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6 Ways To Get More Blog Traffic With Your Email List

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Get More Blog Traffic From Subscribers

Have you ever heard of the saying, the money is in the list? Not only is the money in the list, but a stable increase in blog traffic is also in your email list. By interacting with your subscribers in an effective manner, you can potentially double or even triple your blog traffic depending on how many subscribers you have. Your email list consists of many of your best supporters who appreciate what you do and enjoy reading your blog posts.

Getting these subscribers on your blog will lead to more traffic for your blog. I look at all of my blog posts’ engagement, and I notice that when I send an email blast about my latest blog post, that blog post gets more social engagement, social shares, and comments than the blog posts that I do not promote to my email list. When I look back at my WordPress statistics, I can easily tell which days I sent an email based on the spike in traffic.

I will assume at this point that you use a service like iContact, Aweber, Mail Chimp, Constant Contact, or something similar for your email marketing. You must use one of these services because they provide many capabilities that free emailing services do not provide. In addition to providing various capabilities, the top tools for email marketing (i.e. Optimize Press) require that you use one of these popular emailing services to get the best experience possible. Optimize Press is responsible for the bulk of my subscribers in the form of landing pages and other tactics I use to build my list.

As you continue to build your list, it is important to interact with your subscribers in a way that would entice them to visit your blog more often so your blog generates more traffic from the initial email and generates more traffic indirectly because of the email blast. Here are six ways that you can get more blog traffic with your email list:

 

#1: Send Out More Email Blasts

One of the biggest mistakes people make is that they do not communicate with their email lists enough. You should send an email blast to the people on your list multiple times every week. The most successful bloggers appear in your inbox at least two times each week. Why do the most successful people send multiple email blasts every week? The answer is that these people want you to remember them. The moment these people stop sending emails, the more difficult it will be for subscribers to remember that person. Although you should avoid being excessive, you should definitely send out more than one email blast to your list every week.

 

#2: Use The Same Link Twice

In all of my email blasts that promote blog posts, I include a link to the blog post at the very beginning of the email and towards the end of the email. After running multiple split-tests, I discovered that when I included the second link at the beginning of the email, my email blasts got a higher percentage of clickthroughs.

It makes sense for an email to generate more clicks when a second link is added. Some of your subscribers who read your email won’t need to read the entire email to know they want to read your blog post. The title of your blog post may be convincing enough to get some people to read it. For these people, you want to include a link towards the beginning of your email. These people want expedited access to your content in the same way that people want Amazon expedited shipping—the only difference is that an email blast, your version of expedition is free. Some people won’t be convinced right away and will read the rest of your email to get an idea of what your blog post is about before clicking on the link and reading the content. I entice people to continue reading my blog post with a quick introduction of the blog post and a clickable link at the end of the quick introduction that leads to the actual blog post.

 

#3: Utilize Email Segments

Some people want specific advice more than others. There are some people on my email list that only want blogging advice while others only want social media advice. I occasionally send email blasts to individual segments for their individual desires based on which email list they signed up for. If you signed up on the landing page that promoted my free eBook 27 Ways To Get More Retweets On Twitter, then you will occasionally get emails containing Twitter tips that are exclusive to the people within that segment. I rarely do this, but I see a higher percentage of engagement when I send an email that specifically relates to one of my email segments.

 

#4: Promote Your Blog In Your Autoresponder

In all of my autoresponders, I send a series of emails that contain past blog posts that still provide value. These types of blog posts are referred to as evergreen content, and the engagement that the blog posts generate to this day show that people still appreciate them. By sending these types of emails to the people going through the autoresponder sequence, the relationship between me and that individual is strengthened. Many of the people who get my autoresponder end up visiting my blog numerous times. With an autoresponder that sends emails several times before its completion combined with frequently emailing your subscribers, it will be easier for people to remember you, your services, your products, and what you do.

 

#5: Look At What Works For You

When I send an email blast to all of the people on my list, I analyze that email to see how it did. Then, I compare that email blast with some of the email blasts I sent in the past. When I see an email blast perform particularly well, I use the same form in my next email blast to see if it produces a similar result. There are countless ways to test your email blasts to see what leads to more engagement. You can change the subject line, where the links show up, how you start your email, and how you finish your email just to name a few of the methods you can use to enhance your email blasts.

