You probably have heard of Twitter by now. But what is it? And more importantly, how can you use it for strategic marketing purposes? Here are a few examples of how to market online through Twitter and how you can leverage it to market your business. These social media marketing tips can be applied to all social platforms.
Twitter is microblogging. You have limited characters per message, called “tweets,” to make your point. You must be succinct, concise, and engaging!
Twitter, like blogging, is a way to connect with other people. Although you may be Twittering for business purposes, remember that your voice should have a personal tone. People will tire quickly if all you post is Marketing jargon.
- Follow back folks who support you. It’s how you build a huge following or Twitter posse!
- Aim to be a thought leader in your field. Search for users who are tweeting in your world and watch what they do.
- Add links to your tweets to drive followers to interesting articles or new posts on your blog or website.
- Use a Twitter management application to organize your followers and tweets. I like BrightKit (Which has been acquired by Hootsuite).
- Twitter takes time to nurture. As a lead generation system, building your reputation and follower list will take time.
Social Media Marketing Tips
- Be remarkable – somebody worth making a remark about
- Become a resource to others
- Have your unique personality
- Be vocal and opinionated within the community
- Don’t continuously push the envelope by flooding them with requests
- Invest time into social media
- Produce and share content that your audience will love
- Monitor what’s being shared about you
- Become a real member of the community
- Ask questions
- Answer questions
- Provide value to the community
- Be controversial
- Don’t be another me-too
- Automate carefully – it’s about people, not robots
- Don’t be sarcastic, as some might not catch the sarcasm
- Make it easy for people to share and bookmark your content
- Listen to the community
- Make at least one new connection every day
- Engage yourself in conversations
- Become the conversation
- You’re there to make relationships, not hard selling
- Take time to focus on building a loyal following
- Give, Give, GIVE!
- Treat social media like a cocktail party
- Be supportive
- Be careful Syndicating all your content across all social media platforms. The reason being someone following you on all the accounts doesn’t want to see your message ten times.
- Encourage others to share your content on their sites and posts
- Fully research the community to understand your market
- Be fun
- Watch out for the unwritten laws of the community
- Create an attractive, unique, and professional profile
- Use a cool avatar/picture
- Use the same avatar for each social media service
- Don’t be a keyboard fool (i.e., trash talk all day)
- Know what your followers/friends want and give it to them
- Form reciprocal arrangements with others
- Monitor your noise level
- Never cheat the system
- Help others unconditionally
- Be yourself
Have you started using Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Google Plus yet?