Using Twitter to YOUR advantage

Follow BusinessesGrowingTogether on Twitter

Twitter is a real-time information network that connects you to the latest information about what you find interesting. Simply search what interests you, follow them & follow conversations.

Twitter are small snips of information called Tweets. Each Tweet is 140 characters long.

Twitter connects businesses to customers in real-time. Businesses use Twitter to quickly share information with people interested in their products and services, gather feedback, and build relationships with customers and other people. Twitter offers businesses a chance to reach a targeted audience.

How do you find that targeted audience?... First, Twitter will give you a list of who you may want to follow based on your profile Keywords. Start following a bunch & many will follow you back.

The next place to get followers is from any twitter lists on forums or groups you belong to. Add yours & follow the others.

Then another GREAT place is www.twibes.com. These are groups of "tweeters". Find a twibe & follow the members in the Twibe. I searched "weddings" & there are a few wedding professionals & planners. So there may be followers that are interested in wedding info.

Searching with Hashtags... Users often preadd # to words in their Tweets to categorize them for others eg: "Check out our new products for the Fall: http://t.co/link2 #fallsale" Think of hashtags as the theme of your Tweet. Users can then click on a hashtag to see other similarly-themed tweets and find yours in search. Then follow the people that are also using that hashtag.

One more trick to find targeted followers.... on the right side on your twitter, you see "trending topics". If you see one that connects to your biz, click on it & follow some of those tweeples.

Now that you have a bunch of followers.... you need to tweet. PLEASE don't tweet an entire page worth of your product links! Add links to interesting things... maybe a DIY "how to"... or a recipe.... & THEN throw in some product links. If you want to tweet thoughout the day & want to schedule tweets, I use www.hootsuite.com ..
You can schedule a weeks worth of tweets in 1 sitting. This way, if you work throughout the week, you can schedule tweets on a weekend for the entire week & promote your business while you are at work.

One other reason I use Twitter... the backlinks get picked up extremely fast! Bots & spiders crawl that link almost immediately. When I tweet a link... by the time I get back to that item, I have 15 to 25 hits within 2 seconds. These are not "eyeballs" but spiders & those spiders "report back" to searches & it helps your ranking in the search engines. Each tweet with a link is considered New Content, so don't spam the same product over & over in the same day. Space them out.

So now you know a bit on how to use twitter to grow your business. Twitter is sort of different but it is a fantastic tool for marketing you business & communicating with customers.