 

#6: Look At What Works For Others 

I am not the only marketer with an email list who writes about the wonders of a large email list. No matter how large my email list becomes, I will continue reading other marketers’ articles and analyzing their results. When I read an article that indicated remarkable results that came from making a few small changes, I test out those methods and see if I get an increased clickthrough rate, open rate, or any other metric that I may be looking for at the time. Just because something worked for someone else does not mean it will always work for you, but when it does work out for you, you will know how to create a more optimized email blast designed to generate a massive amount of traffic.

 

In Conclusion

Your email list is a secret weapon that allows you to build a loyal audience of readers who come back to your blog often. I learned about building an email list late in the game, and because of this, I would have some really good months of traffic and then some really bad months of traffic. An email list gives you a platform you can use to consistently increase your traffic over a long period of time, and if you grow your email list large enough, you may get thousands of daily visitors to your blog just from your email list. Imagine the implications of getting all of those initial visitors. Some of them would share your blog posts on their social networks which would mean more social media traffic, and good social media engagement helps out with SEO. The email list is the not-so-secret to success.

What are your thoughts about using an email list to get more blog traffic? Do you find better uses for it? Do you have any tips on optimizing email blasts so clickthroughs and open rates increase? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

How To Use Social Media To Promote Your Products

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Social Media Marketing Tips

Time and time again, I see people making the same mistakes when they promote their products or affiliate links on their social networks. Many people simply type the name of the product, put a link right next to the name of the product, and then send out the social media post. They look like this:
“[Name of product]. www.linktoproduct.com”

However, just because something is common practice does not make it correct. Generating sales from social media is a process that requires thinking outside of the norm. You can’t promote a product on social media in the same way you would promote a blog post. However, it is possible to promote a product on social media and generate sales. Here’s how:

 

Surround Your Product With A Story

Products with good stories are made to spread, and that’s because we all love listening and telling good stories. When we tell good stories, we wow our friends, and seeing our friends’ reactions makes us feel good. When we listen to good stories, we get wowed by them and want to tell our friends about those stories so they get the wow feeling, and we feel better about ourselves. Good stories spread in an infinite loop, and some stories will spread so far that you may hear the same story from two different people on two separate occasions.

Since stories spread far and wide, it has become a requirement for marketers to wrap a good story around the product. Once you come up with the story, promote that story on social media and use that story as the marketing message. Now, here’s how you come up with a good story:

  1. Start with why: Why do you do what you do?
  2. How do you do what you do: Give a brief summary.
  3. What do you do: Yes, you are explaining what you do at the very end.

Conveying the entire story in one tweet may be difficult. You should send a series of tweets throughout the day that help surround your product in the entire story, or you can use the next method below.

 

Use Pictures In Your Social Media Posts

Social media posts with pictures have been known to get more engagement than social media posts without pictures. Without implementation, this is just a nice fact that won’t do anything for your brand. When you promote your products, include pictures that create a deeper meaning for your product. Don’t simply use a picture of the product. Show the product’s use, provide insight, or do something else in addition to showing the actual product. Kim Garst uses Twitter to promote her latest book, Will The Real You Please Stand Up, and she uses pictures filled with insights quoted directly from the book to promote that book.

If you like the insights you get from the pictures of Kim Garst’s book, then you will love the book, and within all of those tweets is a link to the book’s sales page.

 

Make Your Product Cool

Cool products are made to spread. In an information product, being cool can mean having a great personality. In fact, the personality behind the product can be the making or breaking point of determining how cool a product actually is. With hundreds of products like ours, the personalities behind each product are the only difference makers. There are several ways to make a product cool, but you will know how cool a product is based on how people react with the product and tell their friends about it. Creating a cool social media marketing campaign that spreads and attracts attention will be the equivalent of a good story. People will tell their friends about it, and word of mouth will expand your product’s reach. The definition of a cool social media marketing campaign depends on the niche you are in.

