Growing Your Business with Twitter
Can you tweet your way to success? Many small business owners have asked this question, whether they plan to market their brand on Twitter themselves or hire someone to help them out with a marketing plan. With the advent of social media comes cost effective ways to promote yourself on the World Wide Web. So, how do you get your campaign rolling by creating a voice, not noise?
Five Ways to Grow Your Business on Twitter
1. Don’t Look Like an Expert… Be One!
If you’re in a party and you shout to everyone that you are the king of the world, you’ll just get ignored. People love value – so start tweeting helpful info, tips and news related to your industry. This can help build trust and credibility over time. Ask yourself before posting, “ Is this a tweet someone would be interested in? “ Tweet Smart and Witty!
2. Fix Your Stuff
When Twitter limits your bio in 160 characters, you need to make every word count. Use your real business name, add your brand logo, place the URL to your business or blog site, and customize your twitter page design. Your profile must be a clear reflection of what your business is all about, without looking like a con. Make it easy for others to reach you by showing your location. You can also import your contacts or make a list of your favorites. Less clutter, the better – just be sure your site has a link to your Twitter profile and ask your readers to follow you as well.
3. Love the Superstars
It’s not only in the real world that you need to have a list of everyone worth knowing; Same goes for Twitter. Connect with top users or those with thousands to millions of followers on Twitter, those related to your business or interests. This will open up a channel for you to reach their network of followers as well.
4. Listen Before You Speak
It’s so tempting to shout stuff about your business but be savvy about it. Listen First! Try not to tweet every five minutes as it can really annoy. Don’t over promote your brand, like “Great X for Sale. Only $9.99. Hurry!” Instead, reply often or retweet a certain post you like. Engage your readers and limit direct messages to ‘thank you’s’. There are many useful tools to manage your psots like HootSuite, CoTweet, or TweetDeck.
5. Grow Steady and Slow
Don’t follow everyone on Twitterdom in a hope that they follow you back. It’s all about balance. You have to balance the ratio of people who follows you ( followers ) and those you follow ( following ). A nice way to check this is by using tools like Friend or Follow. As a rule of the thumb, the number of your followers should be more than the number of people you follow. If you’re into posting comments on other people’s blogs, make sure they allow you to include your Twitter name.
Your top priority is to grow your audience. Try to target not only quantity, but quality, when it comes to your followers. The golden rule of karma still applies when you give people something useful: Don’t expect anything in return. Just try observing those with several hundred followers and learn. What is it that they do that makes them worthy of being followed?
Twitter Search in Plain English
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