How to Use Twitter to Grow Your Online Business

By Dan Lyne

Today it seems like so many newscasts (radio or TV) encourage their viewers or listeners to communicate with them through Twitter. The visibility for Twitter has grown worldwide. At the end of 2008, it was estimated by Forester Research that approximately 5 million users were on Twitter. Some estimate that number has grown by another million in just the last 3 months. You may be surprised to know that Barack Obama tweets. In fact, at the end of last year, Israel’s ministry of foreign affairs conducted a worldwide press conference via Twitter where they took questions from the public about the war against Hamas in Gaza. Because twitter is so spontaneous, it provides users with a means to find out about the latest industry news in a particular niche or activity within minutes of the actual event/occurrence. The purpose of this article is to discuss this new social marketing phenomena and how it can be used to promote your online and offline businesses.

Twitter is a “microblogging” service that continues to grow in popularity. Twitter posts, known as “tweets” can only be a maximum of 140 characters. Updates or Tweets are shown on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive these tweets. Getting subscribers or followers on Twitter is a goal of many who use the service. People who subscribe to your tweets, will get your whole tweet at once, instead of having to go to your website. Companies like Apple, Intel, Cisco and even the White House are all on Twitter.

In theory, if you gain more followers on Twitter, then you should be able to drive more visitors to your website and generate exposure for your businesses. This is because, if done right, Twitter can be a mechanism to send information to these potential customers and marketing your website. However, Twitter involves engaging other users. If you want to gain and keep a large percentage of your followers, don’t use spam tactics. One such tactic is to simply “blast” anyone and everyone on twitter with a notification that you are following them. Many people will simply follow those that send them notification that they are being followed. However, these people that “blindly” follow others, usually don’t actively engage many people. Following are some proven tips on how to grow your network on Twitter and how to use this service to gain exposure for your online business.

First you need to consider Why would people want to follow me? What can I provide them with that’s of value? Considering that there’s literally millions of twitter users, you need to determine what sets me apart from them? Market your strengths.

1) Build your profile

If you read through numerous expert blogs on Twitter and how to grow your network, they all start with the same/strong recommendation to provide a strong profile. Consider your profile as a breathing organism that should be continually built up. Treat your profile like your website or blog’s about me page. Try to update your account with content that appears like it’s written by a human. This means, include interesting comments/observations. You’ll need more than a sentence or two that describes who you are and what you do. Unless you’re a celebrity, you’ll need a detailed and clear profile. In one of the steps below, outside promotion is discussed. Directing traffic to your profile page is an excellent way to gain followers. In fact, this strategy of continually building up your profile and regularly driving visitors to this page on Twitter is one of the most effective means to gain followers.

Since you’re directing people to your Twitter profile, you should ensure your Twitter account’s background, avatar and overall design are consistent with your website. Although directing traffic to your profile page is a subject for another article, a few ways include: a) using Twitter as a customer service or support tool, b) include links to your profile page on your forum, blog and other social media posts.

A great way to attract people who may be interested in the content on your website, is to use the same keywords in your profile that you do on your website. A few examples include:

“I am interested in fitness and working out. I share weight loss tips on my website ” or “I’m a professional guitar player who loves to teach music, check out 5 tips to playing guitar on my website” or “I’m a successful financial adviser who can help you reduce your debt, sign up for my free newsletter when you visit my website.” These are all nice short bios that tell visitors about yourself. Note that we give them a reason to visit our website. It’s also a good idea to include some useful tips on your profile. This way potential followers will more strongly consider you. Always include a hyperlink to your website (include the “http” to ensure that it’s clickable)

2) Sync your website with your twitter account

This ensures new posts or articles appear as updates in your twitter account. If you’re driving traffic to your twitter account, people will see your numerous posts. This helps generate long term traffic, provided your content is of interest to your visitors. Use a twitter tool called TwitterFeed, to automatically post your latest blog posts titles.

3) Post questions as tweets

Examples of questions can be seeking information or recommendations. The result may be that your network could direct you to other twitter users with whom you may converse and ultimately gain as followers. Also consider questions where you’re seeking feedback on your website(s) or seeking a course of action for a given scenario. Your goal with questions is to generate a conversation and engages your Twitter followers with the responses from your followers.

4) Manually “pick” your followers.

A great way, but admittedly a bit time consuming, is to search Twitter using keywords of interest. You can simply type in any words or phrases and attempt to connect with others who share that particular interest. You will have to sift through the search results and look at various profiles along with their related Tweets. Next you can add people you think you can engage in conversation. This can be a very effective way to connect with people that would be interested in your website. This brings us back to point 1), develop a solid profile. If you build a profile with strategically placed keywords, people who are searching twitter, may land on your profile and follow you.

