Micro-blogging through Twitter is a popular way to market your business. Since both small and large businesses can use it, it levels the marketing playing field. Here’s how you can increase your customer’s precense on Twitter.

Here are four tips to use your Twitter account effectively. Following other Twitter accounts that are in your target demographic will help you get an idea of what the conversation is. Then you need to post updates about your company, brand or product. As with any online medium, you want to be very careful to never spam any of your followers. Lastly, make sure that you follow successful online marketers, and look for other participants who are in your industry.

First Build and Account for Twitter Marketing

The first thing that you should do is to set up your Twitter account and populate it with several interesting Tweets, which are Twitter posts. Then begin following people who are also using Twitter, and you will find that most people will follow back. When your entire Twitter feed has blanks, though, most people will not bother to follow you. Once you start a micro blog post, you can get on with following any target demographic, and this can be done in either of two different ways.

1. Go to Twitter.com and do a search by typing in keywords that relate to the demographic that you are targeting. For example, if you are trying to sell an application for the iPhone, you would enter the keyword ‘iPhone’ or ‘iPhone app’ or anything that may find people who own an iPhone. It’s easy to follow people. If your posts are interesting and relevant, you will probably pick up some followers this way.
2. Use ‘Find People’ to locate other Twitter accounts you want to follow. Then enter your keywords, related industries, locations or other defining detail to locate followers, and begin following them.

Twitter Marketing Uses Current Information

By adding news that is interesting and relevant about your services or product, you can keep your Tweets current. You can also add information about related news for your industry to keepTweets interesting and informative. For example, if you sell cooking gadgets, you may want to post news about food and recipes.

As you work on developing your targeted demographic, you need to keep your followers engaged, so you will want to tweet, or post, often. If you see a tweet from another Twitter follower, retweet them. This is another great way to pick up new followers, and when they start to follow you, you also are plugged into their followers. Retweeting is one of the fastest ways to build your following or network.

By checking with the search.twitter.com frequently you can look for brand names and see what customers are saying. You can follow these Twitter accounts and thank them. You can address customers who are angry or dissatisfied by following them on Twitter. Then you can retweet them and solicit solutions to the problem. Your customers will be thrilled with the feedback from you, and even more thrilled when you rectify the situation. Twitter makes it easy to grow a ‘word of mouth’ reputation virally.

Twitter Marketing and Spam Do Not Mix

Spam in any electronic media is the kiss of death. If you begin spamming your followers, they will drop you like a hot potato. Whatever you do, don’t spam your followers. Spamming includes tweeting the same URL over and over, annoying Twitter handles, frivoulous tweets, and only posting information on your own products. Twitter followers are savvy consumers, and anything deceptive or patronizing is going to leave a bad taste in their mouth.

Twitter Marketing Can Assess the Competition

If you want to build a quality following, then follow quality people on Twitter. There are many online marketers that are experts on Twitter like Dave Peck, Chris Brogan and Guy Kawasaki, and they should definitely be included in your list on Twitter. Also look for corporations that are active on Twitter. They are blazing a trail with their marketing, and you can get good marketing information from them.

Make sure you check out your competition. See how they are going about increasing their own following on Twitter. If you want to be a smart marketer online, then you need to constantly be aware of what your competition is doing out in cyberspace. You have a huge marketing opportunity if they rarely post on Twitter, never retweet, or attend to negative posts.

Twitter Marketing Requires Patience

When you are using Twitter as part of your Internet marketing plan, you need to give it time to work. Twitter results take a while to appear, because it is one of the more long-term strategies. You will have to build up your networks and following, and if you use the correct strategies, it will happen in a timely manner. However, do not start a Twitter campaign if you are not going to see it through to completion, because an unattended Twitter account is worse than no account at all.

Once you have built a good Twitter following, then you want to market with a gentle touch. Instead of using ‘in your face’ marketing tactics, pose a question where your product or service is the answer. Tweet that there are updates on your company’s blog instead of trying to cram the information into your tweet, and people that want to know more will click through to your blog.

Always resond when your followers tweet you. If you do not keep up with your following, it will begin to crumble. If you have too large of a following to maintain, then outsource your retweets or assign an employee to monitor and reply to your followers.

Twitter is an interactive marketing tool, and because of this it is valuable in two ways. While it is instrumental in getting your message out, it is also hugely helpful in taking the pulse of your customers. So make sure that your Twitter marketing efforts start strong and more importantly stay strong.

Popularity: 67% [?]

What’s the big idea about having Twitter followers?? This is a question I asked myself for quite some time. What purpose does a big list of Twitter followers serve? How do you increase the number of your followers?

All these are questions asked by users as well as business owners who would like to use Twitter as a professional marketing platform.

We all want to increase our Twitter followers of course. We all want people to read our updates. As a matter of fact, it’s not difficult to build an outstanding profile; however, what you need is to understand how to do all this. What matters the most is not how you tweet or what you say on your updates, but what is important is who you actually are and how you use Twitter.

There are so many articles out there on how to grow your Twitter followers. Many of them teach you how to provide value in your tweets so that you can increase your followers.

My idea is: you don’t need a million followers to promote your business online. Why? Because if you look at the list of Twitter users with the most followers you will that almost everyone on that list is a celebrity. Those people did not build their lists from scratch on Twitter! No way! These celebrities have been building their audience for years before Twitter became popular! So when they go onto Twitter, they automatically built a long list of followers because they were already famous!

Now, you may be wondering: why shouldn’t I try to get millions of followers like those celebrities?

I am not saying you shouldn’t get millions. What I am trying to say here is what you need are quality followers. In other words: you don’t need every Tom, Dick and Harry to follow you on Twitter; you need people who are in your niche, people who are interested in the product or service you are offering. Does it make sense now?

This does not mean that can’t build a targeted Twitter list unless you are rich and famous. No. As I mentioned earlier, it is not about what you tweet, but it’s about how you use Twitter. So it’s about quality.

In my opinion, there is no right or wrong way to use Twitter. But here are a few examples of things I use myself and that might help you get more followers:

Treat your Twitter profile as if it were your website or blog:

What’s the use of having a blog or a website if nobody is visiting them? That is why we strive day and night to drive traffic to our websites and blogs, right?

