Why Use Twitter?
August 13, 2009
Aug 2009
News
- Check out our two latest websites: Hoffman & Associates & Zimmerman & Associates!
- Cordelia will be presenting “Using Your Website To Increase Sales” as part of the Small Business Giving BIG! This day long program at The Ravinia Club is on October 29th and will be full of useful seminars. Attendance is FREE-as long as you make a donation. Proceeds benefit My Sister’s House. It’s too soon to register-but mark the date. We’ll notify you when it’s time to register.
Article-Why Use Twitter?
There are many primers out there on how to actually set up Twitter, including on the site itself. The question that I get asked most often is Why? There are a number of ways that you can use Twitter to help your bottom line.
Basically, once you sign up for a Twitter account you can “tweet” out messages to your network of followers in response to the question, “What Are You Doing?” that are 140 characters or less. You follow other people either because you know them or want to know what they are tweeting about.
Following others can show a vital peek into their daily life that you would otherwise not be able to see. You can follow people who you do not know-just as they can follow you. There are those who will try to follow you as spammers-just to get you to follow them. You can either ignore them or block them from being able to follow you.
There are more advanced features that you can get into over time but these are the basics.
There are those out there that use Twitter to directly make money. Most of us use it to learn from others, strengthen relationships and improve our online reputation. Twitter is a great tool to help grow your Internet persona and professional reputation.
Groups of people to follow:
- Associates: These are people who are in your personal network. They are useful to have a relationship with because it can be an efficient way to keep tabs on what they are up to and interested in.
- Business “Players”: These people you may not know but are active in your industry locally or beyond. Following them gives you an important map of what your industry is up.
- Experts: These people may be leaders in your field and are either your competition or serve a different niche than you but are in the same area. Following them can be a great way to stay informed and learn.
- Information Resources: These may be groups or organizations that you belong to or are interested in. They may tweet out brief event or registration reminders to help keep followers in the loop.
- Celebrities: Some people love to see inside the mind of their favorite celebrities. Many celebs actually do their own tweeting.
What Do I Tweet?
Now that you’ve got your account set up and are following some and being followed by others-what do you actually say? This can be tricky for some because the basic principle of Twitter is to brag quickly about what you’re doing, what you’re learning and generally showing off what an amazing person you are. It’s also a way to share a slice of your life with your network, but most successful Tweeters are strategic about what they share. Some are more natural at this than others. Some examples of good tweets:
- “Having lunch with @person today-looking forward to connecting”
- “Attending GAWL Foundation Gala this weekend-love their work and looking forward to visiting the Carlos Museum-if only I didn’t have to wear high heels when doing so”
- “Am speaking in a free day long workshop on How To Increase Business With Your Website in Oct. More info coming soon.”
- “Just read an interesting article on why to use Twitter: http://tinyurl.com/nplrxt”
- “Just posted in my blog-SEO Basics”
- “Love the history channel series – Modern Marvels”
- “Played chess with my son today-he almost won!”
- “My 10th anniversary this weekend-yeah!”
Each tweet is showing off something about how great you are either by your own actions or those of your network. That is really the key to Twitter-to subtly brag and inform.
A Few Basics
- To refer to anyone in a tweet use an ampersand and their user id. I am @cordeliablake.
- To post a long URL-use http://www.tinyurl.com to generate a short link
- Take it easy-the point of Twitter is brief updates-if you send out 10 in a 30 minute period-it’s not really brief
The Social Web
There are ways to connect all your social sites so that they automatically update each other. For example-you can automatically have your tweets post to your blog and Facebook page. Be cautious of setting these up-If you are followed on Twitter and Facebook-people do not want to see exactly the same thing in both places.
Conclusion
There are other sites that have sprung up around Twitter to help manage groups, interact with browsers, phones and other purposes. The most important thing is to experiment and see how Twitter can help you with your marketing and development and then seek out the applications to better leverage those uses.
“Here’s tweeting at you..”
Cordelia Blake Web Design is offers Search Engine Marketing services in addition to Web Development. We are offering both a coaching package where we guide you on how to effectively manage your own campaign and a consulting package where we manage the whole process on your behalf.
Please contact us today to learn the many ways that Search Engine Marketing and and Effective Website can increase your bottom line.
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