Social Marketing On Twitter Introduction

Social Marketing On Twitter Introduction

Twitter is the HE micro blogging site that has carved up the social media landscape like no site the side of Facebook.

Since its launch in 2006 it has attracted over 200 million users, and handles over 1.6 billion search queries each and every day.

Many people refer to twitter as the ‘SMS of the Internet’, and for good reason.  The genius of twitter is that in the age of ‘information overload’, it forces users to confine their communications to just 140 characters.  Hence the comparison to ‘SMS’.

These 140 character communications are referred to as ‘tweets’ and they form the ‘blood’ coursing through the veins of this social media monster.  Every day 200 million tweets are sent on twitter.  That is 200 million messages sent between tweeters of every sex, race, age and social demography.

This twitter-verse can be further deconstructed into every imaginable micro niche that one could possible think of.  This equates to a massive network of high targeted, highly engaged users that are every marketers dream come true.

The usability of twitter is virtually limitless.
Twitter lets you:
➤ Tap into the Power of Other people
➤ Tap into Knowledge
➤ Tap into FREE Traffic
➤ Tap into Joint Ventures
➤ Tap into Conversation
➤ Tap into Sales and Autopilot Income
➤ Tap into Recommendations
➤ Tap into Customer Service
➤ Tap into What Other People are Saying about You and your Products

Twitter needs to be used first and foremost as a tool to demonstrate your knowledge on a topic.  The most effective use of twitter is thus to tweet quality information.  The sales will eventually come, but go out of your way to provide value.  Always remember that when you are sending tweets on twitter.

View twitter as a tool to capture eyeballs and divert it to your site.  Your business is your site, twitter is merely a tool to build a relationship and drive traffic.

The most effective and powerful way to use twitter is to drive traffic to your Blog posts.  You build the relationship first by driving people to quality information on your Blog.  When you build the trust they will then buy your products.  By sending them to your Blog you both win.

They get great info, and you make money by presenting them with ‘banner ads’ and affiliate links embedded within your Blog posts.

From a marketing perspective it’s important to realize that people use twitter to find answers to questions so that they can make informed decision on everything from where to go on holidays, to what is the best MP3 player to buy.  They trust responses on twitter from people within their social circle, almost more so than Google which contains biased entries for people trying to sell, sell, and sell.  

So how exactly does twitter work?

How twitter works?

In its most basic form twitter involves users subscribing to or ‘following’ people of interest, which enables them to view messages or ‘tweets’ sent by those people.  These ‘tweets’ are confined to just 140 characters and they are presented as a stream of messages on the screen of the person doing the following.

The reasons why you should be using twitter?

From an internet marketing perspective there are several reasons why you should use twitter:

Branding
Twitter enables you to create an online brand that is both professional and personable.  

Connect 
Twitter enables you to connect with existing and potential customers in an intimate way.

Traffic 
There are over 200 million users of twitter so it is powerful traffic source.

Make money
When you gain followers on twitter you are in effect building a social media mailing list.  This can be extremely lucrative.  You know well the age old adage that ‘the money is in the list’.  This too can apply to your twitter ‘followers’.

Networking 
Twitter provides an effective medium to communicate with potential JV partners.  This can translate into significant returns for you, if done correctly.

Market Research
Many tweeters are open to taking part in surveys and thus it’s a very powerful way to conduct primary market research.

Build Your List
There are many ways to build a list on autopilot using twitter.

Twitter Message Commands you need to know

There are several key message commands that you need to know if you are to make effective use of twitter.

These include the following.

➤ @username  
➤ D username or M username 
➤ @Reply 
➤ @Mention 
➤ PRT  
➤ RT 
➤ #

@username 
This command is used to reply to a particular users tweet. It shows your ‘tweet’ as a reply to a tweet posted by another person, and causes it to render under their replies tab.
Example: @Hobeze That golf tip has added 20 yards to my drives.

D username or M username = Message or formerly a Direct message  A direct message is a private message sent via twitter to one of your followers.  People you follow can also send you a private message.
You cannot send a direct message to a user who is not following you. Example:
➤ D Hobeze How do I go about advertising on your site? 
➤ M Hobeze How do I go about advertising on your site?