Well, what would you think if I told you that you should treat your Twitter profile as if it were your website or blog? In other words, you should attract traffic to your Twitter profile just the exact same way you would do for your website or blog. So the more traffic you drive to your Twitter profile, the more followers you will have.

But again, as I mentioned before: QUALITY! So the more targeted, the better it is for you!

This sounds like everyone knows it. However, many people unfortunately overlook this very important detail. Instead, they concentrate on less important things like the frequency of Twitter usage.

But as I mentioned earlier, it is HOW you use Twitter. So the key is sending traffic to your profile.

When fishing, when you want to catch as many fish as possible, you use a large net and spread it as far as you can, right? Likewise, when you want to build your Twitter profile you should keep working on sending visitors to your profile.

With that in mind, you want to offer some sort of incentive. Why would someone visit your blog or website? They are looking for freebies. Why would someone follow you on Twitter? What’s in it for your visitors? Apart from your friends and relatives, if someone wants to follow you on Twitter, they will most definitely expect some kind of incentive in return. So just the same way you offer free giveaways on your blog and website, you should think of doing the same thing on your Twitter! It could be anything: a free report, a case study, a list of tips, anything really. As long as your visitor/ follower will benefit from it in some way.

Now the fun part: how would you attract traffic to your Twitter profile?

I will give you a few pointers that have been working for me :

-       Make a cool nice looking banner ad (or have it made) and post it on your blog, website, forums etc. to attract visitors to your profile.

-       Include links to your Twitter profile from your blogs and forum threads.

-       Always include your Twitter profile link in your forum signatures.

-       If possible, have your blog show your Twitter updates on the side of the page. Some blogs allow that like blogspot.com (Google)

-       Learn to pitch Twitter influences with articles relevant to your visitors’ interests.

-       Once you build up a relationship with your followers, ask them to recommend your profile to their friends and other users and offer to do the same for them.

There is another way to increase your Twitter followers which is simply to follow other users on Twitter. But you must be very careful with this as you might get reported as a spammer.

Let’s discuss this method in detail:

This method has worked for many people when Twitter was “the new thing”. Nowadays, people are more aware of spammers and many tools; such as Twitter Blacklist have been developed to help Twitter users chase spammers away.

Most Twitter users don’t appreciate it when you simply follow them for the purpose of broadcasting your updates without building a relationship with them.

My advice to you: if you want to build a large list of Twitter followers, start by creating a presence online. Give advice, offer free giveaways, tips, tutorials, etc. Be active on your blog. Be consistent about giving new and updated information. Share your knowledge online. Then people will start following you without you asking them. Because by that time, you have already built up credibility online; therefore, people will start subscribing to your blog and follow you on Twitter because you offer value and because they know you’re the real deal.

I hope this article has helped you figure a few pointers about Twitter. If you wish to know more about attracting more Twitter followers, simply fill in your details in the form below and I will be sending you a free report.

Popularity: 39% [?]

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the followers. That’s why information on Twitter is short, to the point and effective. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. You can access Twitter via Web, Desktop Applications and even SMS. While the service costs nothing to use, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.

I started using tweeter some time ago. Surprisingly after few days of posting some tweets it started getting indexed in Google. While Google continues to dominate the world of “search”, it has a long way to go in offering real-time search capabilities.

Twitter is a powerful communication platform providing social networkers the opportunity to post updates in real-real time. The growth of twitter has been so phenomenal that Google also started paying attention and it is indexing Tweets. Many Twitter pages and individual tweets can be seen on the first page of Google.

Then I started learning more about it. Rather than using it just as a social networking platform, if used properly, it can benifit you in so many ways including by boosting your personal brand and enhancing website traffic.
 
 I want to list down some of the methods by which Twitter can benefit us:

A Powerful Tool for Obtaining Information / news. Twitter users often link to useful sites or articles and can be a source of scoops and alternative news. This is very useful for active social news participants as they can subscribe to Twitter feeds for specific websites/conferences, which allows them to receive and view content quickly.Twitter can be quite an effective search tool for researching any kind of information. The results can complement other methods or sources of information. Twitter has a wide range of users, who constantly update Twitter with new information on different niches. To reinforce Personal Brand and awareness. Twitter is a social media platform which has the primary advantage of developing a social brand that is well-connected and accessible. Due its vast usage, Twitter can be a used for promoting your products and services and establish your brand. If you have established business you can use Twitter to enhance your brand image. On the other hand if you have a smaller business with limited brand awareness then Twitter can be excellent for promoting and establishing your brand among enormous audience. Get Feedback. Twitter provides you with an opportunity to join a group of interest by following others who are influential within your niche. Twitter also allows businesses to communicate with customers and receive feedback in a casual and cost effective manner. It can prove useful in understanding and obtaining consumer opinion about new products or services or new ideas. You can also use Twitter to communicate new ideas with people and test public opinion. Bloggers sometimes use Twitter to discuss ideas for new posts. Use it as HR tool to Recruit People. Want to hire a good web analyst, web designer, or programmer? Send out a tweet asking for recommendations. This is a very quick and easy way to hire freelancers or even companies based on familiar recommendations. Marketing Opportunities. Twitter can be used in promoting your products and services. It is a cost effective method to increase awareness about your products or services. You can use it to inform customers about any new announcement or special offers. Twitter offers all the advantages of traditional text message marketing and more. It can prove to be a useful tool for conducting market research by better understanding of potential or existing customers. Boost your website traffic. Twitter can be used to direct traffic to your websites. If you tweet about your website, the message will spread faster and further as other active users pick it up and re-tweet it. Bloggers often use Twitter to inform their audience of any new posts on their blog by posting links on Twitter. Thus Twitter can be seen as a traffic generation tool. The placement of links within profiles and conversations can direct visitors to a specific website and is especially powerful if you pitch to early adopters and influencers. Make new friends. Twitter has a built-in function for you to befriend and track the messages of other users. This is a simple way for you connect with like minded people outside of your usual circle. A Twitter association can be developed into a long term acquaintance. Spreading Social Network. Twitter is an excellent tool to help bloggers share links to content which is of mutual interest to like minded people. On a personal level Twitter allows one to communicate with friends and family or close network of connections. On an organizational level Twitter allows colleagues who are not co-located to communicate with each other or businesses to communicate with their customers. With Twitter it is also possible to target a specific niche or audience by following others from your industry. It can thus allow a business to build contacts within the industry. Communities have developed around many of Twitter groups or niches. Twitter can be used to establish reliable and long term relationships for future benefits such as testimonials or peer recommendations. Get Votes. Send a link to your stories you’ve submitted in other social news sites like Digg. Your followers might vote up the stories if they agree with it. This allows you to acquire more support for your efforts on other social media websites Event Updates. Twitter can be used as a means to inform event participants and latest event happenings/changes by entrepreneurs. This is a stress-free way to broadcast information. Businesses have also used Twitter effectively to measure the performance of campaigns. Promotion. Twitter can be used as a promotional tool to announce offline endeavors or upcoming online events (webinars, virtual tradeshows etc). If you are an e-commerce site, perhaps you have a deal of the day or seasonal offers where you can promote these deals. The fact is you do not want to be too promotional, but Twitter does present the opportunity to promote your products or service and brand to your friends. SEO Boost. If you have good content on your website and you want to drive additional traffic to this content on your website, you can use Twitter to do so. A quick tweet with the URL can help drive additional traffic to a preferred landing page on your site to help persuade the conversion on your site. Find future Prospects online. Twitter allows you to interact with potential prospects and your target audience. While you do not want to be in direct touch all of the time, Twitter does allow you to engage with your prospects by re-tweeting their posts or responding to something that they may have tweeted about. Discretion and tact is needed in this area. Twitter and Mobile.  Since Twitter is very simple to use and is limited to 140 characters, mobile use with Twitter is also easy. You can both send and receive updates what you and your friends are doing on the go using a simple SMS. Twitter can be a great mobile communication tool. As we know in business, this can be a pretty powerful thing. Offer live exposure. Twitter’s message size limit prevents detailed coverage of events but it can allow you to provide real-time commentary which may help to spark further discussion or interest on the event as other Twitter users spread the message. Very useful for citizen journalism.

