the advantages of using Twitter for business?

If you have not been using Twitter for business so far I highly recommend you watch this free Twitter Training webinar and learn how you can generate and endless flood of quality prospects for your business for free.

To Your Success,

Ilka Flood
The Enlightened Networker

P.S. If you are using Twitter as one of your marketing tools please share your experience with us in the comments below.

P.P.S. If you found value in this post, please vote for and share it with your friends on Twitter, Facebook, etc. Thank You!