Tweeting – Get Social!

There is an art to using Twitter to its full capabilities. The most important thing to remember is to be social and really interact with people in a new way.

The quickest way to ruin your Twitter credibility – whether you are a new user or a seasoned vet – is to use Twitter as a platform to hype your sales pitch and hawk your products. Twitter is about networking – not about direct sales. It’s Twitter, not Tupperware. Your goal isn’t to see what the tally is at the end of the day. Instead, your goal is about how many people come to the convention – your website. Well, if you’ve ever dealt with an over-zealous party planner, you know you love to hear about what they do, but not every time you hear from them and certainly not several times a day.

Disclaimer: Of course, sales are the lifeblood of every business and whatever industry you are in, if you can sell aggressively and deliver what you sell, you’re on the road to mega-success.

My point is Twitter is not the store front. It’s the vehicle that takes you to the storefront. And on Twitter – is all about the ride on the way to the sale. So get tweeting and have a little fun, while connecting with people for a bit before you try to sell them your products and services.

To tweet most successfully, vary your messages between encouraging and uplifting others, offering helpful tidbits in your area of expertise, sharing a bit about your real life and the occasional offer or link to your site. You should consider a ratio of about 20 to 1. In other words, for every sales tweet, you need 20 interactive tweets without pitches or site links. The exception to this is if you have a blog with frequently updated content. There is nothing wrong with letting people know you’ve posted to your blog, but it is critical that you are also posting the other types of tweets.

Answering the Ever Popular Question, “What Are You Doing?”

To post a tweet (or message) on Twitter, select the Home link from your navigation links. Fill in the box that asks “What are you doing?” Remember, you only have 140 characters to work with so make it count!

Type in your answer letting others know what you’re up to. Click the “Update” button. You message has now been sent and others will see it.

Replies & Direct Messages

One of the best ways to use Twitter is to reply to other people’s tweets. When someone asks a question or makes a comment you can answer or respond to, use the @ sign before their username to reply to them. Here’s an example:

Notice how all the tweets directed to the user NicoleDean had the @symbol before her username? You can check all of your own replies by clicking the replies tab on the right side of your homepage.

You can also click on the small arrow at the end of the user’s tweet you are replying to. When you reply to someone in this way, others can see what you are saying as the reply shows up on the Tweet timeline.

So, what do you do if you want to send a private message to someone without everyone else on Twitter seeing it?

If you want to carry on an exclusive conversation with one person for more than a few tweets, it’s a good idea to use the direct message (DM) feature. This allows for privacy (great for things like getting email addresses, phone numbers, etc.) from the entire Twitter universe (Twuniverse).

You can go to your DM folder from your Twitter home page by clicking the link on the right hand side of the page. Once you’re there, you will see a drop down list of the people you can direct message.

Note: The only way this feature works is when both parties are following each other.

The other way you can direct message someone is by typing the letter D, leaving a space and typing the username – without the @ sign preceding it in the text box of your home page. Example: D username

Re-tweeting (RT)

One way to interact on Twitter is by re-tweeting something someone else has said. Re-tweeting is simply repeating what another user has said, preceded by an @ and their username. If you want to re-tweet something a particular user has said simply type the following, like in this example!

Re-tweeting helps you out in two different ways:

1. It provides content to your followers.
2. It gets you in with the original tweeter.

Re-tweet fairly often, but keep it for things that are truly worth repeating. Again, don’t use this method of communication as your sole type of tweet, but mix it in with your other posts.

Another way to spread the word even more about you (and your business) is to provide your followers with quality information that will have them re-tweeting your messages to their followers!

So, how do you find people to follow and more importantly get followers of your own? After all, no one likes talking to themselves, right?

Jim Stott
Magical Marketing, LLC

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