Twitter?

I have a group of friends that are NOT technologically savvy. They don’t know a hard drive from a lengthy drive. They do know sales and how to run a business, so how and why would they want to take the date to learn about social networking and Twitter specifically?

Well let’s first take a look at what is Twitter? Twitter is a micro blogging platform designed to let users reply the question: “What are you doing right now?” It allows friends (followers) to construct out and reply that question in real instance via SMS, IM and webpages.

Purpose

How you use Twitter really depends on your purpose. Is it for personal use or for business or both? Depending on how you reply that question will define your parameters of: what you tweet about, how often you tweet, the language you use and the public that follow.

Since you are a reader of that blog I’m going to assume that you are using Twitter for mostly business use.

Here are some different ways to use Twitter:

Opinions-You can share your opinion on a convinced subject, current event.

Research-Asking your followers their opinion on a product notion, what they like/dislike, what they are currently using?

Live news/Updates-With Twitter you can hear/tell about industry news while it happens. whether you are at a conference and Bill gates announces that he is going to give all his money to me. You can let me know. (that would be very appreciated)

Sharing/Broadcasting- If you find an interesting exposition or blog post that is relevant to your followers, you can share it with a link (twitter automatically inserts it using tinyurl.com). whether the articles are of interest that will build followers that are interested in the same type of knowledge as you. I use a twitterfeed.com to broadcast any new blog post to my twitter followers automatically.

Branding/Microblogging-When the above strategies are used correctly one of the benefits is branding. You will

become a credible resource a trusted resource. We teach the definition of marketing as getting someone with a need to know, like and trust you. Twittering is perfect to help enforce all of those criteria.

Answer Questions-If you see a tweet asking for advice or guidance on your topic, you can reply it. that will do two things. It will further set up you as an industry expert and whether your reply is compelling others will start to follow you.

Tips for effective Twittering

When Twitter remember every tweet counts!! You are either moving your type and reputation forward or backward that is why is very critical that you really consider what is the purpose of your Tweet and ask yourself whether your followers really care?

Followers are no good to you and your circle of influence whether they don’t care. So take caution and only Tweet on subjects that your ideal client would be interested in. It does no good to have 10,000 followers whether they are following you considering you did a massive ‘followers’ campaign-if they aren’t in your target audience. Getting followers for a followers sake just isn’t valuable.

Monitor your Tweets vs. reply. whether you Tweet too often you may start to dilute your effectiveness. It is the law of scarcity. In addition, whether you have too many reply’s and no tweets you may confuse your follower (remember they only see half the conversation). I usually reply a question publically three times and thereupon take it to a direct response.

Use technology to help you. I use twitter feed, friend feed and a facebook application. The possibilities are endless. I’ll write on that in an upcoming blog.

Remember that Twitter is a conversation tool. Pretend that your are in front of a room full of your potential prospects what kinds of Tweets “conversations” would you like to have with them?

blogging, social networking, twitter

Original post by Jeff Paro