Compare Twitter to other popular social media programs like Facebook and Linkedin. If you want be a friend on Facebook or a connection on Linkedin, you must ask permission of the other person. It can be days before you receive a reply.
To learn from others on Twitter requires no permission. You can choose to follow another person and you don’t need to get their permission to follow their tweets. No permission needed.
For this reason, some experts have called Twitter the greatest networking tool ever. You can follow and learn without permission.
In recent months, we have had conversations with people on and off of twitter who own their own business. Many of those people reported they do not understand the value of twitter and especially how it can help their business.
We explained that we see the core values of Twitter Success to be… engaging, building relationships and providing value. While it may seem simple, if done effectively, it can propel your business to much higher levels of success. Whether you are new to the world of business or a seasoned professional in business.
Keeping those core values in mind, we are providing you with 20 “basic” ideas to help you use Twitter for your business.
1. First, do not talk business all the time. Like anything, variety is the spice of life.
2. Engage with people on a personal level and talk about all kinds of things that others may be interested in.
3. What-ever your business is, tweet people’s attention to things, places, people, etc. Then provide value and establish why your business may be of benefit or interest to them.
4. Feel free to be creative and think outside of the box. The possibilities are virtually unlimited.
5. When you tweet about your own products or services do so from the perspective of offering advice or value, rather than hard selling. (Nobody likes SPAM)
6. Establish a habit of tweeting as often as you see fit. Please don’t go overboard and always be focused, but there should be a daily activity to establish consistency.
7. Use search.twitter.com. This will help you to find lots of interesting people who are in your line of business. BONUS: This search is provided in real time, as it’s happening now.
8. Take a look at some of the Twitter third party tools that are listed here Twitter Watchdog. Some of these tools will help you to be far more productive as you interact.
9. Spend the first few weeks building your Twitter following with people who you know or feel would be interested in your business. Twitter Karma, Buzzom and Tweet Adder are great applications for this.
10. Understand that Twitter is probably the fastest-growing social media phenomenon of all time for business and really can take advantage of this opportunity right now.
11. Make sure that you understand the Twitter lingo, what RT means, what the @ means and so on.
Pickup our free Twitter Success Guide 2.0 to learn more.
12. Understand that while many still do not fully understand Twitter, other businesses have been very successful by using Twitter in ingenious ways that creates a viral effect locally, nationally and globally.
13. Survey or Ask some quick easy questions and get a lot of opinions from targeted people, rather easily.
14. Realize that there are a good number of like-minded people and businesses on Twitter and its becoming a goldmine for networking, ideas and resources in a variety of ways.
15. Twitter can be very educational and if you open your mind up you will be surprised what business “nuggets” you will receive.
16. How important will Twitter be for your business in the future? Get plugged in and stay plugged in.
17. If you want to convert your Twitter followers into potential clients you will need to engage in a process of soft marketing, by providing valuable insights and information and establishing yourself as someone to trust. Only then can you tempt followers into your sales funnel.
18. Be understanding of those who think that Twitter is just “ridiculous.” You may come across some criticism while engaging your business and you might have to carry out some internal public relations within your organization to assure people you’re not wasting your time.
19. As you progress on twitter, spice up your twitter background with a tailor-made Twitter background design.
20. Last but not least, always be positive, be yourself and have fun.
One way of building potential business relationships on Twitter is to use a technique good sales copy has been using for year-identifying the pain.
Reducing or eliminating the “pain” is one of the great motivators to stir people to take action. Good sales copy will identify the pain or problems people are having; intensity the pain; and then offer their product or service as a way of reducing or eliminating the pain. Sales copy has the luxury of using long copy to get this process done.
Here’s how to use this technique on Twitter
Spend time reading the Tweets that come down your Twitter stream. Look for the Tweets where people express frustration, disappointment, pain, worry, discomfort or other problem areas that pertain to your products or services. When you find people who express the appropriate pains, you want do to a direct Tweet to them using the @ sign before their name.
Here comes the tricky part
If you meet a stranger on the street and they mentioned one or more of these appropriate pains, would you immediately jump in and say to them, “I can solve your problem!”
I don’t think so. This would immediately turn off the other person. At this point in the conversation, they wouldn’t have the confidence that you really understand their problem or pain. Instead you would probably ask more questions or share with them a story about another person or even yourself who had the same problem or pain. (In direct sales, this is called rapport building).
Only after some conversation would you offer solutions you think would be helpful to them. If the other person now feels you really understand their problem, they become more open to your potential solutions.
Your Tweets
Use your Twitter stream to identify potential customers whose problems you can solve. Then engage them in Tweet conversations that build a trust level that you really do understand their problem. It could be asking questions. It could be telling stories of people with the same problem. It could be sharing how you had the same problem and overcame it.