 

Promote A Landing Page That Leads To A Product

One of the best ways to generate sales from social media is to generate them indirectly with a landing page. On a landing page, you promote a free prize that people receive when they enter their email address into the form. Then, if you use a service like iContact to create an autoresponder, you can interact with your new subscribers and promote your product at the end of the autoresponder. Autoresponders work well at getting sales because they allow you to build the relationship between you and the people in your audience. You can utilize the autoresponder to let people know more about your story so they feel a deeper connection with you.

 

Free Coupons

If you create a new product and are trying to gain an audience, offering free coupons to your products is a strategy you can use to jumpstart your customer base. This growing customer base can result in the first couple of testimonials for your product. Testimonials are important for a product’s success because potential customers want to make sure they are getting the best deal and the best possible value from a product. You don’t want to become dependent on offering free coupons for your products, but you will generate momentum for that product, and if you do a good job at providing value, your customers will have good things to say. All of the positive feedback associated with your product will lead to more sales, but only if you make it easy for potential customers to see the positive feedback. In the description of your product, include quotes from what actual customers said about your product so more people who visit your sales page will be enticed to make a purchase.

 

In Conclusion

The way you promote your products on social media determines how many sales you will generate from your efforts. Some people put in half the amount of work but get twice as many sales as the average individual. By generating the initial buzz with free coupons, creating a good story for your product that resonates with your audience, optimizing your social media posts for more engagement, and going after indirect sales via landing page sign-ups, your social media marketing results can skyrocket and lead to a reliable social media ROI.

What are your thoughts about promoting products on social media? Have you promoted one of your products on social media before? What advice do you have for people who are about to promote their products on social media for the first time? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

7 YouTube Mistakes To Avoid So It’s All Smooth Sailing

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YouTube Mistakes

The impact a successful YouTube channel has on a brand can no longer be questioned. The social media behemoth attracts over 1 billion unique visitors to its platform every month, and some YouTubers now generate full-time incomes because of this traffic. With success stories of certain channels bringing in six figure incomes, more people have looked at YouTube as a way to market their brands. However, as more people use YouTube from a business standpoint, more methods get mixed up and misconceptions lead to mistakes. These are seven mistakes that you must avoid so you continue to grow on YouTube.

 

#1: Not Uploading Enough Videos

Uploading YouTube videos at a consistent rate allows your channel to remain active and give your subscribers a good experience. The moment you stop uploading YouTube videos at a consistent rate, you will lose some of your subscribers, and your account’s growth will halt. In order to avoid the stagnation of your account’s growth, you must upload numerous videos at a consistent rate. The amount of videos you should upload depends on your channel and style. With that said, every YouTuber should upload and publish one video every week. Some people may feel capable of uploading and publishing two YouTube videos every week. The more YouTube videos you upload to your channel, the more choices you give your subscribers and potential subscribers. While you give your audience more options, you must ensure value in all of your videos. If the people in your audience do not appreciate the options you made available for them, then they will look for someone else. On YouTube, it is easy for someone to find videos just like yours. That is why your first impression in terms of value is so important for doing well on YouTube.

 

#2: Exclusively Uploading Short Videos

For some people, uploading short YouTube videos is their style. However, the longer videos tend to perform better on YouTube’s search engine. Longer videos tend to outperform shorter videos because YouTube uses minutes watched as an essential metric to rank its videos. It is better from a SEO standpoint when a visitor watches 10 minutes of a one hour video than it is when someone watches a three minute video from start to finish. Retention rate matters too, but the minutes watched metric is more significant for YouTube SEO.

 

#3: Bad Audio

The audio of your videos has an impact on how people perceive your channel and brand. If you have bad audio in your videos, people will find it difficult to listen to your videos even if you offer great advice or good humor. The way your videos sound is just as important as the value within the actual videos. If you don’t have any microphone, then your audio is decent at best. I use the Yeti Microphone for my videos, and many of the highly successful YouTubers use the microphone for their YouTube videos and training courses.

 

#4: Not Asking For Subscribers Or Comments

At the end of every YouTube video, don’t be afraid to ask your audience to subscribe and comment. The best way to get something is to ask for it, but you don’t want to beg either. There is a difference between saying “Please subscribe” and “Please, please, please subscribe.” I have an annotation that shows up during all of my videos enticing people to subscribe, and at the end of my videos, I encourage interaction and subscriptions. I want to make sure the people who appreciated my video the first time can easily get notified about my other videos and have a conversation with me.

