Practical Guide to Twitter Marketing Strategies

In the age of media buzz/chaos we got so overwhelmed with the amount of information that is bombed onto us that we quickly embraced the application which allowed only 140 characters to shout out what we are currently doing. Twitter is a next-generation instant communication tool and it has came a short way to become a popular and widely used tool for business and marketing purposes.

Companies quickly realized what marketing potential Twitter holds with all the Internet users spending hours at social networking sites. Regardless of the type of the company, the industry it is in or its size, Twitter shortens the distance between the company and its customers and helps show the human side of the organization since it’s very interactive and allows actual dialogue.

Twitter has become a huge media for direct –advertising is used for a wide range of different marketing activities: alerts on recently launched products, creating marketing buzz around new services, regular updates on promotions and hot deals and events. It can also be used for branding strategies and obtaining feedback on product from the opinion polls among users. In this way, you become more accessible to customers.

However, to make the most of Twitter and fully utilize its marketing potential you need to bear in mind a few things about this application. Below I’m presenting a practical guide to 20 Twitter marketing strategies. 

1. The smaller the ratio of follower/follow the stronger your brand is. Follow only the most interesting people from your niche and gurus of your industry who can bring value to your twitter name. Keep everything in the right proportion and seek followers rather than follow too many irrelevant people.

2. Find a successful and influential person in your niche market and follow their followers. Wait until they start following you. After you reach the number of 2000 people review them and weed out all the irrelevant ones.

3. Seek only quality followers who will contribute to the discussions by valuable feeds. Find followers who will be a great asset to your knowledge base. 

4. Have a plan on what you are going to do on Twitter and set your goals.

5. Talk to your followers directly. Don’t tweet the most recent listings but engage in discussions if you want to be perceived as a person, not a brand. As a result you will definitely build lasting virtual relationships. 

6. Consider multiple time zones while tweeting. Post your Tweets at different times during the day depending on who your audience is and be aware that different times attract different target. Lear how to use TweetLater which can help you manage your tweets without remembering different time zones.

7. Adjust the content of your Tweets to time of the day and the week. Post lighter content at weekends.

8. Save the best tweets on your Favourites page. If some tweets are too good to be easily forgotten add them to favorites.In this way they are easily traced and found. You can also add the most frequently read messages about your company or other current or recurring events. 

9. Keep the amount of the people you follow manageable. If you follow too many the stream goes by too fast and you miss a lot of messages.  

10. Customize your account. Create a profile page with your picture and a bio. You can also add a logo and some information about your company. Suit the skin and background to your profile so it nicely corresponds with your corporate identity. But don’t overdo things and don’t put people off by making the background look like flashy advertisement. A nice profile enables your followers get to know you better and makes the communication more personal. 

11. Engage people in discussions by posting a question with a poll. Start conversations with the ‘@’ command, don’t just wait for people to talk to you. Seek their opinions and feedback if something is going on in your industry. Ask them for help or hints in your area. People enjoy sharing their experience and knowledge. 

12. Make sure to respond to people that sent ‘@’ or direct message you. Show respect to people who took time to send a message to you. 

13. Add value to the conversation by sharing interesting links from the area you are tweeting about. If you join in the conversations your network will start expanding. Point to useful resources and promote your content.

14. Use twitter search to see who is talking about you and what feedback they give. People often use ‘@’ in the middle of their tweet (i.e. “thanks to @thomasjberry”) so when you use twitter search, use this command “to:(your twitter name)” to help find tweets that contain your name. 

15. Review your followers regularly and block spammers, bots or inactive accounts. Don’t focus on the follower count, but on the quality of relationships and conversations.  

16. Retweet whatever interesting or valuable someone says. Help promote others and not only your content even if it is your competitor’s content. Focus on giving away valuable stuff and make following your Twitter feed enjoyable.

17. Occasionally, post some personal information to show your human face and prevent the image of a cold, calculated salesman who does whatever it takes to get he product pushed.

18. Sign up for TweetLater to help with automation - you can set it up where an instant thank you message is sent to all of your followers.

19. Promote your Twitter account. Put your Twitter link in your email signature, blog and other social networking sites like Myspace, Facebook (has an application that automatically shows all of your Twitter updates), LinkedIn, etc.

20. Don’t over promote your product. If you start spamming you will instantly lose credibility. Tweet about your product or service along with all kinds of relevant information about your company, the industry and anything else that is relevant, without overwhelming your readers with posts on a single topic. 

21. Use cross promotion. You are allowed to ask a Twitterer to mention about your company or your content and in return you do the same for them. 

22. Each tweet is an opportunity to reach out and get in touch with them.

23. Find out who follows you and check out their bios, visit their websites and blogs. Get to know these people.