In short, Twitter allows you to monitor how influencers think or feel, you can also get into their attention zone via active networking. For businesses, Twitter is another channel which connects current and potential customers with your product or brand. It allows deeply infiltration into the lifestyles of interested participants, which helps to build brand persistence/loyalty. So twitter can be used a tool to achieve simple aim of tracking and directing attention from various groups of your interest and in turn drive business.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Jack Dorsey, co-founder and chairman of Twitter, Inc., said that the definition of Twitter was “a short burst of inconsequential information,” and “chirps from birds,”1 which was exactly what Twitter was. But instead of just chirping, the micro-blogging social network service has become one of the biggest buzzes in 2009, capturing countless media headlines and stirring up conversations worldwide.

Apart from Twitter, the economy is also a main topic this year. While companies find their customers are spending much less money during the economic downturn, they turn to Twitter to help build their brands, promote their products or services, and keep in touch with both loyal and potential customers.

So how do companies use Twitter to build their brands? To answer that, let us first learn some facts about Twitter.

Twitter, founded in 2006, is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as “tweets”. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author’s profile page and delivered to the author’s subscribers, known as “followers”. The three-year-old Twitter, whose popularity is still proliferating as we speak, is already the third most popular social networking site in the world behind Facebook and Myspace.

Twitter is different from other social networking services because users do not need to send requests and get approved before they can follow others. A simple click is enough for a Twitterer to follow or unfollow any other Twitter users, who may be a celebrity, a politician, a company or an individual. Not only can users send private Direct Messages (DM) to a follower, they can also send public replies to whomever they want in the Twitter-verse. Because Twitter is text-based in nature, users must post pictures or videos through URL links, which enables Twitter’s interface to stay simple and clean. Even though Twitter does not and will not put any advertisement on its website, it is still a free service, which means businesses do not need to pay a dime to promote themselves and communicate with tens of millions of potential customers.

Labbrand believes that brand equity includes brand strength and brand stature. While brand strength is determined by brand differentiation and brand relevance, brand stature is determined by brand esteem and brand knowledge. Twitter can help a brand build up these four pillars of brand equity through different dimensions of interaction between a brand and its stakeholders. We will address four examples to illustrate the point. While the brands cited in the rest of this article may satisfy all four criteria, we will only use one brand example to highlight each measure.

Differentiation under the Communication and Design Dimension

Businesses strive to make their brands unique. Differentiation is strongly associated with a brand’s communication and design. Given the proximity that Twitter provides, twittering is undoubtedly a highly unique way for companies to communicate with customers. However, this advantage may not last for long due to Twitter’s fast growth, because when the majority of brands have their own Twitter pages the fact that a brand has a Twitter page will no longer be unique. At least for the time being, however, Twitter can contribute to brand differentiation. JetBlue Airways, an American low-cost airline, has differentiated its brand through Twitter communication. Since problems with flights can cause a lot of headaches, JetBlue has set up a service where customers can complain about flight problems directly to airline staff via Twitter. It is no wonder JetBlue has already attracted more than 1.1 million followers since the launch of its Twitter page in the spring of 2007. Today its account is often cited as an example of smart corporate twittering. Using Twitter to create an efficient customer service communication platform will contribute to JetBlue’s differentiation and overall brand equity.

Relevance under the Market and Consumers Dimension

Brand relevance is a measure of appropriateness and relates to a brand’s appeal. Relevance both drives and reflects consumer choice. Relevance basically answers the question of why consumers choose to buy a particular product. It can be called the cornerstone of a brand. For companies new and old, including small businesses, how to make their brand relevant is often difficult in a highly competitive market with diverse and demanding consumer groups. Yet, Twitter can give a brand the chance to build relevance and even loyalty among today’s consumers.

