Some people will say “what is twitter? And what the heck is tweeting?”
Here is the answer: Twitter is a website, owned and operated by Twitter Inc., which offers a social networking and microblogging service., enabling its users to send and read messages called tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the user’s profile page. Tweets are publicly visible by default; however, senders can restrict message delivery to just their followers. Users may subscribe to other users’ tweets – this is known as following and subscribers are known as followers or tweeps (Twitter + peeps).
i want to share with you some strategies that worked for me to get my word out about what I do, and also help other people using my own tweets!
For any business, using twitter is becoming a prerequisite. Business is about building relationships with customers. We are becoming a very selective society because we have far too many choices and we love to choose the best! People make their choices mostly based on relationships and twitter helps you build those relationships.
However, a lot of businesses and organizations do not use twitter at all and don’t understand the concept of it.
The concept of twitter is create an interesting message so people will want to hear more from you; therefore, they will follow you to get more messages.
I have utilized my twitter account in many ways and have gotten more followers every day. Here they are:
1- Find the topic
You need to find a topic(s) that interest you, and then search for people who are a resource on that topic. For instance, I love anything related to public speaking, so I am always searching for people who are expert in this area. Then follow them. I don’t know what interests you, but you can ask your self this question.
2- Follow who follow you
It is very important to follow people who follow you. That will create an interest. People are interested in people who interested in them.
Your followers will have done some form of research to find you. In other words, they put some efforts in to look for you and your topic, so honour them by doing the same.
3- Relationships, relationships and relationships
Don’t think of yourself here, but think of others. Twitter is about creating relationships that work. So take the time to create and maintain the relationship with the people you follow (they potentially become your followers) and people who follow you. You never know what kind of miracle that could happen when you create good relationships.
I have been building very good relationships with people I follow. I take them to do some research about them and get involved in their messages and ask them questions that make our relationship more concrete.
4- Be active and get involved.
As I mentioned before, take the time to build relationships with people you follow and your followers. Take the time to ask them questions. It is very important that when you read a tweet (post) try to retweet it so people can see what’s happening. this technique helped me get more followers, How?? Because others have retweeted my tweets (sounds confusing) but basically, some of my followers took the time to repost my posts on their profile. Their friends saw that post, looked for me and followed me.
Again, be active and get involved.
5- Be real
It is very important that you be a real person and post tweets that represent you. Please don’t write because you need to do just like everybody! In other words, join the band wagen! When you do that, then you are trying to become someone else. Just be yourself and write about things that interest you and I promise you that there are people who will look just for you.
6- Have a strategy
How can you hit a target that you don’t have? What the heck that has to do with tweeting???!!! Well, they follow the same principle. You need to have a target and create a strategy to hit that target. Basically, it will sound like your dad advising you by asking you “What is your plan?” So what is your plan???
You need to have a plan (strategy) that will make you reach people who are interested in what you or your organization’s do.
Here are some steps to make the plan effective:
a. Write a basic goal – could be increasing my followers to 1000 people in three months.
b. Who are you taking to? Basically, it means whom are you targeting?
c. Search for people who are doing what you do or want to do.
d. Evaluate your plan every month and see if it is working and how can you tweak it to get better results.
7- Learn to write short messages
Twitter does not allow you to write any message that is more than 140 characters long. This exercise taught me to become a better writer. At the beginning, I said “ I cannot do that! How do they expect me to send a message that is 140 characters long?” I learned, however, that the brevity means I have to make my message clear, to the point and easy to read.
Also the trick is if you want to write longer messages, you can always write a full article, tweet the headline and ask people to read more.
8- Have fun
These were techniques that worked for me, but the best technique that worked for me was having fun and experimenting. I did not take any courses in Twitter or Social Media, no no no, I just experimented and had fun and discovered what I have shared with you. Have fun and find new ways.
When you find something new, please do share it with others and write it in the comments box.
I am very happy to share these techniques with you and if you have any question, please email me.
You can follow me on twitter @baraasafaa
Have fun, tweet more and the birds will come after you.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
BION I’m impreessd! Cool post!