@Reply
A reply is any update posted by clicking the "Reply" button on another Tweet.  Simply put it is how you reply to a tweet that you want to reply to.

You hover your mouse over the tweet and click on the ‘Reply’ button, beneath the tweet.  You then enter your message and click on the ‘Tweet’ to send it. Instead of clicking the reply button you can also just tweet using the @Username syntax to reply to that user.

If someone replies to one of your ‘tweets’ it will appear under your @Mentions tab on your homepage.

@Mentions 
A mention is any Twitter update that contains @username anywhere in the body of the Tweet.  In effect this means that if anyone has mentioned your username anywhere in the body of any message on twitter, that message will appear under your ‘Mentions’ tab.

It is thus a great way to see who is talking about you, and what are they saying.
If you want to post a mention on twitter just write your tweet as normal but replace a persons name with @username.  That way they can clearly identify that comment you posted pertaining to them.

RT
RT stands for Retweet and it enables you to share a quality tweet with all your followers.
In order to send a RT you simply hover over the tweet that you wish to send to all your followers, and click on the ‘Retweet’ button.
Click the “Retweets” tab on your homepage to see what you’ve retweeted, what’s been retweeted by people you follow, and who retweeted your Tweets!

# Hash Tags
The # syntax is referred to as a ‘hash tag’ and it is used to mark keywords or topics in a tweet.
In effect it enables twitterers to categorize messages.

People insert the hash tag symbol # before relevant keywords in their tweet in order to categorize those keywords, and increase their visibility in Twitter Search.

By clicking on a hash tagged word in any tweet, you will see all the tweets in that category.
In effect hash tags serve to hyper link the words they precede, and thus make them clickable.

Hash tagged words that become very popular are often ‘tending topics’ and thus get significant exposure on twitter.

In the above example the twitterer ‘HeadlessGeek’ included the hashtag  #blogging. This makes his tweet immediately available in twitter search.

When I go ahead and click on the #blogging on his tweet it is in effect a hyper link that returns all the tweets using that same keyword.

So in effect clicking on the #blogging in the above tweet is the same thing as opening up twitter search at http://search.twitter.com, typing in #blogging and hitting the search button.

When creating hash tags for something that consists of two or more words, you should use the CamelCase format. This refers to joining words with each word's initial letter capitalized.

For example if I wanted to create a hash tag for affiliate marketing I would use #AffiliateMarketing instead of #affiliatemarketing which is not very legible.  

Some people also make the mistake of inserting hashtags with a space between words e.g. #Affiliate Marketing.  In this context words after the space that are not preceded by a hash tag are not activated as such.

This is clearly evident from the above screen shot whereby it is clear that the user ‘CompromisIT’ inserted #weight loss instead of #WeightLoss.

So if you want to have a hast tag on affiliate marketing, using #AffiliateMarketing or #Affiliate #Marketing will work for both.

Hashtags.org stipulates the use of hash tags is most effective in the following situations:

➤ Events or conferences, e.g.: "Tara's presentation on communities was great! #barcampblock" 

➤ Disasters: "#sandiegofire A shelter has opened up downtown for fire refugees."  

➤ Memes: "My #themeword for 2008 is conduct." 

➤ Context: "I can't believe anyone would design software like this! #microsoftoffice" 

➤ Recall: "Buy some toilet paper. #todo"

➤ Quote: "Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds

discuss people."~Eleanor Roosevelt #quote

Twitter Lists

Lists allow you to organize the people you’re following into groups, and they even allow you to include people you’re not following. So if you are active in several niches you can group the twitter streams from different twitter users into their respective ‘lists’.

I could for example have a; ‘Golf list’, ‘Dating List’ and ‘weight loss list’.  I could then route twitter streams from individuals I am following, into the appropriate lists pertinent to their niche.

In other words, you can create a list that groups together people for whatever reason (golfers, for example), and then you can get a snapshot of the things those users are saying by viewing that list’s page, which includes a complete tweet stream for everyone on the list

It is a very useful way of categorizing tweets so that you can view an organized snapshot by niche at anytime, in real time.

The great thing about lists is that you don’t need to be following someone to ad them to a list.

This is great if you are interested in a particular tweeter but they tweet too often for your liking.  In that context you can still access their tweets, albeit through your dedicated list and not your primary time line.