The phenomenal global reach of Twitter gives you an unrivalled opportunity to showcase yourself and your skills that won’t cost you a cent!

Following other like minded people on Twitter is a simple yet effective way to use Twitter as a marketing tool and drive targeted traffic to your websites.

When you follow others you will find that around 70% of the people you follow will follow you back and a large proportion of these new followers will visit your profile to see what you are about. It is at this point that you must present yourself in the best possible way.

Be sure to upload your image, the standard brown gravatar is a very negative sign – it shows that you don’t care enough to spend a few minutes uploading your photo.

Your Twitter profile provides space for one URL so make sure you have a website or blog with engaging content and personal information – a mini biography works well, don’t forget your followers want to find out about you, they will not be impressed if your link is to a sales page.

Create a custom background (Google ‘free twitter background’), this shows your followers you are taking your business seriously, it also gives you the opportunity to showcase your skills and provide URL’s (unclickable) to relevant websites.

Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression so do everything in your power to make it a favourable one.

Building a substantial list of followers is a great way to tell the world that what you have to say is worth listening to.

When people visit your profile and see that 3,000 other people are following you this acts as a powerful form of social proof – similar to a testimonial that says….”this person gives good advice, I follow them and I urge you to do the same.”

As your list of followers grows so does your own credibility.

Think about your own experiences on Twitter, if you visit 2 profiles and one person has 3,515 followers and the other has 15 followers which group do you feel most compelled to join?

Naturally you click the little green tick and join the larger group – you feel reassured that you are taking the right action because you can see that many others have taken the same action – this is the power of social proof.

As human beings we instinctively look for social proof before taking important decisions, we feel uncomfortable if others aren’t taking the same action and we seek out like minded individuals to spend our time with, we like people who are like us.

Twitter satisfies this need by providing a huge pool of people who are just like us with the same needs, wants and interests and it makes it possible to connect with these people quickly and easily.

Twitter is brilliant for raising your profile and building your credibility, however, Twitter’s greatest strength is its ability to cut through the layers of bureaucracy that usually surround and protect the big players in your particular niche and allow you to contact them directly.

If you think about the people who dominate your niche, for example, the top internet marketing ‘gurus’ you would find it very difficult if not impossible to pick up the phone and call them or send them an email and get a personal response.

No, because these powerful, influential people have tens of thousands of customers it is impractical to be available to all, so they employ people and systems to handle these personal interactions and therefore protect their time.

Life on Planet Twitter is very different!

Anyone can search for the name of their ‘top person’ and follow them, read their Tweets, send direct responses to them and in this way build a relationship. This ability to network and build relationships is unique to Twitter and is, I believe, its greatest strength.

This final point is so important I want you to go back and read it again.

Using Twitter as a marketing tool is all about building relationships and your business will benefit hugely if you can get a few ‘big hitters’ on your side!

Any company looking to use Twitter marketing tips need to consider these three tips of they will simply fail. Making use of the three tips which you will find below will attract far more appeal for your website and will also bring you repeat traffic to your online business.

Twitter Tip #1: Market your Twitter web link within your website. You wont produce any ‘followers’ if none of your visitors know you have a Twitter account. You have got to concentrate on attracting followers, or your Twitter advertising marketing plan will be totally useless.

Twitter Tip #2: Place a Twitter widget on your site. This widget will show all your Twitter updates and messages on your website so your visitors can keep up to date with what is going on. It also allows them to embed your Twitter widget on their sites that additionally generates more Twitter followers.

Twitter Tip #3: Use your Twitter account daily that means Tweet daily! If you use this sort of advertising you must make sure you Tweet your twitter account on a constant basis. However you must not over use your Twitter account, but you must make sure you use it on a regular basis. If you are not effective with your Twitter account, you will not take care of your Twitter followers.

This sort of advertising could attract a lot of subscribers back to your online business time and time again. Moreover, using Twitter it is a great way to keep your followers or any new subscribers in check with any special deals you might have running.

More Twitter Marketing Articles

Twitter is a popular social networking website although it is still in its nascent stage. Twitter marketing is slowly gaining popularity as well among SEO experts although there are mixed reactions. Only a small percentage of all online advertisers feel that Twitter Marketing is effective while a majority feels that one should wait and watch. The top SEO experts across the world agree that twitter is definitely a strong online marketing tool. If you are new to the Twitter scene and social networking then here are a few tips that will help you in the long run:

Tip #1: Username. Create a username that is industry relevant. If you belong to the travel industry then choose a twitter username that is related to the travel industry. This will help in creating your identity and also lay emphasis on the industry or your specific business. Some examples of good twitter usernames are ‘travel4less’, ‘trekkingtips’, ‘worldtours’, ‘africawild’, and much more.