 

#5: Branching Out Too Far On One Channel

As you get more experience with uploading and publishing videos, it will become tempting to branch out and create a broad channel. Creating a broad channel is one of the worst mistakes to make on YouTube. When you make a broad channel, you confuse your channel’s identity which will result in fewer subscribers. Let’s say you upload some videos about sports, some videos about fashion, and some videos about gadgets. It would be difficult to gain an audience what that channel because viewers won’t know what niche your channel fits into. Instead of creating one broad channel, create a series of specific channels with one clear niche. By creating channels with clear niches, it will be easier for you to build a strong following on YouTube.

 

#6: Not Breaking Your Channel Into Categories

As you upload more videos, you will get into specific areas within your niche. Getting into specific areas within your niche will fulfill specific needs and desires that your viewers have. However, your viewers won’t want to scroll through all of your videos to find the one video they are looking for. You can make it easier for your viewers to find what they want by breaking your channel into categories.

I have a digital marketing channel, but since there are various components that go towards successful digital marketing, I create different categories based on the videos I have done. I have a social media category and a blogging category because I know that some of my subscribers care more about my social media advice and other subscribers care more about my blogging advice. Breaking my channel into categories makes it easier for both of those subscribers to find what they are looking for in a time effective manner.

 

#7: Not Sharing Your YouTube Videos On Your Other Social Networks

Just because you put a video on YouTube does not guarantee it will get thousands of views let alone a few million. In order to get more views from YouTube’s search engine, you must generate some of the buzz on your own. When I upload a new YouTube video, I always tweet it and promote it on my other social networks. I have even started sharing my YouTube videos with my email list. I share my YouTube videos with the audience I have already built so more people see the video, and as a result, my audience grows.

 

In Conclusion

YouTube is still a leading social network, and optimizing it for your brand’s growth will put you in contact with a new audience. You can use the audience you already built to jumpstart your YouTube channel’s growth. By avoiding these common mistakes, YouTube growth will be smooth sailing, and the results will be more impactful for your business.

What are your thoughts on using YouTube for your brand? Do you make any of these mistakes with your YouTube strategy? Do you recommend any other mistakes we should avoid on YouTube? lease share your thoughts and advice below.

Case Study: How I Get My Daily Goals Accomplished

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Get Daily Goals Accomplished

In our busy worlds of goal setting and getting things done are many distractions that impact the amount of work we accomplish. Not only are there more distractions than ever, but not all of the work we do gets us closer to our dreams. To some, being productive seems impossible while other people do it effortlessly.

Since I am a high school student, I am technically considered a part-time writer and entrepreneur even though I have committed myself to those two areas. My productivity is one of the biggest factors of my success because it allows me to properly juggle being a high school student with being a writer and entrepreneur. In the summer, when I get more control over how long I can work on my brand, my productivity skyrockets primarily because of all of the extra time available. Right now, I will provide a case study on how I get my daily goals accomplished. Accomplishing the daily goals allows me to accomplish my goals for the week, month, and year. How am I this productive? Find out now.

 

Always Have Significant Things To Do Throughout The Day

If you are not taking the time to build your brand throughout the day, then you need to put in more work. I can’t remember a time I got to bed before 11 pm because I always do work for my brand throughout the day. Even during the summer, I am putting in the work for my brand past 11 pm. Of course, if I see the value of my work suffer as the day continues, I stop putting in the work. When I am not working, I am doing research or reading a book to learn more about my niche. If you don’t give yourself many goals, you may find yourself surfing the web or your television. Surfing the web and your television are two methods of escaping boredom.

Many people see procrastination as a temporary way to escape work and boredom. For many people, watching television is more entertaining and less boring than putting in the work. However, if you appreciate your work and give yourself enough work for yourself to do throughout the day, you’ll find less time to procrastinate.

 

Do I Really Get Everything Accomplished?

I get many goals accomplished in a given month, but in reality, I don’t get everything accomplished. However, the reason I don’t get everything accomplished is different from most reasons. When I don’t get a series of goals accomplished, that is because I give myself so much to do in a given week that even if I work non-stop for long periods of time, I would only get some of my goals accomplished.

