When it comes to Twitter marketing, many people think they need to have a big audience in order to get good results. Having a big audience does help, but there is more to marketing than the number of followers you have. Some people who have 500 targeted followers are more successful than people with 1,000 targeted followers.
The difference between people who are getting good results from Twitter marketing and people who are not getting as good results from Twitter marketing may not necessarily be the size of the audience. The difference is how you interact with that audience and build relationships in the process.
The way you interact with your audience is determined by how many conversations you have with the people in your audience and what you tweet. You want to tweet content that benefits you and your followers. What are the benefits of your content spreading (other than you gaining followers)? What are your followers looking for in your content? These are two critical questions that form the core of Twitter marketing. Now, I will share with you the four Twitter marketing tips you can use to get the most out of the audience you have built.
#1: Identify what you are marketing.
You would be amazed with how many Twitter marketers there are but how few know what they are actually marketing. Some people “market” by tweeting other people’s articles and anything on the web that they believe is interesting. That’s not marketing at all.
Sure, it’s great to share someone else’s article once in a while, but most of your tweets need to benefit you. This is the win side for you. What webpages can you take people to that would benefit you? Some of the webpages you can market are your blog posts, your products, or one of your social networks.
Although it always feels great when we win, it is also important for your audience to win as well. The only way you are going to get anywhere with your Twitter marketing strategy is if your followers enjoy what you post. Therefore, out of the multiple options available, the ideal marketing option would be your blog. Here are the advantages of marketing your blog on Twitter.
- Your blog provides free, valuable content. The more valuable your content is, the more people will perform actions such subscribing to your blog and buying your product.
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Your blog is an easy place to promote all of your social networks and products. Blogs have sidebars which can be used to showcase what you have made, and where people can find you on the web.
Before you start promoting your blog, it is essential to have a blog that your target audience would enjoy. If your target audience is sports fans, a fashion blog won’t work well.
I am against relentlessly promoting products on Twitter because promoting a product right away does not allow the relationship to build. You need a relationship to build between you and the follower before that follower decides to buy one of your products. Since you are bringing people to your blog, you should optimize that blog so it is easy for people to subscribe, follow you on other social networks, and buy your products.
#2: Market it a lot.
One of the biggest mistakes a marketer can make is only marketing in real-time. I mentioned in an earlier post why tweeting at the moment is important, but in order to get the best out of your marketing efforts, you need to automate your posts.
Out of all of the options, HootSuite is ideal social media automation tool. It is free to use, and for $9.99 per month, you get access to HootSuite Pro which makes it easier for you to repost the same blog posts.
One of the misconceptions of Twitter is that people do not like it when someone sends out so many tweets in a given day. I initially decided to send out one tweet every hour. Eventually, I went from tweeting once an hour to once every 30 minutes, and now I send out one tweet every 20 minutes.
Each time I increased my tweeting frequency, my blog traffic went up. There was not a single follower who complained about my tweeting too much. In fact, many of my followers love the fact that I send out dozens of tweets every day.
#3: Track your marketing.
Some articles, videos, and products are more popular than others. That is the case now, and it will be the case forever. The reason why tracking your marketing is important is because you will be able to identify which of your articles, videos, and products are the ones getting the most clicks. Knowing this information will allow you to identify what content your followers like and which content they ignore.
My most popular articles amongst my Twitter followers are the ones about Twitter. I know that my Twitter articles are getting the most clicks because I use Bitly to shorten the links and track how many clicks they get. That is why I make it a point to tweet as many Twitter related articles as possible.
When you are implementing a Twitter strategy over a long period of time to see how many followers you gain, TwitterCounter is a great tool for you to see how that strategy is doing. TwitterCounter allows you to see up to six months of your statistics for free, and these statistics allow you to identify how many people you followed, how many people followed you, and how many tweets you sent out day by day.
Tweriod is another useful tool. This Twitter tool allows you to identify when your followers are on Twitter. That means if you want a particular tweet to get more attention, or you know which tweet normally gets the most clicks, you can send it out at the optimal times that Tweriod provides.
Tracking results has become more important than ever because these results allow you to know if you are going in the right direction. Your marketing strategy must have a sense of direction for it to do well.
#4: Learn from the pros.
In 99% of all niches, there is an established expert who is very successful on Twitter. There are numerous people in the digital marketing niche who have over 100,000 followers and get countless retweets on a daily basis.
One of the pros I continue to learn from is Seth Godin. I have mentioned him in numerous blog posts, and I have mentioned him in some of my books as well. Seth offers tons of free content. He writes one thought-provoking blog post every day and has seven lengthy, free, and valuable PDFs. Despite offering all of this valuable information for free, his books are still very successful.
Kim Garst also offers a lot of free information. She writes guidebooks about Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks which she only gives to her subscribers. Offering a free incentive is definitely a great way to build an email list, and she is also very successful. She has multiple training courses and books about different social networks.
