Twitter: your CRM & marketing channel. It’s about more than just followers…
Over the past 12 months in my twitter contributions I have often included tips to help those involved in using twitter for their business (marketing). I often get requests to publish a full set – so here is a list of my current thinking about using twitter as a tool for building relationships for future business. In no particular order (other than alphabetical)…
- Add value – share interesting or useful info, blogs etc
- Add good description & link for something that would be too short in a post
- ALWAYS keep it clean & professional
- ALWAYS professional NEVER personal unless it is praise or thanks
- As far as getting followers goes; I find just being friendly and helpful does wonders. And of course shared interests help to.
- Be honest. Have fun. Don’t try to sell anything.
- Big followers – does not mean many listeners – the RTs tell that story
- Change your BIO regularly
- Change your twitter habits – make sure you don’t include links in most of your tweets, some tools treat this as spam & unfollow
- contribute positively to conversations going on inside twitter
- Don’t follow more people than you can handle. If you’ve got too much going on, you miss a lot of the good stuff.
- Don’t expect Twitter to deliver revenue alone, it is only ONE element of the strategy
- Efficient is the key to Twitter. short & sweet. Basically, get right to the point.
- Even an attentive follower won’t read all your messages
- Follow people who are in your field or area of interest
- Follow the advice of people that have demonstrated competence – not think they know how to…
- Frequent Twitter updates demand desktop or server side clients
- funny, informative and catchy: choose two.
- Getting followers is not a right its a privilege
- Give – don’t take
- Have an avatar (picture) of your face or company logo
- Help promote the dreams of other people, and they may return the favour
- If someone RT re-Tweets a message – send them a thank you
- If you are going to auto DM only send a welcome message
- If you post info of any kind, leave plenty of room for retweeting
- In marketing messages use appropriate keywords
- Interact and communicate with others, it’s a social media tool, so be social
- Its not the number of followers but the number of Re-Tweets you get
- Join the conversation, there are too many blog promoters on twitter who just broadcast. Learn @ and start networking :)
- Keep it short ;-)
- Keep your Twitter updated and the followers will come. Stay up-to-date and you will reap the benefits.
- Learn what people care about
- Limit what you automate
- Look beyond the obvious (traffic, sales etc.) Add value. Build relationships. Think LONG term.
- Make sure your BIO is up to date and human
- Make use of other Twitter tools to make the most of Twitter (and so it doesn’t suck up all your time)
- NEVER DM a request to follow you on another social networking site ie FaceBook
- NEVER DM or tweet a MLM program
- NEVER DM or tweet a traffic follower program
- NEVER sign up to any of the Twitter ad services-it undermines your position
- NEVER tweet when drunk, angry or think you have just won the lottery!
- NEVER tweet cat or baby anecdotes!
- Occasionally ask people to RT a post, if you ask every time they wont
- Only @ people you know – & only with a link if invited, otherwise its SPAM!
- Only promote your services less than once every 10-20 tweets
- ONLY use a DM for personal messages or if you must to welcome a follower
- Open up a bit.ly account for short URLs
- Please report (@spam) unfollow & Block Twitter Spammers
- Remember what you tweet is around for ever!
- Rerunning tweets occasionally is a good idea
- Respect the people you follow. Be interesting. Listen first, tweet second. Never waste words
- Set your wallpaper to promote your message
- Share interesting resources, not just what you ate for lunch. Twitter often, and use it to test potential blog topics.
- Share links, share ideas, ask questions, answer questions anything but what are you doing? unless it’s really interesting
- Share links. share insights and trends, things that are new or timely/current. Be personal. Don’t link only to yourself
- Share thoughts and links from others (RT)
- Share thoughts more than actions: Identi.ca will kill Twitter vs. I’m going to the toilet
- Stop thinking that twitter is pointless and just try it. It’s all about community reach out and be a part of it
- Thank people who re-tweet you. Either DM, @ reply, or re-tweet something of theirs
- Think before you hit send. 140 characters have the power to help, heal or be miss-understood
- This often goes unsaid, but I would suggest not having twitter open while writing. It can become very distracting
- This was my problem at first, I just lurked. Get active and follow others. Great tool for tossing around ideas.
- Treat followers with respect & courtesy & every now & then thank them
- Tweet real stuff – highs and lows
- Tweet regularly – at least 4 times a day
- Tweet to show you are human
- Tweet to show you are more than a marketing machine
- Tweet what you read on others blogs
- Twitter about stuff that has to do with your blog, but also Twitter stuff that has nothing to do with your blog
- Twitter is not an IM service-keep private discussions short
- Use a # in front of #keywords
- Use an username as short as possible so you can twit more
- Use favourites to save and show brand/product testimonials
- Use travel time to tweet & read tweets on smartphones
- Use twitpic or other photo services occasionally
- Use Twitter to meet up with your new contacts
- Use twitterfeed. Instant feedback from readers is the best part of Twitter. Listen to others; engage them; have a conversation
- Want more followers? Re-tweet the good stuff you find
- When you have over 100 friends use tweetdeck or Hootsuite to help you to manage
- Work on building a relationship-not pushing message to people
- Write each word like it matters, because it does
- You don’t have to follow everyone, only those of interest
Remember Twitter is not a silver bullet – or the universal hammer, it is but one tool in our communication toolbox. Done well and Twitter can be a key part of your communication strategy – do it wrong and it can undermine all of your marketing and brand development activity.
Twitter is not just for marketing – it is for learning, so make sure that you learn from others and they can learn from you. For twitter to work as a training, learning or CRM tool, people need to trust you and what you put out. As a big brand it can me all about me-me-me, however as a small business, we must be part of a community, we must respect others share the ideas of others and re-tweet their messages and blogs. Its about collaboration and win/ win. Those that only tweet their own messages will soon lose readership.
Readership is not just about followers – its the people that read and act on your messages.
From my experience I have people I am not connected to RT my messages and blog entries, so they must read the streams or use the search rather than just follow. Indeed once someone has over 200 followers, especially if they are active contributers to the twitter stream, it will be impossible to look at what they put out – so we must make it interesting and engaging that they keep looking at our material.
What are you favourite tips – share them below
Using Twitter as a great resource for marketing – Its about more than just followers.
RT @IrunNewbury: RT @RapidBI Twitter as a marketing tool
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RT @thebitgirl: RT @FallowfieldsUK Seriously useful RT @rapidbi: Twitter as CRM & mktg tool 4 small businesses Exce …