Twitter: how to use twitter.com for marketing and business

"Twitter" is a social networking site that enables you to do micro-blogging. You can post messages of just 140 characters long which can be seen either by all the people on Twitter or just by the people who have chosen to "follow" you. Your "followers" are people who choose to read your messages on Twitter ("tweets") and who wish to communicate directly with you via the Twitter interface. You can use Twitter for fun or for business. This lens focuses on how to use Twitter for marketing.

Follow Ron on Twitter

Photo Credit: Twitter Visualization by Ross Mayfield on Flickr

What appeals to me about Twitter:

1. it is viral

2. enables me to rapidly build targeted Twitter followers

3. leverages other marketing strategies I am using

4. easy to use

5. can be readily adjusted.

Twitter enables me to leverage my article marketing, blogging, social bookmarking, social networking and Squidoo marketing.

• Add the "Twitter" module to your Squidoo lens with your own Twitter feed (see Ron's Tweets on this lens)
• Add the Twitter widget to your blog so that your tweets appear on the sidebar of your blog and serve as a regular update (if you use Twitter at least daily). See the widget in action on my Blogger.com blog:

  Affiliate Marketing Coach.

• Find the right balance between sharing what you are up to and self-promotion (a balancing act)
• Avoid Twitter spam like the plague or you will be ostrasized!
• Join "Twitter Strategies and Connections Group" on Facebook for up-to-date information.
• Think about Twitter as a conversation and share with this in mind.
• What image are you creating on Twitter? - be very conscious of your desired internet profile and make sure that your Twitter posts are congruent/consistent with this image.
• Share your creative process - "I have just created a new lens", "developing a new website", "exploring how to..."
• Use the "reply to" button adjacent to each post to engage others in conversation.
• Don't be slow to stop following people who just create "noise".
• You do not have to follow everyone who follows you - be selective or you will drown in Twitter posts and miss the more valuable nuggets.
• Add a website/lens link to your tweets - Twitter automatically hotlinks them for you (and shortens them). Remember, though, that the links count towards your 140 characters. Warning - don't overdo the links!
• Mention your new blog post (with a link) on Twitter to create more blog visitors and Twitter followers.
• Add comments re interesting articles, posts or videos you have read or seen...and add a link to them for others to follow (don't just promote your own links).
• Mix it up - a bit of personal info (so people get to know you), sharing of others' resources and ideas and sharing some of your own links and resources. Don't forget that your aim is to build relationships via Twitter.
• Create a Squidoo feed to Twitter so that your Squidoo updates get advised automatically on Twitter as an update post. Lewis shows you how:

  Squidoo Cool post re Squidoo feed to Twitter

• Make your last post of the day, the one with your important hyperlink (courtesy of John Reese)
• Convert your URL to a shorter version with www.tinyurl.com - it gives you more words to use in your Twitter post which has a limit of 140 characters (one of my recent articles had a URL that was 144 characters long!)
• Post your articles on Twitter - your Tweet may end up on Page 1 of Google results for your keyword.

  Twitter Hints

• When tweeting about updating your lens, why not replace "Updated my ..." with a meaningful phrase such as "Watching Celine Dion perform with Elvis Presley on my Squidoo lens..."

Twitter is extensible, and many third-party developers are creating tools around the simple data being exported for a variety of unique applications.

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