I tend to give myself challenging goals to complete in one week that most people would give themselves an entire month to complete. For instance, I gave myself one week to publish a training course that I didn’t even start (I didn’t even have notes), proofread and publish a book, write five blog posts, outline my next course, complete five YouTube videos, and do a few other things. Right now, I am aiming to launch one new training course every week. I may launch three training courses in a month. I may launch five. By raising the bar so high and sincerely believing in my ability to accomplish everything on that raised bar, I get close or even exceed my expectations and do in one week what most people would do in one month.

 

Wake Up Early

Not only is it challenging for me to remember a time I got to bed before 11 pm, but it is also challenging for me to remember a time I woke up after 8:30 am. I like to sleep for 7.5 hours every day because 7.5 hours is my optimal sleeping time for productivity and high performance. Waking up early is very important because we have more willpower in the beginning of the day to get our goals accomplished. If you sleep too long, try waking up an hour earlier. Then try waking up two hours earlier. If you wake up an hour earlier and go to sleep at the normal time you go to sleep at, then you gain an extra hour that can be used to get your work done. Of course, sleep is important and not getting enough sleep will negatively impact your work, but getting too much sleep isn’t good for your health either.

 

Attack The Work Right Away

One of the worst things to do is to know that you have work but not do anything about it. People are fearful of starting their work partly because they don’t want to do the work and partly because the work may be complicated. This fear is caused by the uncertainty of not knowing the amplitude of the work being put in. The only way to attack this fear is to start the work NOW so the cloud of uncertainty slowly clears up until the sun of certainty shines through it and eliminates that particular cloud of uncertainty for good.

 

Small Achievements Lead To The Big One

When I give myself daily goals, I typically give myself 1-2 big goals and a wide range of smaller goals. I tend to get the smaller (easier but still impactful) goals accomplished first so I have the right mindset for that day. Getting the smaller goals accomplished are the equivalent of small wins, and a string of small wins put together will give you the mindset firepower to accomplish all of the more challenging goals for the day. Giving yourself a series of smaller goals and getting them accomplished will boost your self-esteem which is important to being more productive and producing valuable work.

 

In Conclusion

We all want to be more productive, but going through the same motions we went through yesterday and the day before won’t make us more productive. Being more productive requires a gradual shift that impacts the way we view our work, and possibly, our lives. Investing the time now to be more productive later will allow you to get your goals accomplished in record-breaking time.

What were your thoughts on the case study? Do you have any tips to be more productive? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

What Twitter Has Meant For My Brand [Case Study]

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Using Twitter For Business

I started using Twitter in October 2011, and for a while, I wasn’t good at it. At all. For several months, I was stuck in the 1,600-1,700 follower bracket. Then, I learned more about Twitter and saw a small gain in followers. This small, consistent gain was big enough to surpass 2,000 followers. As I gained more followers, I took Twitter more seriously. I did hours of research every day to learn how to properly engage with my followers and gain more of them. I learned the difference between any other follower and a targeted follower. Then, I started to gain hundreds of targeted Twitter followers. I decided to create a training course to share my success with others, and now I have over 200,000 targeted Twitter followers. After I hit the 200,000 follower milestone, I took a step back and considered how much of an impact Twitter had on my business. Here is what I discovered:

 

People Started To Take Me Seriously

While doing a research project for one of my English classes, I came across several comics poking fun at social media experts. I was so busy conducting research about Twitter so I could dominate it that I was unaware of the negative way some people perceive social media experts.

Although I did not know the criticisms social media experts faced, I got some of the criticism in the beginning. Some people thought since I was a teen, I did not have the proper experience or expertise to know much about social media and entrepreneurship. At this point, I had a small amount of Twitter followers, and I can assure you that the number was not big enough to stand out.

Not only did I have a small amount of followers, but I had a virtually non-existent portfolio. I was a middle school student with no social media audience and a blog about Yugioh Cards that got a few hundred daily visitors. When I switched over to this blog, the fact that I had the blog about Yugioh Cards didn’t mean as much, and I started back at square one.