Teusner Wines, a boutique winery in Australia’s Barossa Valley, has only three employees, but its Twitter account (@Teusnerwine) has nearly 6,000 followers. Dave Brookes, Teusner Wines’ one-man sales and marketing department, believes that using Twitter is more about building relationships with existing and potential customers than selling products. Brookes sends friendly messages to those who are talking about Teusner Wines on Twitter. After keeping casual, relaxed exchanges with followers and avoiding product promotions, Brooke saw more people coming to the winery for tours and an increase in traffic to its website. Even though shipping restrictions prevent Teusner Wines from selling directly to individuals outside Australia, a number of people from United States and Canada have asked where they can find Teusner Wines at stores and restaurants near them, demonstrating that these potential consumers find the brand highly relevant. Moreover, Twitter users might like a brand and consider it relevant simply because it uses Twitter.

Esteem under the Products and Services Dimension

Differentiation and relevance are still not enough to build a successful brand. Eventually, customers need to decide whether or not they will purchase the product or service, and how much they like the brand. Since Twitter as well as other social media are strongly interactive, they are always linked to the esteem dimension of a brand. American Apparel (@americanapparel) has more than 40,000 Twitter followers. One of the United States’s largest clothing manufacturer’s unique ad campaigns was inspired by one of its own Twitter followers. American Apparel received a DM from a freelance photographer (Ryan Marshal @ThePanicRoom) chronicling his wife’s pregnancy with week-by-week photos of the mother-to-be in American Apparel clothing. The company liked the photo series so much that they used the images as the basis for an ad campaign showing cute and comfy looks for expectant moms. American Apparel also set up its ad on Marchal’s blog (pacingthepanicroom.com). They ran a unique banner ad for baby clothes, and the blog became one of American Apparel’s top performing sites for online ads.

As you can see, Twitter helped drive American Apparel’s product promotion decisions, and at the same time demonstrated the brand’s proximity to their customers, thereby building esteem.

Internal Effects – Esteem & Knowledge under the Culture and Behavior Dimension

Thus far we have discussed external brand interactions; however, Twitter can also enhance interactions between employees and the companies that they work for. This means Twitter also has internal effects on a business and their internal brands.

Just like a twittering company would appeal to its twittering customers, it will also appeal to its twittering employees. It works the other way around too; some companies test applicants’ ability to use twitter when recruiting new employees, since Twitter is considered to be a vital tool by many marketers.

As for knowledge, it measures whether there is a true understanding of what a brand stands for. No one knows better about what a brand stands for than its own top executives who get to decide what their brands mean. Normally, only a few privileged employees could directly interact with their top executives, but Twitter can help to change this. For instance, Zappos.com’s CEO Tony Hsieh is in charge of the electronic commerce company’s Twitter account (@zappos), which has nearly 1.2 million followers. Not only can customers contact Hsieh via Twitter, so can Zappos.com’s employees. Hsieh constantly writes his thoughts on business and Zappo as a brand like “Good businesses figure out how to continuously add value. Great businesses figure out how to continuously multiply value,” and “When your work is an extension of who you really are deep down inside, it’s no longer a job or a career. It’s a calling,” so that employees can better understand the brand and better serve customers. By building esteem and knowledge internally, Zappos will build a stronger and more valuable brand overall. (In July 2009, Amazon.com Inc. announced it will purchase Zappos.com, and the deal is expected to go through in the fall. It will be interesting to see if this acquisition will affect Zappos Twitter account!)

Conclusion

From the above exploration of Twitter, we can see that Twitter does have the potential to help businesses build brand equity. However, we are sure that the most effective way has not yet been discovered. The new-born Twitter leaves businesses a huge space to explore, innovate, and experiment with the most effective ways to twitter up brand equities.

1 http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/02/twitter-creator.html

Popularity: 9% [?]