5) Retweet often (but not too much)

You want to optimize your exposure on twitter. In addition to the above tactics, you want to re-Tweet (sometimes called @ reply). The reason why you gain followers when people re-tweet you is that your username is exposed to people who haven’t heard of you. When you do this choose the right keywords or phrases. Other Twitter users enjoy engaging and thought provoking conversations. If you tweet and re-tweet with your followers, others notice. Your keyword rich (but not overdone) tweets can get picked up in twitter searches.

6) Understand How Twitter Works

Twitter should not be another marketing tool to be over manipulated. Although some will try, Twitter should be considered as a social marketing tool useful to those who are a part of the community. Don’t spam and don’t over-actively promote yourself.

Your goal should be to build a network within the community by replying to other tweets (retweeting), sharing observations, news and even direct your followers to a blog post, filled with useful information, and only then use that post to get followers to take action. Trying to take people out of Twitter right away and into a sales pitch will get you labeled as a scammer.

7) Review your followers and revise your strategy if necessary

If you’re using twitter to grow your online business, it’s a good idea to track the number of your followers. If you are losing many more followers than you’re gaining, review the content of your tweets to ensure it isn’t offending or “turning away” your followers. Consider having an unbiased third party take a look at your tweets to provide you with feedback.

Other ways to gain a twitter audience

To build your network above and beyond your initial contact list, you’ll need to look both inside and outside Twitter.

Outside of Twitter, placing a link to “Follow me on Twitter” in your email or forum signature, website, blog posts, and any other way that you communicate with people (where appropriate, of course)

Inside of Twitter, it’s all about following people. You can find other users that you admire, and see who is following them; you can also see who is following your friends. In order to do this use Twitter directories to find members who have similar likes. You can do this by using the search feature to find profiles of people you want to follow – and follow all of them. In most cases, they will, in turn, follow you.

There are more great strategies to grow your online business with Twitter. In addition to Twitter, you can easily grow your business with numerous other Social Networking sites. One way to find out about these strategies and more is through a Portal Feeder membership which includes training and the most powerful set of tools, resources and support to get you started making money online in 30 days.

Dan Lyne has numerous highly visited blogs and websites. He frequently contributes to numerous online resources. Click on the link to find out how you can grow your online business and how Portal Feeder can help you start your most successful year ever.

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Twitter and Local Marketing – The Marketing Wave of 2010

Twitter and Local Marketing – The Marketing Wave of 2010
By Jenny Rodgers

Twitter gets a bad rap by a lot of older people. Really, it does. They believe it’s all about celebrities and utter-nonsense-gabbing all day long about absolutely nothing. Fiddle sticks, these older folks may think. But, the truth of the matter is that if you’re a local business owner and you’re not using Twitter in your marketing efforts, you competition can blow you away. Why? Because local marketing and Twitter are like bread and butter or peas and carrots, they simply go together hand and hand.

Of course, the majority of local small business owners aren’t yet aware of the power of Twitter. In fact, even the big corporations and advertising agencies have only caught on to the power of Twitter marketing within the last 12 months or so. Things move fast in today’s day and age. And, as a small business owner you’ve got to move fast too.

It’s not hard, folks. It’s really very intuitive and it’s dirt cheap. There’s a very low barrier of entry into the world of Twitter which should make you nervous and at the same time excited because if you’re using this stuff and the guy down the block isn’t you’re going to be one happy camper. I don’t think it’s an over statement to say that you could put them out of business within 12 months. I’m dead serious, it’s that powerful.

People have limited attention spans, probably always have, but even more so today. You need to constantly keep in touch with them, remind that about you, and stay in their face. But you should do it in a way that’s fun and light-hearted. That’s “ninja marketing”, and that’s the wave of the future. Imagine running simple promos for your small business on Twitter. It’s entirely possible. You could call it the Twitter Special or the Twitter Deal of the Day. That would be perfect if you owned a restaurant, people would eat that up…pardon the pun.

If you’re an auto mechanic you could “tweet” (Twitter update lingo) about your monthly special on oil changes. Whatever. Just get them in the door and keep getting them in the door, your business can easily double with this stuff, again, I’m deadly serious. And, again it’s so cheap. Twitter is all about getting in touch with a lot of people about a lot of things lightening fast without a lot of set up and hassle. It’s really that simple. It’s a game changer and it really levels the playing field for the small local business owner.

Each and every time somebody gets a tweet from you and sees your page it’s like free advertising. Out of sight out of mind the saying goes. With the proliferation of mobile devices you can now get in front of your customers 24 hours a day 365 days of the year. You can’t do that with a lousy billboard, can you?

Social networking advertising is something special and it’s only a matter of time before small local businesses across the country catch on to it’s usefulness. Be one of the first on your block to give it a test drive and forget about Twitter as a useless yak site, this is powerful marketing at it’s best.

For more a much clearer picture on how local SEO can dynamically increase your small business go to: Atlanta Internet Marketing.

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