Twitter marketing is proven as a successful way to build recognition, get free traffic, and market to your customers. Blatant advertising most often turns people off, unless you’re already established.
So how do you find the fine balance between communicating, networking and spamming? Here are some ways you can start interacting with your tweeps effectively.
Tone Down Your Autoresponse
Do you have SocialOomph or another tool set up to automatically send a direct message to your new followers? If it’s a blatant sales message you’re using, you might get un-followed before you even get a chance. Say Hi but don’t go for the throat. Don’t jump all over someone as soon as you add them as well. Do feel free to say hi but don’t DM.
What’s Your Self-Serving Ratio
Watch your ratio of self-serving tweets. Too many and you’ll lose twitter followers. Try mixing up your self-serving tweets with informative, interesting and humorous content. Asking questions is another great way to build Twitter relationships and start conversation.
Tweet Unto Others
Hoping people will retweet your messages and select you for #followfriday? Make sure you do the same! Try to retweet a great post for someone at least once a day and participate in things like follow Friday to share some love with your followers.
Make sure you understand Twitter etiquette. For example, retweet like this:
RT @twitterusername ____________(paste of post)
Answer Questions
Do people ask questions? Try to be a helpful twitizen and you’ll get thanked, get re-tweeted, and maybe they’ll check out your links as well.
Respond To @Messages
If someone writes to you, have the courtesy to write back. The @replies feature doesn’t always work well, so it’s a good idea to do a Twitter search for @yourusername.
Get In On The Fun
Watch for fun discussions going on such as those in the trending topics. Pop in on those discussions. Not only will you be participating but you’ll get the attention of new followers who are watching those topics as well.
What’s For Lunch
People joke about not spending your time on microblogging tools talking about what’s for lunch but seriously, the odd mindless post can be entertaining and endear you as a human being to your followers. While managing your conduct online is important, especially when you want to build a recognisable brand, people tend to follow people rather than brands mostly because they’d like to connect with them.
Watch your mentors as well and see what they’re doing. Chances are, you’ll see a mix of techniques used. Most of all, you’ll see their genuine personality shine through and that can definitely boost your sales – especially if you’re a likeable person!
If you would like to become tweeps, please feel free to check out my Twitter profile.
Have a most outstanding day.
Sean RasmussenAussie Internet Marketing
www.SeanSEO.com © 2008 - 2010
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you Sean for a fabulous article. For a Twitter novice, like myself, it can all be a little daunting and you have certainly helped me out and gain confidence in conversing with my Tweeps…..lol
Thank you again.
Glad to be of help Vittoria, Happy Tweeting
Regards – Sean
Tweeps? Twitizen? Sounds like how all those poor KFC caged factory chickens would be talking to each other, going Twitter-brain crazy!
Twitter is still a bit of a challenge sometimes, as there is so much coming in. I find it hard to really follow everybody and sometimes feel bad about it, but it’s just too much. How do you handle your thousands of followings? How do you filter all the messages?
Hi Sean,
I really enjoy interacting with my tweeps; not that you could really call it interacting. I need to work on building relationships more and get involved in more conversations. I’m working on it.
I agree with what you say about DMs. It really gets my goat when people continually send me links to their e-book, report or product that will make me thousands of dollars today. I try to re-tweet other tweeps links and generally be helpful. It is a lot of work though.