Category: Twitter

I have an interesting situation that I am watching and it gives some insight into how using Twitter effectively to build your following allows you access to viral marketing on a huge scale.

First, for one client I have set up two Twitter accounts; one for his main business and one for his spin off business and e-commerce store. The spin off business/e-commerce store uses our Twitter Executive program where we tweet 7 to 12 times a day and actively interact with followers. The other account we set up but do not maintain but periodically we copy the same tweet, when appropriate, there just because we are kind but have not been hired to grow this account. Both Twitter accounts were set up on the same day. One has been actively managed and the other has not. Here are the statistical results of follower counts.

As of today the account we actively manage has 72 followers and is following 154 people with 148 tweets. The account we do not actively manage has 8 followers and is following 23 people. Both accounts have been open about two and one half weeks.

What is additionally interesting is that when I look at the bit.ly stats for link clicks for the Twitter account we actively manage, in six days 218 people have clicked links we have mentioned in our tweets to read more. This tells me that we have an active versus passive following. This means when the e-commerce store is finally opened we will have a loyal, link clicking, viral sharing, Twitter base to expose to the client’s store products. That’s the power of Twitter in action!

Just like Facebook Twitter has unspoken rules. Here are a few that I wanted to share with you.

1. Make sure to install a picture on your Twitter profile. Some applications that use Twitter API like TweetLater, will allow you to block followers who are using the default image icon.

2. Try to provide value to followers. I focus on content, cool stories, interesting articles, topics, tips, trend updates. If all you tweet about is what you are eating for lunch or what project you are working on, you mark yourself as a Twitter newbie.

3. Use TweetLater and set up a follower auto responder with a link to your website or a nice comment. Set up to auto unfollow them if they unfollow you. This will help to keep your follower list clean. At the beginning follow everyone who follows you – a courtesy issue.

4. Consider vetting new followers as your follower numbers get to about 300. It becomes increasingly difficult to interact with Twitter followers when your list becomes too large. Periodically using Twellow, I will chop following people on my list who have never tweeted, not tweeted in the last 30 days or who are spamming me with marketing messages, or their make money on Twitter programs.

5. Don’t use Twitter just to market your products and services. Man, there is no faster way to get unfollowed, than to constantly be sending out self promotion messages!

6. Some Twitter API applications allow you to send out the same tweet at different times. Be careful with that. I have one Internet marketing guru who I thought knew what he was doing until I checked out his Twitter account and all 500 tweets he did were the exact same tweet. Go figure! Not sure what he was trying to accomplish but I could not click unfollow fast enough.

7. Spread your tweets out. I tweet heavily in the morning as this is the time I interact with followers with @ and D replies, but for routine tweets I try to space them about 1 to 2 hours apart. I use TweetLater for this. I typically will do between 7 to 12 tweets a day but sometimes more if there is a trending topic and interchange between followers.

8. Do get followers to participate in polls and then share the results. I did a poll recently and found that people are doing about two to three tweets a day on the average. The people who tweet more will have more followers – it just happens!

9. Use bit.ly and create an account and shrink your URLs in your own bit.ly account not TweetDeck so you can see click stats on links you mention in tweets. You will find it amazing to see the real viral nature and impact and sharability of your tweets if you are tweeting effectively and the proof is your link stats in bit.ly. Consider using HootSuite with the installed ow.ly URL shortener and get a tweet interface and link tracking system in one interface.

10. Follow others. To build your own Twitter following you simply have to start by following others and then interact with them. I have a great case study on this that I will share with you on Friday.

This past week on August 6th, Twitter and Face weathered denial of service attacks. Although Facebook did not go down entirely, Twitter was hit hard. What I found out from this attack is just how much I depend on Twitter for news and information exchange.

Twitter is not just like an instant messaging program, although newbies when they first interact with Twitter  equate it with instant messaging. It is more like a hotline to news and topics much like the old pre-Internet water cooler routine. With Twitter you are tapped in automatically as news happens. You get to hear it online first instead of from a news media resource. The people who pass the news on Twitter are usually eye witnesses and/or participants. Take Michael Jackson’s death. It was on Twitter before it was even reported on TV or the radio.

Here’s another example, Ashton Kutcher film star and Twitter Poster Boy had an emergency plane landing on August 6th with fire trucks all around. Not only did he tweet about it, but then offered a special password to all Twitter followers to meet up with him at a specific New York City at a club and get half priced drinks on him to celebrate life. It was a close call that Twitterverse heard about as it happened.

Twitter has forever changed the way we interact with others, promote ourselves, get news and information, and share the same. Twitter is not the medium for kids as recent report stated that the majority of Twitter users are business professionals between the ages of 34 and 52, so don’t think this is another “My Space” thing. Twitter is for us “big kids”.