I moved out of square one since then, and I give most of the credit to my Twitter followers. When I started writing how-to Twitter articles, I had a few hundred followers which was in no comparison to some of the other social media experts who had hundreds of thousands of followers. Now when I write a how-to Twitter article and people read it, they know that it comes from someone with over 200,000 targeted followers who has mastered the social network.

 

My Blog Got A Dramatic Traffic Boost

Increasing my Twitter activity, meaningfully interacting with my followers, and tweeting more often led to a surge in this blog’s traffic. Before Twitter, I struggled to get 50 visitors in one day. Now, I am disappointed anytime my blog does not exceed 500 visitors in one day. Most of that traffic comes from Twitter, and ever since the Twitter traffic jumped, the SEO traffic jumped as well.

My Twitter growth can clearly be seen in my blog’s traffic because there are consecutive months in which my blog traffic more than doubled. The constant doubling of my blog’s traffic allowed my content to reach more people. The doubling was a result of dramatic changes taking place, but now that those dramatic changes have become common practice, the traffic has become constant.

The main reason the traffic has been constant is because I exclusively relied on Twitter. Twitter gets the ball rolling and allows you to interact with many people, but there’s more to success on the web than Twitter. To be specific, the email list is vital. I figured this out late in the game; don’t let that be you. Although I learned about the email list’s importance late in the game, my Twitter audience is still very significant in my growth. Twitter is the main way I get people to my landing pages, and thousands of my subscribers came directly from Twitter. This is a process that I am still continuing to perfect, and the results are promising. When I get a big increase in traffic because of an email blast, I can still thank Twitter for the big traffic increase because my tweets put most of my subscribers on the email list.

 

More Connections

Many of the connections I have made over the years are directly because of Twitter. Some people organizing events related to my niche find me on Twitter and ask me to be a public speaker for them. I receive similar opportunities directly because of Twitter. I even became a HootSuite Ambassador largely because of my Twitter audience and my passion for digital marketing. When I attend a business workshop, and I want to connect with someone, I mention my Twitter audience which boosts my credibility. As a teen attending one of these business workshops, I can easily imagine some people wondering what type of dedication I have to be attending business workshops as a teen or if my parents forced me to come with them. Mentioning my Twitter audience immediately answers the question some people wonder, and I get more connections from it.

 

More Confidence

When I surpassed 100,000 Twitter followers, I reached an accomplishment that I aspired to achieve for many years. When I first created my Twitter account, I wanted to be one of those rock stars of some sort with 100,000 followers but only follow family members and a few friends. Although I follow numerous people (at this point, I follow almost 150,000 people), I did achieve my goal of surpassing 100,000 Twitter followers. Following so many people helped me build relationships that wouldn’t have been possible if I sticked with my previous goal.

I had confidence prior to reaching the milestone, and prior to starting my brand, but my growing Twitter audience opened a new door to my confidence that I didn’t even know was there. I now have the mindset that I can do anything in front of me (only if I possess the enthusiasm to accomplish what is in front of me. This is the disclaimer). I have big goals and plans that may seem impossible, but at one time, I thought it would take me five years to surpass 100,000 Twitter followers. I even created a five year plan for it back when I had 10,000 Twitter followers (don’t create five year plans because so many things happen and change in one month). I had to quickly scrap the five year plan because I achieved the same milestone in one year. I now have over 200,000 Twitter followers at a time when I wouldn’t be halfway done with my five year plan. My ability to exceed this expectation led to great joy, and a raised bar. I raise the bar high for myself every day, week, and month. Time to watch television diminished. I still play video games and run, but those are the only two things I do aside from the business. Sometimes, the raised bar becomes overwhelming, and I rarely accomplish everything in a week that I set out to do, but that’s because I raise the bar so high. For instance, this week, I was supposed to take some SAT tests, publish a training course, write several guidebooks, write three blog posts, and create a Facebook ad while going to school and getting all of the homework done (1-3 hours per night), and that is an average week. Setting the bar so high has allowed me to accomplish more than I thought I was capable of accomplishing.

 

More Sales

Although Twitter does not lead to a massive amount of direct sales (this is because I choose to promote my blog posts instead of my products, but I may slip in some tweets about products), it brings people to all of the places that are responsible for my sales. Twitter is the primary traffic generation for my landing pages which all directly impact the amount of sales I get. People subscribe to my email list to get the free eBook mentioned on the landing page, I send these people a series of emails, and some of those emails are product promotions. Part of success on Twitter is knowing where to take people when you take them off of Twitter.

