Twitter is a powerful tool, but only if you can tap into the endless supply of new followers. Even with a powerful tool, you'll need to know the top strategies being used by the pros to market on Twitter. And most of those tips come from guys who've been there already.
They've made a million dollars. They've gathered thousands of leads. They've created a mega-list that will convert to sales at a whim. It can be frustrating for those out there who are struggling with the basics - trying to get a handful of followers and get them to click on your links when a new opportunity is available.
So, for those Twitter-newbies who are looking for the right way to turn your hard-worked hours in front of the computer into tangible rewards, here are my Top 4 Twitter tips:
1. Providing Value in Your Posts
Number one for Twitter and for any content creation activity to generate sales is to provide value to your readers. Twitter isn't much for tolerating the use of its service to sell things straight up, and with recent changes to their terms of service, you pretty much need to keep your selling above board.
Unless your reader have signed up to see new deals and you make it clear you'll be posting sales opportunities, you'll need to be careful with how you direct followers to your squeeze pages and lists.
The easiest way to do this is to ensure every post you put up on Twitter offers something of value to your followers. That can be a link to a blog post or article, a joke, an image you want to share, or part of a longer piece of advice. Just ask yourself before every post - is this going to help anyone?
2. Driving Actions, Twitter Style
It's pretty tough to squeeze in a call to action in a Tweet when you only have 140 characters to start with. The shortened URLs help, and you can always post more than once, but you'll pretty much need to make a lot of your CTAs implicit. Post links to blog posts that go into more detail, discuss a product that you're interested in sharing, or simply develop a following that looks to you for advice. Then, a carefully posted link will draw more attention. Your goal here should be to generate interest in readers to take action on their own. It's a bit harder, but with Twitter, it's shockingly easy.
3. Communicate and Get Involved
You have to be involved on Twitter. The companies and marketers that retweet posts they like, use @responds to have conversations, and send out DMs to people who draw their interest are the ones who have success here. I like to make sure I reply to at least 3 other tweets throughout the day. You obviously cannot do this with every tweet, but if people see you do it, it will affect them all the same.
4. Make the Most of Your Profile
It's shocking to me how many Twitter profiles I see with the same stock background, horrible photos, and poorly written bios. Use that real estate and develop a solid cover letter for anyone looking at your profile. Custom profile images can be put together for $40 by most designers and a short bio is only 160 characters. Use them wisely.
Twitter is not like other marketing tools. You cannot go out with a banner that says "buy me". It's important to develop long term strategies that will allow you to build a loyal following, and then leverage that following into viable leads, rather than sales. You'll do this with blog posts, reviews, and leading posts for people to click on.
If you do it right, profits will rise with your follower numbers. Just be willing to invest that little bit of extra time actually using Twitter as it was intended and you'll be well on your way to Twitter marketing success.