100 Twitter Marketing Tips to Promote your Business Author and technologist Nicholas Carr says, “Twitter is the telegraph system of Web 2.0.” The New York Times has mentioned that Twitter is one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet. Only a few brands skimmed off profits from Twitter and others just tweeted about some direct marketing stuff. However, there are numerous ways you can leverage Twitter for your business and improve your bottom line. Here is the one-stop Twitter guide for business. Get started with the Twitter Guide 1. Create a Twitter account 2. Make sure, that you have selected a unique vanity URL for your Twitter account 3. Upload an image and customize your profile image using this tool: http://walterhiggins.net/projects/twixenate.html 4. Include a link to your corporate website 5. Promote your Twitter presence on your corporate website, client emails, etc. SEO juice – Recently, Google started indexing tweets; these tips could help you optimize your Twitter account. 6. Include your brand name as the title of your profile 7. Use the Google keywords tool and shortlist important keywords relevant to your products 8. Include those keywords in your bio 9. Use keywords in the first 30 characters of your tweets in order to be optimized by Google 10. Get re-tweeted and increase backlinks for your content A “following” strategy – This will help you to connect with your target audience. 11. Identify your target audience based on their interests 12. Use hashtags “#” (Hashtags are a community-driven convention to add additional context and metadata to your tweets) to search for your target audience using this tool: http://wefollow.com/ 13. Use more directories for search such as: http://www.twellow.com/,http://justtweetit.com/ etc. 14. Follow the influencers in your industry using this tool: http://www.twitalyzer.com/ Identify local Twitter users or tweeple – If you are a company that serves only a particular location, networking with local tweeple will add more value to your business. 15. Follow influencers in your location using this tool: http://twitterholic.com/. This tool lists all the influencers on Twitter, based on the number of followers and location. 16. Enter keywords relevant to your product and use the “near this place” option in Twitter’s advanced search to identify tweeple who are interested in your product 17. Search for tweeple near your location using this tool: http://www.tweepz.com/ 18. Network with local tweeple by searching for them with hashtags, using this tool: http://localtweeps.com/ How to make your tweets effective 19. If you prefer Web tweeting, use this tool: http://twitzap.com/ for advanced features 20. Download Tweetdeck for more power tweeting from your desktop 21. You can add additional Twitter accounts in Tweetdeck and control them using a single application 22. Schedule important tweets in advance using this tool: http://www.tweetlater.com/ 23. Use: http://cotweet.com/ for collaborative tweeting What to tweet on – Starting and joining the right conversation(s) will give you more exposure. 24. Post tweets based on the interests of your followers 25. Search for topics relevant to your product(s) and talk to influencers 26. Use hashtags to power the conversation 27. Post tweets about useful links and articles 28. Use: http://happn.in/ to talk about the trends in your locality. Twit research – Twitter is a good source for market data as prospective customers are present there. 29. Finalize the sample size of the search. 30. List hashtags relevant to your research objective 31. Get secondary data for your research based on hashtags by using this tool:http://twubs.com/ 32. Analyze hashtags relevant to your research using this tool: http://www.trendrr.com/ Get feedback –As Twitter is a real-time medium, organizations use Twitter to get direct feedback from customers. 33. Get feedback from customers and other tweeple by replying and directly messaging them 34. Use hashtags to organize the feedback 35. Get feedback from local tweeple using this tool: http://nearbytweets.com/ 36. Use: http://twtpoll.com/ to conduct a simple survey in Twitter to get real-time feedback 37. Post new product screenshots in http://twitpic.com/ and get instant feedback from your followers Twit hiring – If you are looking to hire people for your organization, Twitter is another source to find the right talent. 38. Search for job seekers near your location using advanced search features in Twitter public search 39. Use hashtags in your tweets to reach active job seekers 40. Post tweets to announce benefits such as perks, allowances, etc. for the job(s) you offer 41. Use: http://twitpic.com/ to share corporate events to show job seekers your organization’s work culture 42. You can also use Twitter to conduct background checks on employees by using the Twitter advanced public search. Tweetup – “Is an organized or impromptu gathering of people that use Twitter.” Tweetup is an excellent platform to promote products among local Tweeple. 43. Search for a Tweetup near your location using: http://nearbytweets.com/ 44. Organize a Tweetup in your locality using this tool: http://www.twtvite.com/ 45. Pitch for influencers in your location by attending Tweetups. 46. Give away promo codes to attendees in the Tweetup to spread your product virally. Follow your competition – This can give you insights on what your competitors are working on. 47. Follow your competitors on Twitter. 48. Use Twitter public search to get more insights on competitors’ activities 49. Analyze their Twitter account and follower patterns using: http://tweetstats.com/ 50. Compare your network statistics with competitors using: http://twitter-friends.com/ Twit coupons 51. Increase sales for your business by giving exclusive coupons to your followers 52. Use http://twtqpon.com/ to distribute coupons via Twitter 53. Get your tweets indexed in http://cheaptweet.com/ by using cheaptweet hashtag and increase exposure for your deals Twitter promotion 54. Now you can run sweepstakes offers via Twitter to create brand awareness, increase sales, etc. 55. Set the objective for Twitter promotion 56. Make sure that there is no bias in your promotion and be transparent in what you offer 57. To participate in the offer, ask users to include hashtags in their tweets 58. Track the performance of your campaign using this trend-tracking tool:http://www.trendrr.com/ 59. Make sure that you do not spam your followers and avoid sending too many tweets about your sweepstakes offers 60. Calculate the ROI of the campaign by breaking it down into: Number of new followers gained, products sold, new visitors to the websites, etc. Blog sync 61. Increase traffic to your blog by using this auto-feed tool, http://twitterfeed.com/ 62. Tweet the comments in your blog using this wordpress plug-in: http://www.jonbishop.com/commentwitter-plugin-page/ 63. Include your Twitter conversations in your blog using this wordpress plug-in: http://www.paulmc.org/whatithink/wordpress/plugins/twitter-friends-widget/ 64. Include a retweet button in your blog to spread it virally using Twitter. You can install the retweet button from here: http://tweetmeme.com/about/retweet_button Facebook sync 65. A Facebook page is a marketing channel for most brands. A marriage between Facebook and Twitter will initiate greater engagement and conversations 66. Integrate your Facebook page with Twitter using this Facebook application: http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/ 67. Avoid spamming your fans in your Facebook page with too many Twitter updates 68. Use this application: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=115463795461 to post selective Twitter updates Press Release Optimization 69. Get more exposure for your Press Releases (PR) by sharing them on Twitter 70. Use keywords in the first 30 characters of your PR tweet for SEO 71. Ask your followers to retweet your PRs to spread them virally 72. Use hashtags to track the PRs 73. Deliver your PRs to top journalists on Twitter using this paid service: http://muckrack.com/press_releases 74. Analyze the number of tweets your PR receives using: http://www.trendrr.com/ Direct messages (DM) for direct marketing – DM’s are new way to market your product via Twitter 75. Avoid sending DMs to all of your followers 76. Analyze the interests of your followers before sending them DMs 77. Customize your offering in DM based on followers’ demographics 78. Avoid using automated tools for sending DM’s 79. Always maintain a human touch while sending DMs Brand monitoring 80. Monitor real-time conversations about your brand in Twitter to understand customers’ linguistics 81. To start with, use a simple tool like Twitter public search 82. Monitor various keywords associated with your brand using this tool: http://monitter.com/ 83. Manage multiple Twitter accounts and brand monitoring using one single tool: http://splitweet.com/ 84. Paid tools like Radian6 provide many insights along with real-time brand monitoring Customer support 85. Sometimes your brand will get punk’d in Twitter and customer support plays a vital role to protect your brand from crisis 86. Monitor your brand in real-time and respond to various customer tweets before a brand crisis occurs 87. Assign different queries to employees in concerned departments usinghttp://cotweet.com/ 88. Set up a 24/7 automated response for customers’ tweets by using this tool: http://www.localbunny.com/ 89. Analyze the number of issues solved via Twitter to measure ROI Twitter Insights 90. Measure your Twitter performance using parameters like retweet rank, Click Through Rate (CTR) of your tweets, follower count etc. 91. Find your retweet rank using: http://www.retweetrank.com/ 92. Track the CTR of your tweets by using short URL services like: http://bit.ly/ 93. Analyze your web traffic from Twitter by adding UTM parameters in each tweet link using this tool: http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55578 94. Analyze your follower count at: http://twittercounter.com/ 95. Find which tweets help you gain or lose followers, using: http://www.tweeteffect.com/ 96. Measure your share of voice by using tools like Radian6 Security tips 97. Never use third party Twitter applications that do not support Oath authentication 98. Use strong passwords to protect your account from hackers. Use this tool: http://strongpasswordgenerator.com/ to generate strong passwords 99. If any security lapses occur on Twitter, change your password immediately 100. Do not click any links in DMs from strangers.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Product Description
Social Media has done an excellent job in bringing the producer and consumer closer. The distance between the two is diminishing by the day. From positive feedback to negative criticism, everything talked on the sphere of Web 2.0 today is closely watched. Demystifying Twitter Marketing makes a clean breast of social media and explains how a business can take a full benefit from its presence. The book is more focused on using Twitter as a marketing medi… More >>

Demystifying Twitter Marketing

Popularity: 1% [?]