There are other pros that I learned from, but it would take me too long to mention them all by name. I looked at their different marketing techniques, mixed some of their techniques with my knowledge, and came up with my own Twitter marketing strategy. The pros know what works. Analyzing what they do is better than trying to reinvent the wheel.
In Conclusion
Tweeting is not enough to make it big. Creating a Twitter marketing strategy has the power to dramatically improve the results you get from Twitter. It may take some time to identify your strategy, but it is well worth the time.
The benefit of having your own Twitter marketing strategy is that it gives you a sense of direction. Not having a Twitter strategy is the equivalent of trying to go from New York to California without a GPS. The Twitter marketing strategy you create will act as the GPS that has the potential to lead you to a large, engaged audience. Just know that it takes time to grow a large, engaged audience, but anyone can do it. If a 16 year old can do it, then so can you.
Which Twitter marketing tips was your favorite? Do you have a 5th Twitter marketing tip?
Thanks Marc for putting out a magnificent article.
My pleasure Howard. Thank you for reading it.
Marc, I have a 5th for you list. Learn how to use @’s and #’s on twitter to reach the groups you want to reach? You’ve given me great advice and much helpful information. I’m enjoying Twitter and the many people I’ve come to follow and who are following me. You may be 16 and I’m 77 but you’re teaching me. Thank you.
Thanks for the great tip Nana 🙂
@’s and #’s are very important. Searching through the #’s and finding the right @’s can help you build healthy relationships and tap into a new audience.
Thank you for filling in the blanks for a newbie. Common sense & a whole lot of work. Settings sure are complex.
I will be looking forward to more from you. Do you ever read manuscripts?
I’m happy this blog post helped you. I don’t usually read manuscripts unless it’s my own work and even then I usually send it off to an editor.
Thank you, Marc, for yet another very helpful and informative article. I’ve learned so much from you about Twitter.
My pleasure Zanna. Thanks for reading several of my blog posts 🙂
Hello Marc, great work you got going. I have tried a few techniques like frequent tweeting, retweeting other peoples tweets, uploading virtual images, favouriting people’s tweets but still my traffic isn’t growing. My content is mostly inspirational and motivational….. Tips on how to live life happily to the fullest but still I don’t get re tweets or even enough followers. What can I do? Maybe I am doing this wrong? Please assist me.
Are you tweeting with links to your blog content? And when people go to your blog, are they given an opportunity to subscribe in exchange for a free prize?
Marc, I always enjoy your posts but this one is particularly informative. You bring up some things I’ve thought a lot about and some tools that I’ve not used as much as I should have.
I try to post twice a week on my blog OggieSez.com. Sometimes I fail to make that goal but I’m still establishing my rhythm and turning it into a full time career. I’ve got my fingers into a couple of other things as well. Probably should concentrate on the blogging more, I think.
I find a great deal of inspiration and encouragement from you and several other bloggers that I follow. So keep all this good stuff coming at me. I am truly thankful to have role models like you to learn from. I realize learning is a two way street. And I’ll do my best to do my part too.
Thank you Oggie. I am happy that you acknowledge learning is a two way street. That’s something that not everyone ends up learning. It’s good to start at two blog posts per week and then expand as you get more consistent and comfortable with it. You don’t want to have your fingers into too many things because the more things you pursue, the more your time will get spread thin. You should only focus on a few things that work for you so you can master them. The reason I became successful on social media was because I gave up on all of my social networks except Twitter so I could focus all of my time on Twitter. Once I mastered Twitter, I expanded into the other social networks which I then mastered as well.
Good stuff. Interesting thoughts on the frequency. I have had complaints from some about too much marketing and complaints from friends who don’t use twitter much. Curious how to blend my scheduled tweets and real time me. Thanks as always.
Since I schedule one tweet every 15 minutes, some people have complained to me as well. However, an overwhelming majority of my followers like the tweets that I send. When scheduling tweets, you must focus on catering to the majority of your audience instead of changing your strategy based on what a few people say.
Marc! Learning From You! There’s nothing like learning from our youth.
Thanks for stopping by and learning from me Kim. I love being able to empower others at a young age. Age is not a limit to success 🙂
Thank you so much for the information!
My pleasure Jennifer
Hello Marc
I appreciate the content you create and share
Thank you Bobb.
Thanks for retweeting this older but still relevant article Marc. My next goal is to get automated. What do you think of Google +?
Google+ is a good social network to try. I don’t use it because I want to focus on Pinterest and YouTube (my preference). Google+ has some nice tools that the other social networks don’t have (i.e. Google Hangouts), and it’s the second largest social network only behind Facebook.
Thanks for another brilliant article Marc. I’ve been following your blog for a few weeks and am always pleasantly surprised at how helpful your posts are to me.
A lot of it seems like it should be common sense, but it would not have occurred to me! I’m off to change my settings to Tweet twice as often as I do now, and I’ll see what happens.
I am happy to hear that Reece. A big part of success is applying common sense, but it’s easier said than done. Applying the common sense methods will allow you to grow faster and to think outside of the box.