There are a lot of social marketing tools out there for self-promotion purposes and many of them are free. There’s a balance between social networking and online play. Using tools like Twitter the right way could lead to great results.
What is Twitter?
Twitter is a social networking tool that you can use to tell the world what you’re doing in 140 characters or less. The reason it’s designed this way is for the mobile user who can receive status updates on their mobile device. You can use it online or through a tool like Twhirl that is installed on your desktop. You might think this is nothing more than a social tool instead of a social networking tool but Twitter can be quite helpful in getting you new subscribers and clients.
When to Use Twitter in Internet Marketing Efforts
You get the benefit of your own followers and anyone on the public timeline watching when you update your Twitter status. When you update your status with what you’re doing, you can insert a URL that shows people what you are doing. By writing an interesting headline and inserting your link, you can entice people to visit. The key to Twitter success is to be interesting, to get involved in discussions and to entice new followers. By doing so actively but productively, you can definitely reap the rewards of successful social marketing.
Social Marketing Pitfalls
The pitfalls of social marketing happen when you get so caught up in the social aspect that it sucks out your productivity. It’s important to set boundaries for yourself especially if you see yourself as wasting time socialising instead of working. It’s a fine balance between social marketing and just playing online so set limits for yourself so you can make the most of Twitter as a useful tool.
About Sean Rasmussen
Hi Sean,
I see that you wrote this post in June, 2008. Do you still think that Twitter is a great place to promote our products? It just seems like that everyone has a product they’re trying to push and I feel like I’d get lost in the crowd. Most of the new people I follow on Twitter will DM me with a link for some kind of e-book or product. I don’t even bother to look at most of the offers.
Maybe I just need a little more practice at writing eye-catching headlines to get people to click on my link? I can definitely improve on building relationships with my followers. I’ll see what happens.
It can still work Jazz, but these days it is more about building credibility and rapport with your followers. If you can get known as an expert within your field, I am sure there are lots of people who would take a look at products you recommend.
Hi Sean,
Thanks for the advice. These are areas I really need to improve on. I’m normally pretty self-sufficient so it’s kind of unusual for me to use a teamwork approach.
Yeah Sean it sure is a fine line, however your guidance is proving invaluable.
How is the event going?
I must admit that Twitter is something that I haven’t spent much time building so far. But I think it is worth a further look. Perhaps I will see if a little bit of SocialOopmh might help.
Good point regarding credibility – there are a number of people who I followed for a week or so before finding that I was getting buried by their spam, about any particular site they seemed to stumble upon. I quickly unfollowed them as they were blocking the people I actually wanted to listen to.
I have a paid Social Oomph account which I have found is FABULOUS as I have several twitter accounts and being able to schedule tweets as well as the piles of other features it has just makes it so usable.
While I know the power of Twitter, I seem to find myself being more entrenched with Facebook. It just seems to be more interactive and contain more functionality. Of course the downside to that is that you can find yourself spending way too much time on Facebook and that can waste time that you should be spending on “real” work.
Spending too much valuable time on social sites is something many of us get caught up on Cemil. Try to limit yourself to set amounts of time per day and make sure the time you spend there is beneficial to your goals.
As Sean commented, nowadays you should work at building your credibility on Twitter. Work at getting recognized for your areas of expertise and then your followers will be quite forgiving when you occasionally flog your products. But definitely don’t become a spamming PITA. (Don’t you just love acronyms?)
Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook can suck all the productivity out of you is you let them. However, that’s one of the reasons for using Time Management tools. If you keep your online Calendar and Todo list open in a tab on your browser you can keep an ongoing check of what you’ve accomplished and what you yet have to do.
Just a couple of thoughts to chew on.
Social networking is one area I need to address when it comes to getting caught up. More so with Facebook than any other. Twitter is one that is going to take a little while to warm to but with the ultimate twitter guide now in hand I will certainly be taking more advantage of the possibilities in Twitter.
This matches other articles about balancing time and effort with social media. Setting “boundaries” by using a timetable or schedule is very necessary for me – not because I get caught up in it too much – but because I am not consistent enough!
So many people mention twitter in the media and the ability to tweet from your phone has made it really accessible to a lot of people – you dont have to be in front of your computer. Getting repuation from Twitter just pulls everything into the same philosophy of persona and credibility and building a community around yourself.
Hi Sean,
I have spent quite a bit of time on Twitter gathering followers but have not done much else with it on a regular basis. I see it has great potential for promoting product especially because so many people are doing it.
I’m not sure if I have followers who have many things in common though. This may or may not be important. I’m not sure.