When I first started using twitter as a means for promotion, I thought that it wouldn’t be worth my time. I assumed that the only people that following me were other marketers pushing their products and services on me. It reminded me of a room full of salesmen trying to sell each other cars. Obviously there are real people using twitter for leisure and not for business, and I kept asking myself how I could find these people and, more importantly, how I could get them to follow me.
Here are a few things I learned that helped me find the right tweeters and might be able to help you, too.
1. Don’t make your twitter account name sound promotional
For example if you are promoting a personal finance site, don’t choose a name like “thecreditguy,” “savemoney,” “investwisely” etc. When users see names like those, they’ll think “ok this guy is pushing something and I don’t want his annoying tweets”. My advice it that you should just pick a regular name. You can let people know you’re an expert through your bio and informative tweets. As a side note, I’ve read some articles suggesting that account names with only letters tend to get more followers.
2. Use Twitterfall to find actual conversations
Twitterfall is a site that allows you to type in keywords and see all the tweets containing those keywords. The best way to go about this is to think of what non-marketers are talking about. For example, if a certain region recently got a lot of snow, type in the keywords “snow” and “snowday.”
Once you click the search button, you’ll see tons of conversational tweets about all the snow. Look at each tweet individually as they come through the feed. You can normally tell by each tweet if someone is marketing something or if it’s someone just complaining about the weather. You can even click on each user’s twitter name and see their information and latest tweets.
The use of keywords here is critical. Many people have the misconception that they should target keywords related to what there promoting, but be wary, because this will only attract other marketers. Stick with conversational keywords related to the news and other things going on in the world. That’s what people will be talking about. The other marketers on Twitter are too greedy and will mostly target their industry keywords to find people.
3. Get non-marketers to follow you
Now that you have found non-marketers on Twitter, you need to get them to follow you back. Otherwise they won’t hear what you have to say. This step might seem like common sense, but participation is the most important part of effectively utilizing Twitter as a marketing tool.
You need to engage with other Twitter users individually and personally. Pick a few tweets you think were interesting and respond to them directly. Don’t send them a link of any kind unless you really think they’ll like it and it’s relevant to what they tweeted. Try to think of something funny or witty to say. Be natural act as if you were going to a party with a lot of people you don’t know. Be nice and act like you’re interested in what people have to say.
Another key element to this step is the re-tweet. Re-tweeting is the ultimate sign of flattery on twitter. Don’t go crazy with it, and only re-tweet one or two interesting tweets maybe once or twice a day.
Last but not least participate in all the memes (#followfriday, musicmonday, winewed, etc.).
Finding the right tweeters is critical in using twitter as a promotional tool. This will take time since these tactics require manual labor and no automation. In the end, they will land you real people that will eventually earn your trust. Once your followers know you’re not just another annoying marketer pushing something, they will look for your tweets. Most importantly, if they like what you post, you’ll get the coveted re-tweet – and that is how your links will spread to other users.
@JescaGB
thanx for u r good advice, it’s great
@fantasyclay
So very true. Make ir personal, best advise for sellers is not not to tweet about their items all day. 300 interested followers is better than 2000 we are just following back to tweet their promotions too.
@phillipgibb
a balance of relationship and business building, not just professional speak all the time but also real speak – so to speak
@CaseyChesh
If you must sell, it’s a very soft sale. The article is on target when it talks about people reading your description being enough. Twitter allows you to build up the personal brand of the merchant *behind* the fruit stand in the marketplace. When they trust and like you- they buy your fruit.
@thatMLMbeat
Thanks for the tips! Balance is key, as long as you are not automating every single thing and tweeting the same self promotional stuff all day long, all is good.
Give more than than you expect back is how I feel it works best!
@mikeivanovich
For following conversations, plus a lot of other great capabilities (statistics, URL shortening, etc.), I recommend using the free utility, Hootsuite.
@syedakram
This the right article if you are new to Twitter. Build relationship and earn trust are important these days.
