Social Networking: Twitter. By Twitter Marketing . Social Networking: Twitter. Networking by exploring different avenues within the marketing world is nothing new these days. Small to large companies are stopping at nothing in order to …
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Social Networking: Twitter | Twitter Marketing
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Marketing your company or business online has never been easier now that social media like Twitter and facebook exist as virtual markets. Join “the conversation” and you’ll be surprised how many people will have great things to say about you, your products and your services.
These days, marketing your company or business online doesn’t stop at having a website. To get the results you want, you’ll need to understand how people use the Internet and figure out a way to leverage that knowledge into winning Internet marketing strategies.
Times have changed since the early days of the Internet. You might have come across some Web 2.0 marketing buzz words like “information sharing,” “interoperability,” “Twitter marketing,” being tossed around to describe what’s happening on the Internet today. Don’t be scared. All those buzz words boil down to a simple truth: The Internet is for everybody and everybody is on the Internet.
More people are using the Internet than ever before. And it’s not just the exclusive sandbox of youngsters anymore either. Of all the interesting statistics about how people use the Internet these days, the one I find most compelling is a report that says the number of Facebook users over the age of 55 has grown by an astonishing 513.7% during the 1st quarter of 2009. What does that tell you? Not only has the web become easy and friendly enough for typically techno-phobic seniors to join in, but our ideas about who’s online and where they hang out need to be updated as well!
So how exactly do you market a business online? Simple –Do it. Experience is a great teacher and the best way to understand how something is done is to take those first awkward steps. Before you start running with your Internet marketing strategies, you’ll have to understand that Web 2.0 marketing strategies in particular require active participation. You need to be involved as an individual and not just a representative of a company. People relate to other people, not to faceless companies. Why do you think Twitter marketing is so effective?
In terms of executing successful Internet marketing strategies, all the information you need is available online. Whether you Google the information you need or find a helpful mentor on a forum or website, trust that other people have gone through the same thing and are more than willing to share their expertise and experience.
In principle, all you really need to launch a successful marketing campaign online is a desire to engage your market in a dialog. Create accounts where people can easily find you on social media sites. Make yourself visible by commenting and participating in discussions and topics that interest you. This way, you’re effectively attracting people who are willing to meet you (and your marketing message) halfway. Help people by providing solutions and sharing your experiences. It’s all part of the ongoing conversation that leads to long-term success online.
The platform you use to engage in that conversation may change, but at the end of the day, it’s still about you and what you have to say, whether it’s through a social-networking site, video-sharing site, wiki or blog.
The ultimate goal when using Twitter is to network, and to do that, you have to begin by finding people to follow. It’s a good idea to build a list of followers that are within your industry’s target audience, it is beneficial to add Twitter users with outside interests to your list as well who might add some variety to your network.
Twitter isn’t just a place to update what time you brushed your teeth or what you thought of today’s cloudy weather. It is much more powerful than that, especially when you’re following a network of people in your industry. Twitter allows you to connect with your peers and get new ideas, start joint ventures, and other deals that may not have been able to materialize in other typical business activities.
Aside from the amazing business opportunites that often arise, Twitter also allows you to simply “vibe” with your peers and those in the same industry that understand everything you’re passionate about as well as the trouble you may be having. What would once be limited to a very small network of people “at the office”, can now virtually be thousands of people who connect with you on several levels. The support that you can get out of that connection is priceless.
Sounds, good, right? But how do you go about finding these people to connect with?
Well, there is more than one way to find followers on Twitter. Here are a few:
There are still a few other obvious ways such as using the Search function that will show you results based on name ot topic that you enter.
You can find someone with a list of the same type of people you’re looking to follow. On their home page, you’ll see a link on the right that reads “following”. Click that and you’ll see their whole list. Start browsing!
Of course, you will also be following people who have chosen to follow you. It’s a good idea to take a look at their latest 10-20 tweets before you actually click the follow button though, because you do want to have at least something in common. Some people choose to simply make it a rule to follow whoever follows them. It’s up to you. Either way, start building your followers!
What’s up tweeples? Anyone who wants to follow me, please do so, and send me a quick tweet on Twitter.
If that makes absolutely no sense to you, then read on, because you need to get involved and grasp the power of one of the hottest (if not THE hottest!) marketing tools available on the Internet right now! That tool is known as Twitter.
Twitter is a website that allows you to keep in contact with people in an ultra-compact way known as micro-blogging. The term fits Twitter perfectly as each post made from a user is limited to a maximum of only 140 characters. Now, when you first get a glimpse of the size of a 140 character message, the first thing that comes to mind is probably something like “what could I possibly say of any value that would fit into that amount of space?”. However, once you start particpating and get the hang of things, you’ll quickly be amazed at how informational a “tweet” can be.
A “tweet” is the user’s term that replaces what you would typicall refer to as a “post”, or a “message”. In fact, many Twitter users also refer to themselves and others as tweeples.
The Basics Of Twitter
Twitter is a social platform that allows users to share their tweets with each other in real time similar to a chat program. There are millions of people currently signed up with profiles on Twitter and the messages range from every end of the spectrum from life’s little chit chats, to marketing tips and business deals.
When you create a profile on twitter, you get to choose a unique user name, and your page has a bio section that also allows you to upload a photo, create a short bio, and link to a url of your choosing.
This same profile page has a link that reads “follow”. This is where the magic happens. When you’re using Twitter, you only see updates (tweets) from people that you choose to “follow”.
As your list of followers grow, so does your network capabilities as you can reach all those people who have chosen to follow you, instantly. The power lies in your network. As you begin to capture the interest of your followers, you have the potential to reach their network of followers as well…and so on…and so on.
Twitter is free, it’s fun, it’s great for business networking. The only possible bad side is that it takes discipline to not get addicted and spend too much time on it when you should be working on other things, so maybe you better stick to a rigid schedule with your “tweet blogging”!
If you haven’t actually used Twitter and only heard about the basics of it being a micro-blogging method that allows you to spurt small messages with a maximum of 140 characters, you may roll your eyes with a response along the lines of “what’s the point?”. However, it’s exremely common for that mindset to quickly turn around once a person actually utilizes Twitter to it’s fullest capabilites.
The number one reason that Twitter is a great tool for marketers is that it separates itself from all the other techniques, making it’s only function to be a ultra fast connection to create and build relationships.
The real-time interaction is simply unbeatable and the although it initially sounds like it would be a waste of time to some, the 140 character message limit actually seems to be a major benefit. Maybe that’s because with only 140 characters, you are forced to choose every word very carefully to ensure that the message is effective?
Another reason that twitter works well for marketers is that you have a network base of readers who chose to follow you and read your messages because they are interested in what you have to say. There are those who abuse the system ad follow mass amounts of people in bulk just with the hopes that those people will feel obligated to follow them back, but for the most part, people follow you out of interest or recommendation from another user they respect.
Ultimately, Twitter has several reasons that it works well for marketers and it’s increasingly becoming the must-use networking tool for Internet marketers.
If you haven’t already, try create a Twitter profile today and start tweeting your way to new followers, customers, joint ventures, and just plain addictive fun!