 

In Conclusion

Most of the impact Twitter had on my brand was mindset. Reaching 100,000 Twitter followers taught me that I can do anything I put my mind to, and reaching 200,000 Twitter followers verified this belief. Twitter had a significant impact on my brand from a business standpoint, but the right mindset is required for long-lasting success.

What are your thoughts about taking Twitter seriously? Do you use Twitter often or find yourself inactive on the social network? Was there any part of my case study that appealed to you the most? Please share your thoughts below.

10 Ways You Can Use Twitter Advanced Search For Your Social Media Strategy

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Twitter Advanced Search For Business

When I first came across Twitter Advanced Search, I was absolutely blown away. The advanced search makes it easy to find targeted individuals to interact with and/or market your products to. I learned about Twitter Advanced Search a few months after it was made available to the public, and ever since I learned about it, I used it often in my Twitter strategy. The advanced search allows you to filter out specific tweets and accounts based on what you type within the advanced search, but it can look confusing to a beginner. In this article, I will dispel the confusion and share with you 10 different ways you can use Twitter Advanced Search for your strategy.

 

#1: Search For Certain Keywords

The Twitter Advanced Search allows you to search for tweets containing specific keywords. You have the choice to decide whether a tweet must include multiple keywords (in the advanced search, that option is “All of these words”) or if a tweet contains one of the keywords that you specify (in the advanced search, that option is “Any of these words”).

Since I am a digital marketing expert, I will occasionally search for tweets about digital marketing to strengthen my knowledge. When I search for these tweets, I use Twitter Advanced Search to find all tweets with one or more of the following keywords: Social media, digital marketing, and blogging. Retail stores can search for keywords based on what they sell and then interact with people who sent relevant tweets. With hundreds of millions of tweets getting sent every day, it won’t be difficult to find a series of tweets with the keyword(s) you are looking for.

 

#2: Search For Specific Languages

One of the concepts few people recognize is how many timezones and languages fill up our planet. When you are used to hearing the same language in your neighborhood, your community, and in your every day life, it can be difficult to acknowledge that people talk and speak in other languages. On social media, it is easier to understand this concept, but there is an important connection between someone’s language and our brands.

Want to know why language matters for our brands? Here is an example. I am a blogger who writes blog posts in English. If you are with me at this point, then you are most likely read and speak English like it is second nature. However, there are some people who don’t understand English. If you don’t search for the specific language that you use to communicate with your audience, then you risk coming across someone who speaks in a different language and won’t understand yours. If one of my visitors has neither spoken nor read English in his/her lifetime, then I know it is practically impossible for a relationship to build. How can a visitor appreciate my content if that visitor does not understand the language I am using? Searching for a specific language prevents you from running into this problem. If you are an international brand with locations in different countries, then this won’t apply to you, but for most of us, the language a person understands impacts whether that person could possibly appreciate what we do or not.

 

#3: Search For Tweets Mentioning Certain People

Twitter Advanced Search allows you to see a bunch of tweets that mention other people. I use this feature to find people who interact with other social media thought leaders. Why is this important? Well, think of why a Twitter user would meaningfully engage with a social media thought leader’s tweet. Twitter Advanced Search follows up with tweets from people who all share a passion for social media and engage with other tweets about social media. These people are, by definition, people who interact with other social media thought leaders.

As a digital marketing expert, I want these types of followers. If these people see my tweets, then they will engage with my tweets all the same because I am passionate about digital marketing and send numerous tweets about my niche.

Brands can use this feature to see what other users say about their competitors. If certain users express frustration that your brand could fix, you can offer your services as a solution. Successful products and companies solve other people’s problems. You can build a successful brand solely around solving other people’s problems that the other brands couldn’t or wouldn’t solve.