What used to be a script a team of web developers used to communicate while working on team projects is now the largest micro-blogging platform and the fastest growing social network on the planet.

Throughout 2009 Twitter has grown tremendously. In March, Mashable reported that twitter has grown 1,382% year-over-year compared to 2008.

Many social media experts believe that in 2010 Twitter is going to outgrow Facebook size of which accumulates to 22% of Total Internet Audience.

In February 2009, when I first started using Twitter, I had no clue it will change the way I market online.

Twitter has dramatically improved my business during the course of 2009 and in this post I want to share 10 specific ways Twitter allowed me to run a more profitable Internet Marketing Campaign.

1. Connections

In 2009 Nokia is not the one that connects people-Twitter is. Thanks to Twitter, I met hundreds of interesting, exciting, uplifting and fun people.

Via Twitter I connected with hundreds of internet marketers, just like me, which inevitably led to a series of great connections that my business benefited from.

Twitter also made it easier for me to connect with individuals I otherwise haven’t had a chance to reach. Celebrities are in love with Social Media and they try to reply to anyone who comes in contact-so the rest can see how cool they are (e.g.: Ashton Kutcher, Darren Rowse, Shaq, etc.).

2. Traffic Generation

I learned to leverage Twitter for traffic before I even understood what “SEO” meant, and it gave my blog the start up boost it needed to get off the ground. For that I thank Twitter.

Besides being a connectivity tool, Twitter is a great way to generate traffic to your blog.

Twitter is responsible for approximately 25% of all IgorHelpsYouSucceed traffic. That’s a lot!

3. Information Sharing

RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication, but Twitter should stand for “Easier then RSS and Email syndication” because it makes information sharing as easy and as viral is it gets.

Throughout 2009, Twitter has helped me to discover hundreds of great information sources as well as profitable data I could apply in my business and make more money as a result.

4. Inspiration and Motivation

Twitter is probably one of the best tools to use if you want to spread inspiration online. 140 characters are perfect to fit in a quote or a call to action.

I can recall dozens of times when I was discouraged by a set back and Twitter cheered me up with an insight or a quote that one of my followers shared.

Since then, I regularly tweet quotes because I know that there’s someone out there who’s waiting for a flash of inspiration to turn things around once again.

5. Reach Increase

If you’re using Twitter to market-you can say that you have an unfair advantage over anyone who does not.

Having a Twitter account is like having really long arms that you can reach further than most people can with.

Twitter opens many doors that you couldn’t have opened otherwise or that would have cost you hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars.

I know that I am being general here, but that’s only because I don’t want to give away the ace up my sleeve .

6. Writing Skills

Another important way Twitter improved my business is the fact that as a result of sending out 140 characters tweets, I became a better writer.

Prior to Twitter, there wasn’t any social network that would limit you in your status updates. Twitter completely changed the rules of the social game when it introduced the 140 character limit and the micro-blogging concept.

As a result I had to adapt a new writing style where I had to express the same feeling, idea or thought with less words.

It wasn’t easy at first. For a while I had to re-write my tweets dozens of times for them to convey the right message. However, within couple of weeks I mastered the skill of Twitter-Writing and as a result, now I can squeeze the same amount of information in 140 characters that I can in a paragraph of text.

Twitter’s limitation allowed forced me to cut the needless babble away from my writing and as a result my writing is a lot sharper then it used to be a year ago.

7. Authority

Authority is the number one factor in business and marketing that determines whether people will do what you tell them to do (e.g.: buy from you).

Since Twitter is completely open source-everyone can see your activity. By leveraging Twitter in specific ways, it is possible to generate instant affection, authority, sympathy and a whole spectrum of emotions to influence people.

People who joined Twitter immediately get the idea who is the “popular kid” simply by looking at the followers/following counter in people’s profiles.

I leveraged this fact to manufacture a higher social status to my followers which increased optins and sales.

I have also used Twitter to gather testimonials for my Mindset Course which resulted in 2.5% sales increase and 25% visitor to subscriber ratio.

8. Link Building and SEO

Did you know that every tweet you send out generates a separate page on Twitter?

It means that if you include a link in your Tweet, you have a backlink pointing back to your site which is crawled by the search engines immediately.

Although the link is a NoFollow, it’s still a valuable asset, because it’s a LINK!

Google loves Twitter as much as it does EzineArticles, YouTube, Digg and the rest of the “social networking mafia family”, therefore a dozen of backlinks from Twitter (a day) is a valuable asset to your SEO campaign.

Many SEO experts probably won’t support this statement, but you never know for sure. In 2009 social media was given a huge SEO authority by Google, Yahoo and Bing. That is why I believe that building links of Twitter is as important as submitting articles to EzineArticles and uploading videos to YouTube.

9. Social Media

Before Twitter came along, I used to hand out only on Facebook and a little bit on YouTube.

What Twitter did for my Social Media Marketing Campaign in 2009 is definitely worth mentioning in this post, because via Twitter I managed to drastically increase my social media activity on Digg, StumbleUpon, YouTube, Facebook, Mixx and Reddit.

I used Twitter to create my own Social Media Marketing circle. By connecting every social networking site I am on with Twitter, I increased my “seen activity”, authority, publicity and productivity.

10. Content Creation

You know what they say-content is King. It’s probably only a Prince, because Marketing is important too.

However search engines love fresh content which is probably the reason I try to update this blog every day or at least once in 2-3 days if I am busy working on a new project.

