With the up rise of Social Media Marketing in 2008, it is important to grasp exactly what can be gained from this form of promotion and what are the components of it. This is something we will be focusing on in the first part of 2009.The first element we are going to look is the world of Microblogging, Twitter.com and how it can help your business.
Microblogging is a web service using multimedia blogging that allows the users of it to send brief updates to other users. These updates can come in the form of text (around 150 characters and less – 140 in Twitter’s case) or other micromedia such as photos or audio clips. These updates can be either displayed to all of your contacts or a selective group depending on what the update is; this makes the system ideal for selective targeting for your products or services as we will come to.
Twitter is the most widely recognised example of Microblogging which is mainly due to its shear volume of users. In 2008, Twitter’s UK traffic has multiplied by over 10 times, which is a growth that seems to be continuing, making it a very attractive medium to be able to advertise and direct traffic from.
When you first use Twitter and Twitter Marketing, it may well feel ridiculous and that you are indeed just talking to yourself! However, if you work it using the approach explained below, you will start to acquire Followers.
A good way to start the ball rolling is by searching for other users who may be interested in what you have to say and click ‘Follow’ below their profile picture; a majority of the time people will follow you back once you follow them.
The key is keep things interesting and do not become a bore with numerous tweets (the name for a micro-post on Twitter); each tweet should be made to count. Followers (the actual name for people who subscribe to your tweets) to your tweets will become frustrated if you send out 100 trivial messages and will more than likely lose interest in what you are doing or miss a message promoting a decent service or product.
On the other hand, if you send 10 useful tweets out to your Followers in one day, this will create more Followers through positive word of mouth.
If you take what we do – SEO – we want as many Followers to what we do as possible as this builds great company reputation and will label us an authority on SEO, gaining us lots of new business.
If we sent out 100 posts a day saying things like “Just going on a forum”, “Just spoke to Dave”, “On lunch” with perhaps 10 posts of useful stuff for our Followers, the useful data would not only get lost but people don’t want hear about the trivial things, despite what most people say!
It would be far more beneficial to post a handful of updates like “New software available for keyword research – FREE! www.{link}.co.uk” or “List of do-follow social bookmarking sites – EXCELLENT – www.{link}.co.uk” – this posts create genuine value for your Followers.
The more of these useful posts that are made by us, the more Followers will pick up on our tweets. Once this has been achieved, we are able to slip in the odd tweet like, “Free SEO Report available now at www.{our-link}.co.uk” or “New Copywriting guide available for half price – only £10, www.{our-link}.co.uk”.
As trust has been built up, people will trust the links we provide and our services too, providing great conversion rates and more sales.
Obviously every industry and market is different, but they key is provide people with useful and valuable tweets and don’t overload them!
As well this, there are a number of other factors you need to consider when becoming a Twitter pro marketer:
Stand Out in the Crowd – A surprisingly large amount of users still have their default templates. Use a site like http://www.twitterbacks.com to make your profile unique and memorable.
Don’t Use Protection – Don’t have a the setting that means you have to approve followers – you should be privileged someone wants to listen to what you have to say – especially if you are using it as a marketing tool.
Walk the Walk, Talk the Talk – With only 140 characters available to make an impact to your followers; “u shld learn how 2 shorten ur tweets down!”
Follow The Leader – Regardless of how some people go about Tweeting, don’t follow everyone; it’s not a popularity contest! If you’re following too many people you will get bogged down in their updates. Follow influential people in your industry, peers, press, important customers etc. Add those who will bring value to your Tweeting campaign.
Share and Share Alike – Give somebody a reason to follow you? Be the first to break news and give interesting unique content out for your loyal followers.
Cross Pollination – Use tools like Twitterfeed.com to combine your blog with Twitter. This way you will douse both your blog and your Twitter account with the benefits and your work on both platforms.
So go ahead, tweet yourself today!!