 

[Tweet “Use The #Twitter Advanced Search To Discover Your Targeted Audience. http://bit.ly/1FL7IiK”]

 

#4: Search For Specific Tweets Posted By Specific People

The feature of getting a list of tweets from a specific group of people allows you to create a temporary Twitter list filled with your favorite (or least favorite) tweeters. When I am in the mood for a good laugh, I will use Twitter Advanced Search to search for the tweets posted by humorous accounts. I use this feature more often to learn more about digital marketing. I will type social media thought leaders’ usernames and then see a variety of tweets all about digital marketing, social media, and other tweets along those lines. If you find yourself using Twitter Advanced Search solely for this feature, it would be more advisable to create Twitter lists instead.

 

#5: Search For People By Location

Since my business is on the web, I don’t always use this feature. Retail stores and restaurants would benefit more from this feature because they could locate Twitter users close enough to stop by (and hopefully make a purchase). The advanced search also accounts for keywords, so if a restaurant was using Twitter Advanced Search to find ideal customers, that restaurant would search for a nearby location and then keywords like “food, hamburger (if the restaurant offers hamburgers), restaurant (maybe competing restaurants will show up. Your restaurant can say, “Come give us a try” but in a meaningful, non-sales-y way). For bloggers and web based businesses, you can search for people by location when you host an event or envision yourself hosting an event in a particular part of the world in the future.

 

#6: Search For Recent Tweets

Twitter Advanced Search shows an array of tweets written from the first days of Twitter to today. You should only opt to see the most recent tweets. If you own a restaurant and are looking for more customers, and you see a tweet written a few years ago in which a nearby individual wanted to know of a good restaurant, then that person’s past needs may no longer be relevant. So many things can happen in a few years. Maybe the person found a restaurant. Maybe the person lived somewhere else during that tweet and moved nearby after the tweet. Maybe that person is already a customer (you don’t want to tweet to a loyal customer asking them to give your restaurant a try).

I always search for tweets within one week, but depending on your brand, you may find it better to search for tweets posted in the past three months. Try it out and see what works for you.

 

#7: Search For Positive Tweets

When I look for people to follow on Twitter, I look for people who actively engage with other social media thought leaders. However, not all of these tweets are positive, and I don’t want to follow someone who I know is very likely to not appreciate what I do. When I do these searches, I make sure these are positive tweets. Some people like to express how much they enjoyed an article, and those are the only types of tweets I see when I check in the Positive option in Twitter Advanced Search. If people positively react to the leaders within your niche, and you provide value in your niche, then these people will positively react to your tweets, but only if these people see your tweets. I get these people to see my tweets by following them, and many of these people are highly likely to follow back based on their follow ratios and because I tweet digital marketing advice.

 

#8: Search For Negative Tweets

You can search for negative tweets about your competitors and look for common patterns. These common patterns will detect where your competitors fall short, and your brand can become the solution that leads to you helping others while making a profit. Successful brands try their best to help others, but some customers fall through the cracks. Searching for negative tweets allows you to find the customers who have fallen through the cracks. With this knowledge, you can fill up those cracks so more customers can find the advice or product they are looking for.

 

#9: Search For Questions

Some people will have a question about your niche, but not everyone who has a question gets an answer (FYI: if you want your question answered, the first step is to ask the question in the first place). Some people will ask their questions on Twitter, but not all of those questions will get answered. You can be the person who answers other people’s questions about your products and similar products within your niche. Some people may ask about your customer service or someone else’s customer service. When you provide your meaningful answer, the person who asked the question will be grateful for your reply, and that’s one of the ways to build a relationship between you and a potential customer.

 

#10: Search For Retweets To See What Is Popular

When you search for retweets, you will get an idea of what is popular within a certain niche. If you look for patterns, you will discover what patterns you can use to make your tweets more desirable so more of your followers retweet them. If you only tweet desirable tweets, then people will come back to your profile often to read your tweets. When someone reaches this stage of the relationship building process, it will be difficult for that person to forget about you.

 

In Conclusion

Twitter Advanced Search is one of the most sophisticated search engines on the entire web. It effectively filters the billions of tweets on the web and allows you to find the exact tweets you are looking for based on keywords, people who get mentioned, people sending the tweets, language, emotion, and other essential filtering methods.

Do you use Twitter Advanced Search? Has it become a vital part of your business? If you did not use Twitter Advanced Search before reading this blog post, do you plan on using it now? Please share your thoughts and advice below.