Twitter is the topic of 22 out of 170 posts I’ve written for IgorHelpsYouSucceed. And there are also 48 posts devoted to social media marketing, which means that Twitter is mentioned in at least 68 articles on this blog alone. Twitter is responsible for 40% of content on this blog which means it’s the main SEO traffic generation resource I have.

Another interesting fact is that Twitter related posts tend to get most responses from my readers, which means that I should write more about Twitter than anything else.

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Twitter was founded in 2006 by American software architect and business person Jack Dorsey. Since its creation, it has quickly gained a cult following and has grown exponentially in terms of notability and popularity on a global scale.

Twitter is best described as a free social networking and micro-blogging site; amalgamating the convenience of short text messaging and the ease at which information flow is facilitated instantly online. One can set up an account based on a niche or topic of interest, follow immediate friends and family for a start, scour the network for like-minded enthusiasts, begin with a tweet and they are away; it’s that simple!   Jack described his product name as “a short burst of inconsequential information,” and “chirps from birds” and this fitted Twitter’s essence like a hand-in-glove.

One of the most impressive stand-outs of the platform is its applicability to a myriad of situations, including:

1) Education: Language teaching where students are asked to send tweets and also responses in the new language as a tool to train proficiency and cultural assimilation. Twitter has also been used in student evaluations, facilitating the delivery of course curricula and also to improve communication skills.

2) Politics: Twitter was used extensively by US electoral candidates during the 2008 presidential campaign as a means to create closeness and approachability between voters and leaders.

3) Space Exploration: NASA astronauts Mike Massimino, Nicole Scott and Jeff Williams were pioneers in employing Twitter as a social media/marketing tool to send real-time tweets and updates from their space stations.

4)  Emergencies: This is arguably one of the most powerful and direct ways in which Twitter could be used to reach the masses instantly at low cost with time critical information. The social network actually does a much better job of getting information out during emergencies than either the traditional news media or government emergency services. During the forest fires in California in October 2007, people kept their followers (who were often friends and neighbours) informed of their whereabouts and of the location of various fires in real-time speed. Relief support organisations also massively engage Twitter. The American Red Cross started using Twitter to exchange minute-to-minute information about local disasters including statistics and directions.

The 2008 Mumbai attacks led to the proliferation of Twitter to unprecedented levels; eyewitnesses sent an estimated 80 tweets every 5 seconds. Twitter users on the ground helped compile a list of the dead and injured. Furthermore, users sent out critical information such as emergency phone numbers and the location of hospitals needing blood donations. CNN heralded this as “the day social media appeared to come of age” since many different groups made significant use of Twitter to gather news and coordinate responses.

5) Public Relations:  UK’s Department of Business, NGOs, fire departments and even the US Army intelligence use Twitter as a means to develop communication strategies, incident reporting, counter-terrorist tools and even to hold worldwide conferences and webinars.

…and this is just the tip of the iceberg. Twitter ‘s practicality extends to many other innumerable situations.

Some implied applications about Twitter, what they mean and how they can help one spread his/her/organisational reach so that valuable insights and vital information and be conveyed literally at the click of a button:

Networking: The opportunities are endless. Individuals and institutions alike can search Twitter for like-minded professionals, organisations and enthusiasts. Once located, free communication without strings attached or identities can be formed with concrete relationships and synergies easily achievable thereafter.

Traffic generation: Twitter can be used as a network marketing tool that enables individuals or organisations to generate free traffic to their websites. Followers can be cross-followed and links promoted via informative updates. Third party websites also provide banners, badges, direct links and widgets which could also be implicitly accessed through tweets mentioning the primary web-page.

Opt-in and feedback evaluation: Individuals and organisations can set up hash-tag groups following clients or interested personnel so feedback/evaluation can be done in an informal and very quick manner. This is very similar in function to distributing online feedback forms post campaigns or product launches bar the hassle of design and distribution costs. Subscription lists can grow to millions through time, FREE!

Content: This could be disseminated literally in seconds to a targeted and relevant audience. Without the platform that Twitter has, this could take ages and cost a whole lot more. Events timelines, schedules and locations could also be translated and conveyed via Twitter easily and accurately.

Media and news: Access to important pieces of news and media portals could never have been made easier with tweets searchable through Twitter search and trends observable via Twitter’s front page.

Internet Marketing: Just imagine a world where you get rewarded for your reach! Back links and re-directs can be encompassed within informative tweets where Twitterers can click and be led to a site/s for more content.  One can actually in plain terms make money using Twitter!

Advertising: This allows the use of repeated but content novel and rich tweets to invoke branding. Stand-out logos and tag lines could also be promoted for free!

 Twitter status: One’s online status message.

Tweet: A short update of what one is doing limited to 140 characters.

Followers: People who are subscribers of one’s updates or tweets.

Following: People whom an individual is interested in following by subscribing to their tweets.

Direct Message (DM): A Direct Message sent to one’s followers which will appear on Twitter search in about 10 minutes post sending.

At (@): One can use this when one is referring to a third party in their updates (also known as @replies). This is done by prefixing the third party’s username with @ to display his/her Twitter account in the update.

Re-Tweet (RT): A repetition of a tweet by a third party because of good quality and usefulness of content.

Hash (#): When one wants to tell something specific about some issue or subject, one can prefix the subject with #. Hashtags can then be used to create ”groupings” on Twitter, without having to change the basic service. Hashtags.org delievers real-time tracking of Twitter hashtags; one can join by following @hashtags.

Tweet – Up: When a group of Twitterers  arrange a gathering for a social interaction purposes or for some bloggers meet and etc.

Blocking/Spam: Some users spam others through Twitter; they can blocked in two ways namely directly from the User’s Twitter page or through one’s Followers list . Just hit Block and Twitter will action.          

In conclusion, Twitter is an extremely useful social media innovation where information flow – personal, casual or mass broadcast during time critical circumstances – can easily be transmitted and received. It also allows institutions to reach the public and relevant stakeholders about updates, developments, strategy and outlook. Brands can be built and images enhanced via content-rich and informative tweets. The ease of set-up and use also implies that anyone can be up and running within minutes. If one thinks out-of-the-box a little, making money through Twitter back-linking and free marketing via good tweets should also be easily achieved. All in all, Twitter is the epitome of social media innovation and its uses and implementations one can safely say, far extends beyond pure social net-working.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Knowing how to apply the Twitter network marketing formula is going to determine your success within Twitter. The twitter formula is quite easy, but most, not only don’t know how to use it, but also don’t know what it is. Essentially, this marketing formula encompasses a number of things.