The FlashTweet app is a fun tool to use when you want to mass target followers utilizing keywords and more. Obviously, as this article advises, to really hone in on the real people, you still need to be a bit more detailed oriented in taking a look at what the people are tweeting about. However, with flashtweet it makes the process easier. You can also use it to mass unfollow users as well to maintain the quality of your followers.
@sugarluxe
I really only started on Twitter about two weeks ago even though I signed up early last year. It felt so distant to me in comparison to the relationships I’ve cultivated (in less time) on my facebook fan page.
I’ve also found it interesting that most of my facebook fans are resistant to twitter. Very little crossover.
So, I’ve just tried to adapt to the new environment, welcome the chance to meet new people…and your suggestions to do that is right on.
@agilestack
I’m thankful that I found this article on the first day that I started to use Twitter. It would have been very easy to fall into the trap of endless marketing messages and links back to the blog.
Clearly, as the article has shown, it is much more important to build a genuine relationship with those people kind enough to follow you. And one way to do that is to provide them with quality information.
Thanks for posting this very useful article.
Thanks for the tips Aaron. I have about 6,000 followers on Twitter but I find that most of them are affiliate marketers. Will try your tips.
@Posdijk
The ‘Get non-marketers’ statement is not entirely correct. Online networking works in 2 ways: direct and indirect. When marketers retweet your message to their non-marketer followers, you reach much more than directly on your own….
@darkbird18
Great information on twitter follower “How-To”! I will use them and post your Information on my Blog. Thanks.
@websiteweekend
Not bad advice about real names.
I made a deliberate decision to go with my brand name… because I am not my brand!
My real name is *only* for social purposes on twitter. In fact, my personal stream is blocked.
All that being said, I interact with my brand name as a person, and not as a marketer.
Seems to be working well.
I won’t recommend it one way or another though. There’s tradeoffs, you have to know what you want.
@ptcearner
I do see most of the people with brand names in twitter.I think it as a wise choice bcoz the other people related to that can identify them easily.
Im also using my blog name as my twitter user name too..
Thanx for the info on twitterfall.Moreover i’m learning a lot about getting succeeded with twitter here..
Regards
Krish.
@MarthaGiffen
Great post! Business IS relational. Engaging in twitter relationships will grow your biz.
@carrieactually
i just added a twitter id field like here on twitip to my comments on my website. hoping that by following my valued commenters i can gain them as twitter followers and hopefully some of their friends.
@PocketInfonet
So I guess there must be 60,000+ Marketers on Twitter following each other. MLM anyone?
Will check out Twitterfall.
Thanks
@canmart
Great article..thanks for posting My own experience with Twitter using no software I have developed a following of approx 2000 followers. Altho some are fellow marketers I have been able to also target followers using keywords that are relevant to my hobbies and interests such as electric guitar,rock,metal,names of bands etc..
I may be wrong but I think the search tool found in twitter actually accesses the Twitter profile page pf its users and not just their tweets.
I track all my tweets using my own branded links and can actually watch in real time as i.e. 67 hits appear on the chart 1-2 seconds after posting. These are not great numbers but I also have not spent a dime on any twitter auto follow software etc. I am looking forward to achieving greater numbers of followers.
Live long and prosper is not just for vulcans.
@womanbehappier
I just got started on Twitter with my new blog. I was wondering how to start finding followers who were actual people who would be interested in reading what I write about, instead of companies who only want to sell me something. This article gave me some good ideas. Thanks!
@Alex_Ogretmen
Thank u for the post! It really has sense)
@aedwards8989
Thanks for all your re-tweets, comments and feedback guys. I’m glad I could help. Feel free to follow me and give me some of your own advice.
Now a days many people are engages with twtittng just because of marketing. Thanks u for info
@StocksRocks
Unfortunately advertising is always like that – as soon as you advertise your car for sale you get inundated with people wanting to sell you more advertising space !