Tip #2: Testing: According to SEO experts, posting on Twitter is an effective method of search engine optimization for small businesses. If you are wondering how best you can improve your twitter marketing campaign then the first place to start is the testing phase. You need to identify the different kinds of tweets that normally get maximum attention and you can do this only by tracking each and every Click Through.

Tip #3: One of the best options for effective Twitter usage is to join your specific industry conversation. You can find it through the search portal on Twitter and this will provide you with an insight into what all are happening in your specific industry.

The easiest way to accomplish this is to leverage the clout of influencers within the social media community.

Influencers are people within a social network that are respected and liked by others in that community and are able to popularize discussions on topics of interst in that community. 

Influencers stimulate the conversations, connect people to ideas and can capture the mindshare or opinion of an audience within a social sphere. All social media websites have a few select individuals who stand out for their activity within the community and their expertise has gained the trust and support of the social media users.

These are the people you are are looking for and the ones you want to influence.

There are so many social media sites and the points we make in this article can be applied to any of them. We’ll be studying how to develope your own strategy for targeting the influencers of these sites to engage  their social network with your content.

Let’s look at a social news site like Digg for example. Digg and other sites like it allow the audience to vote on the value of content with a simple thumbs up and thumbs down vote. By actively participating in the community you can develope a following and become and authority and with that comes influence.

Over time supporters will share your content with friends or add it to their websites and blogs. Social media users can be pitched just like a blogger or writer can be pitched with a simple introduction at first gradually building a relationship that’s mutually benefitial. The goal is to leverage their brand of influence by influencing them to promote your website content within their community.

The main steps are Targeting, Networking and then Pitching the influencer in question.

1.Targeting
Finding a social media influencer that shares your point of view about your content and is relevent to their website or sphere of influence is most important. Making your content in-line or coherent with the influencers interests makes it much easier to get them to promote or agree with your content.

Go to the public user ranking list of the social media site in question, in this case Digg, and visit each profile on the listed looking for who has influence and also who resonates with what you’re promoting. Get a feel for what interests them. You can also do a keyword search on the social media site looking for content based on your keywords and find the users that rank high within the site on those keywords. If they have consistently submitted content around those keywords they are likely to be open to suggestions of simular content. You can also do a URL search of your keywords to find people that may be open to more content of that type.

Using the site yourself will help you discover little details about the user you’re targeting that can help you reach them and develope rapport. For example, while top Digg user MrBabyMan submits a great amount of stories, most active Diggers are familiar with his avid interest in Cracked.com, a popular pop culture/men’s portal/magazine.

2. Networking
After you’re done targeting a specific social media website you need to contact them and develpoe a relationship. You can get in touch with them from their contact info in their user profile and join the site as a registered user. If contact info is not available Google them by their name and user name to see if you can find it elsewhere. Look for their blog or other profiles they may have listed on other sites.

Once you have their contact details initiate a conversation by just send them a note and thank them for their contributions. Trying to pitch to promote your content right away is very bad etiquette and annoying. You can stand out from the crowd of self-interested crowd by genuinely showing your appreciation for their contributions.

Take a genuine interest in them and engage them in a dialog of common interests and do so continuously until you have a good idea what material they would support and do favors for the user by giving them publicity or links to free resources and interesting content (not your own).

Real social media users are always interested in buzz-worthy news or opinions that can boost their own authority within the social media community. Your content or anything else you offer should not only meet the integrity of their personal brand, but it should improve it and the reputation of the user within the community.

Offer them free invites to unrelated websites, give away exclusive information on certain topics. Share some links to excellent websites. Do little favors without asking for anything in return at all. Give them a reason to be interested in you.

Networking is really just about making friends. It’s that simple. This will gradually lead you into the third and final stage: Pitching the influencer.

3.Pitching
So now that you’ve built a rapport with this person what next?

A. Ask Casually. Do your pitching in a light hearted and casual manner and do not
aggressively push the user to promote your content. This is a huge turnoff and
you should understand that the user has a perfect right to refuse you.

B. Disclose Your affiliation. I would recommend letting the user know that you
are affiliated with the specific website, particularly if you plan to have a long
working relationship with the user. He or she will appreciate your honesty and it
will also make it easier for you to ask the second time round.