As a new twitter user, the first thing you should do is to setup your profile. This is so that those individuals visiting your page see that you are active within the community and are far more likely to follow you.

One of the biggest mistakes that new twitter network marketers make is in immediately adding contacts to their following list, without having issued out tweets, updated their profile or uploaded a photo of themselves.

This makes sense if you already have an online presence and are simply incorporating your current contacts from your address book or mailing list, but if you are currently working to establish your brand or grow your business, it is critical that you develop your twitter presence first, and then add or invite new followers.

This begins with your profile page, the entry point that every potential follower visits prior to adding you as a contact.

You need to make sure that you complete your profile and that you provide useful information about yourself so that people can either identify you or know what you are offering, involved in, or are interested in.

There are a few different fields relating to your profile that should never be left out, including your full name and your website URL.

Since your user name becomes part of your twitter profile’s URL, you should also make sure that you use a user name that is relevant to your market, niche or represents your business.

You can choose to use your name, if it is available for registration, your website URL, business name or simply keywords representing the market you are involved in. Personally, I recommend that you use your full name as your twitter username. This is so that your profile URL is structured like this:

http://twitter.com/Jane-Doe or http://twitter.com/JaneDoe

One thing that many people don’t know is that keywords featured within your actual twitter profile URL tie directly in with twitters built in search utility, meaning that whenever someone searches for information using specific keywords, twitter searches through profiles and usernames to pull relevant search results.

This means that you should always include your primary keyword within your profile fields, including your bio area, so that you are far more likely to be included in search results each time someone enters a relevant keyword associated with your market.

It’s important to determine what brand you are creating within the twitter network. If you run multiple websites or businesses, use different names (pen names) for business names, you will need to consider the best approach to take.

Do you want to create a single twitter account that serves as an all-in-one contact center for your different markets, or is it better to create multiple twitter accounts, each one focusing on your different businesses and markets?

Even with twitter’s simplistic structure, and the vast amount of tools that are available to help automate your activity and in building a following, you will still need to spend time actively participating within the twitter network community. This is only if you want to further your business and maximize your exposure.

This can be exceptionally difficult to do if you are running and managing multiple twitter accounts, so take that into consideration when you are developing your twitter account and choosing your main focus.

I recommend that you separate your tweets and activity for each of your main markets does help keep things organized and on track. This means to run each of your twitter accounts independently from each other.

By doing this, it will allow you to send out multiple tweets (messages) for each of your markets, rather than confusing potential buyers by using one account that randomly broadcasts messages covering multiple niches.

Twitter has no problem with people opening multiple accounts, however, you must actively use these accounts in order to keep them.

If you allow an account to become inactive for a period of time, twitter reserves the right to terminate the account and open up the possibility of someone else registering that user name. Thus, if you do not intend on creating multiple twitter accounts, make sure that you log in regularly to keep them active.

From within your twitter account, you will be able to add in a short bio. This field is exceptionally important! Once again, with twitter’s search function, it pulls information from the users’ bios to match them up with keywords entered into the search engine.

This means that you should include keywords that are relevant to your niche market, so that you are able to maximize exposure by being included in search results whenever another twitter user enters in those keywords.

Your bio shouldn’t showcase just keywords. You also want to ensure that you provide a bit of information about yourself, so that people who aren’t familiar with you can get to know who you are, and consider following you.

Your bio field, just like any twitter broadcast you send out, is limited to only 140 characters, so you’ll need to take some time to determine the best terms to describe yourself and your business.

Separate keywords with commas so that each keyword is individually placed.

Example: twitter network marketing, twitter network, twitter

When you are satisfied with your account, it’s time to write your first tweet. This can make people a little anxious, especially since once you post a tweet, everyone who visits your profile or chooses to follow you will be able to see it.

With twitter marketing, if you ever want to delete a message that you previously sent out, all you have to do is click on the tweet, look for the trash can icon and click it, to delete your message from the time line.

There is also the option to mark specific tweets as favorites, which will make it easy for you to locate the tweet later on, once you have multiple messages in the time line.

When it comes to writing tweets, don’t spend a lot of time worrying whether it’s creative enough, witty enough, or interesting enough.

Once you have become an active member of the twitter community, you’ll find it easier to think of entertaining and useful tweets, and will also be able to respond to ongoing discussions from those you follow and who follow you.

For now, post whatever is on your mind. Working on a website? Post about it. Perhaps you’ve found an interesting website or news story, post about it.

The idea is to simply post enough so that you become comfortable with the twitter system, and more importunately, so that your profile pages shows activity before you start inviting people to follow you.

Once you’ve posted your first tweet, it’s time to start following people on twitter, so that you can build up your twitter presence, and encourage people to follow you in return.

Don’t just sign up and blast out ads every few minutes expecting to achieve anything but annoying those on your list.

Take the time to talk to people individually by directing messages to specific people, post useful information or links to free products and resources that people in your various niche markets would appreciate.

Just like anything else, you need to develop a reputation on Twitter as being someone who is interested in helping others, while developing your own Twitter presence.

A great thing about Twitter network marketing is the ability to quickly locate other people who are involved in your target twitter market, or industry.

For example, if you are looking to find people to interview who may be experienced in specific things, you can find many people who are involved in nearly every topic and subject online.

It’s like a rolodex of the entire online business industry, and as Twitter continues to grow, more and more people are jumping on board, so expect to see Twitter evolve and change to improve their system and add more interactive, productive features that will make it easier to use and to reach out to others.

Posting subtle little updates about your current projects, websites, blogs and products is an easy way to keep people up to day on what you are doing, even people who otherwise might not know who you are, or what you do.

The way you present your updates and the frequency in which you do it, (avoid Twitter spamming) is critical in staying current and helping your brand become memorable and noticed by the community.

Popularity: 4% [?]

by Joel Comm Twitter Power

Popularity: 1% [?]