27 Top Money-Making Tips on Using Twitter to Market Your Business

Twitter is a free-to-use miniature blogging network that encourages users to exchange news and views (“Tweet”) with each other using messages restricted to no more than 140 characters. Its tremendously valuable to marketers because of its capacity to target a specific audience and communicate with them in realtime. Add to this the fact that the 140-character limit ensures your messages have to be quick and focused, and they are therefore extremely suited to delivery to mobile devices, and you now begin to see Twitter as the marketer’s dream tool.

So, if you haven’t already opened a Twitter account, do it now and this is what you need to know:

Your Profile – How to maximize its business value

• If it’s not too late, keep your username short and try to choose something that ties in with your business and its products/services.

• Keep your personal profile constantly up-to-date and make sure you include your business details and visual personality.

• Write about yourself in a relaxed, friendly, one-to-one style and reveal a little bit about your personality and your interests from time-to-time.

• Add your picture to your profile. It helps viewers to make a stronger connection with you if they can see a ‘real person’ rather than imagining what the anonymous person ‘hiding’ behind a Twitter name might be like.

• Search for Tweets related to your business sector and participate in some of the conversations. Over time this will help to build up your credibility in the Twitter community as an expert in your chosen field. Eventually, this will start to pull in some sales based on your online reputation but it is a long term game of patience. But hey! Tweeting is fun so just enjoy yourself as you go.

• When you are commenting on Tweets that interest you and your potential audience, make sure that you use ReTweets (RT) and replies (@…..) so that there is an online trail linking back to you.

• Make it easy for others to ReTweet your message by leaving space for someone else to include the standard ReTweet statement without having to edit down what you originally wrote. This means you need to leave the number of characters in your username plus enough space for adding the ‘RT@’ message. It helps if you choose a shortish username because you have more characters available for your message.

Communicating – How to capture and keep the attention of your audience

• Asking other Twitter users for help with a problem, or help to find a piece of information, or seeking their comments on a topic is a great way to start conversations with a niche group of people and to build up ongoing relationships that could later turn in to sales.

• Refer users to other Tweeters in the interests of helping them to find what they are after. Good deeds like this are surprisingly often remembered and then repaid at a later date, so always look to help someone out if you can because you could very well be rewarded later. Whenever you see an opportunity to offer advice or assistance to someone, then do so. Not only is it in the spirit of what the Twitter community is all about but the knowledge you pass on helps position you as an expert in your field. This helps build up the credibility of your business and your products/services.

• Check your Direct Messages (DM) regularly. Inevitably there will be messages that don’t interest you but, as with your email accounts, make sure that you make time to reply to the honest, deserving ones.

• Use HashTags ( # ) in your Tweets to make your messages more easily found by Twitter search engines. This is like using Keywords to search for something on Google or Yahoo and makes your Tweet available to a wider audience who are interested in the subject you have tagged your message with. For example, # business finance or # Pay Per Click Advice.

• Limit your out-and-out promotional Tweets to just the
  occasional one. Keep a good 80% of what you Tweet concentrated on being
  informative, helpful and topical. This way you’ll build up integrity and trust
  with your fellow Tweeters which means that when they are looking to buy the
  sort of product/service that you offer, you’ve got a head start over your
  competitors for getting that sale.

• Don’t go for the heavy sell when you are Tweeting a
  marketing message – it’s obvious what you are doing and it just puts people off.
  Try a low key, relaxed approach that suggests a benefit to the reader of the
  Tweet. For example, “I’ve just added a new # business finance article to
  my website. See how you could save thousands on your loans
  ww.mybusinesswebsite.com”. See how that lessens the feeling of a heavy
  sell, pure marketing message?

• Getting your own posts Retweeted is all about consistently
  writing good value content for your followers. Done right, Retweeting succeeds
  in helping your followers, building your business brand, increasing your
  Twitter and website traffic, and makes you a key player within your Twitter
  niche.

• Regularly posting new Tweets helps to drive more traffic to
  your site. The committed Twitter users that you are trying to connect with like
  people that post Tweets frequently. So try to work to a fixed schedule of days
  and times when you post new Tweets so that you are seen to be a committed,
  reliable Tweeter yourself.

Make good use of Links

• Put website links in your Tweets to useful sources of
  information for your Followers, and not just to your own website. If your
  Tweets stay focused on your particular niche interest, and your website serves
  that same market niche, then don’t worry that your Tweets telling others about
  something good on another website will divert your Followers permanently away
  from your site.

• Keep the content of your website high on quality and value;
  and do the same with your Tweets. This way people will keep coming back to
  check the latest thing that you have talked about and therefore you will get a
  noticeable gradual increase in your Twitter and your website traffic.

• There is good value to be gained from tracking down and
  following a few top businessmen, internet marketers or your favorite
  entrepreneur on the BBC‘s “Dragons Den” program. There’s a couple
  of reasons for saying this. Firstly, it gives you some insight into how they
  are using Twitter so you might pick up some useful tips along the way. And
  secondly, your interest in them will be seen by others and will attract some
  attention to what you are saying and doing. People are naturally curious and
  therefore they often click on the links to find out more about the Followers of
  the top businessman or whoever it is that you all share a common interest in.

Tools that will help you