C. Space out your pitches. The biggest mistake you can make is to ask the influencer
to promote every single piece of content that comes out on your site. This is a major
irritant so only offer the user your best work, while pitching your material only once
per week or every two weeks.

Continue to keep aclose contact after they are promoting your site. Building a long-term relationship will have longterm results and targeted in-bound links to your website for years to come.

Good Luck!

Talk soon, 

Frank Tocco–Marketing Mentor

Lately, marketers have been discovering how powerful Twitter is for marketing things online. People like Mike Filsaime and Seth Godin are ‘twittering’ now, and building a following of people who get every update they ever post.

Now, no one wants to hear what you have had for breakfast, or any of the other hundreds of boring things we all do each day. Yet there are a growing number of people who have learned how to post very interesting things on twitter, and have in turn developed a following of thousands of people who actively track what they say. Obama Barack is one such person who uses twitter to announce his public appearances and speaking engagements. Doing this has grown his fan base, and increased the number of people who learn about him, and now support him. In short, twitter is a powerful marketing medium when you use it right.

Here are 4 secrets to get you started marketing with twitter:

1. Refrain from posting what you are doing right now! That’s right, don’t post everything you do, but rather just the things that are interesting to others, or things you want others to see. It could be something in the news, or an event that is happening, or an offer you are making – just anything that could benefit someone else and not bore them. It sounds interesting, but it becomes a little challenging to do when you get excited or angry. So be sure to ask yourself the question “is this useful to my followers?” and only post if the answer is yes.

2. Find interesting people and follow them. To do this, you simply search twitter for something that interests you (anything, really), and then look at what others are twittering. After a while, you will find some people that have interesting things to say, and when you click on their username, twitter will show you a button called “follow” that lets you follow that person from now on. By following a person, everything they post will go into your personal timeline – the thing you see when you login to twitter. If you decide you do not wish to follow someone any longer, simply click on their name and then on the “unfollow” link.

3. Go to quotably (a free website) and search for stuff posted on twitter. Quotably shows you everything in conversation mode and lets you reply to peole simply by logging in with your twitter details. In short, you can enter the conversations of others at that site, and find other interesting people to follow.

4. Use a twitter agent to have all your essential twitter information at hand at all times.

Twitter is a powerful tool, and more and more people are learning how to use it to develop their contacts and business. Now you can, too.

If you want to learn how to get the most out of your online marketing, you need to learn as many Twitter marketing secrets as possible. There are hundreds of Twitter marketing secrets that you can use to make your online marketing very successful. Anyone who wants to market online successfully needs to know how to use the secrets that others use for social network marketing. 

Twitter is a social networking site. There are millions of people who are using Twitter and millions more are expected to follow. It has passed MySpace when it comes to popularity. Naturally, if you are looking for a way to practice online marketing skills, you can learn quite a bit when you go to Twitter. But you need to learn the Twitter marketing secrets so that your online marketing venture is successful. 

Many people think that they can just start practicing online marketing on social networking sites without having to learn anything about it. They usually end up wasting their time. Twitter marketing secrets are learned by a few, but many more just go on the site and just start trying to sell products or opportunities without any finesse. This usually results in a failed attempt at online marketing.  In order to be successful when you are marketing on Twitter, you have to learn Twitter marketing secrets. 

Twitter marketing secrets are a lot more than just posting a link on your page. If you think that Twitter marketing secrets mean link posting to other sites or groups, think again. This will not only be a failed attempt at online marketing, but you will most likely get kicked off of Twitter. Most of the people who join sites like Twitter do so because of the social aspect. This does not mean that they do not make good customers and business partners, but it does mean that you have to be a bit more discreet when it comes to your online marketing. 

You can be very successful if you practice online marketing on Twitter or other social networking sites. But before you can achieve this sort of success, you have to learn the Twitter marketing secrets that others know.  Fortunately, there are sites where you can go to learn these secrets that are only available to a few. Once you learn the secrets of viral marketing, you will be not only able to market successfully on Twitter, but other social networks as well. 

Social networking marketing is very successful online, but you have to know the rules and secrets before you start trying to sell a product, idea or anything else when you are on the internet social sites. Learn as much as you can about Twitter marketing secrets before you attempt to practice viral marketing and you will most likely be successful in your endeavors. If you fail to bother to learn and just go rogue online, trying to market on social networking sites, chances are that you will end up failing at this marketing attempt and wasting a great deal of time.