At first, this will be challenging because you only have 140 characters to move the conversation forward. After several times, you will develop key Tweets that you can use to explore the problem areas so that you can build rapport with different followers. You can use these key Tweets over and over again.
Conclusion
Use your Twitter stream to identify potential customers and your Tweets to show them you understand their problems or pain. Once the relationship or rapport has been established, you can begin offering your business solutions.
For the 2008 presidential elections, Current knew it had to do something different. The media company, headquartered in San Francisco, would receive the same live feed of the debates as every other broadcaster. Unless Current distinguished its coverage, viewers would have no particular reason to tune in.
As they cast around for ideas, Current staffers noticed something interesting during the conventions. When the candidates gave live speeches, there were surges of commentary on Twitter. “A lot of us are Twitter users,” says Current’s vice president of strategy, Robin Sloan, “and we saw this real-time commentary track that suggested a parallel to the commentary you normally hear on the news.”
Current realized that if people were twittering about the conventions, they would definitely comment on the debates. “We thought: ‘What a cool thing to harness!’”
Playing with the idea
The first debate was just a few weeks off when Current hit on the idea of incorporating tweets into its broadcast. With no software engineer dedicated to the project, Sloan-who had done a bit of coding in the past-started playing with the Twitter API. (An API, or application programming interface, lets a company offer its data in ways that others can use and incorporate.)
“We didn’t have a giant bundle of resources,” says Frank Lentz, Current’s senior vice president for creative affairs. “We were in scrappy, let’s-make-a case-for-this mode. There was a lot of playing, tinkering, experimenting.”
To deal with the volume of messages, Sloan created an application with two levels of filtering. The first was a triage phase. About ten people searched Twitter for debate-related terms, and then quickly tagged any post that looked like it didn’t contain profanity, hate speech or material that would raise copyright issues.
The second phase was actively curatorial. Three or four people looked at the queued messages from the first filter and then decided which of those would be shown on air.
The final step, displaying the messages over the debate, proved a little tricky to figure out. In addition to integrating the Twitter data feed with the video feed, Current had to decide how the tweets would appear.
“We knew this idea had merit, but nobody has figured out the best way to display text commentary on TV,” says Lentz. “How do you do TV in the era of the Internet?”
Why it worked
After a lot of quick experiments, Current settled on the idea of having a stream of tweets roll up the screen and then dissolve about halfway up.
“We used Flash for the rendering, which just isn’t done on TV,” says Lentz. “But it turned out to have this quality that was really wonderful. There’s a jitteriness that lets you know the information is live.”
As excitement grew, more Current team members pitched in to help. With each debate, they improved the system a little more. “If you do something like this,” says Sloan, “expect you’re going to have to iterate.”
Sloan says the ease of using the Twitter API was also critical to success. “It’s open, and it’s simple. That was key. That was empowering.”
A great experiment
Throughout the election season, Current received a lot of attention-far more than it would have had it stuck to a traditional broadcast.
The company also received a lot feedback on the project. “Some people thought it was too aggressive, some thought it was just right,” says Lentz. “But everyone acknowledged that it was a great experiment and that in the world of a two-screened experience, we moved things forward.” http://current.com/
I do the weekly, family grocery shopping. As I go through the checkout lines, I notice two types of people. The one type of customer is on a mission. The grocery store is not where they want to spend their afternoon. They go through the line, unloading items as quickly as possible. For them, the clerk processing the order is just part of the system to get the items through the line, paid and bagged.
The other type of people takes time to talk with the cashier. It may be short bits of conversation about the day or other small talk. Usually these are not long conversations and they have a bit of social laughter to them. It’s a form of acknowledging there is a person behind the cashier’s uniform.
I am the second type of people even to the embarrassment my 14 year old daughter who says “Dad, you talk to everyone”! Having worked for a number of years as a grocery clerk, I have a special affinity for people who work in these stores.
There is not a right or wrong way to check out groceries. Today with self-checkout you don’t even need to bother with anyone.
Twitter Lines
For me the Twitter stream is like the grocery checkout lines. I try to bring the same type of respect to my Tweets as I do with the checkout clerks. There is a person on the other side of that screen. Acknowledging, complimenting them, and showing you recognize someone as more than a follower is a form of treating them with respect. A comment or extra effort on your part will set you apart and give you a style that will help your twitter marketing.
Remember, there is a person on the other side of the screen.
Seth Godin is one of my favorite bloggers because of the insights he provides about life and social media efforts. He is always on the cutting edge. Check out his blog post and apply his suggestions of success to your Twitter work. Enjoy.
We spend all our time on execution. Use this word instead of that one. This web host. That color. This material or that frequency of mailing.
Big news: No one ever succeeded because of execution tactics learned from a Dummies book.
Tactics tell you what to execute. They’re important, but dwarfed by strategy. Strategy determines which tactics might work.
But what’s the point of a strategy if your goals aren’t clear, or contradict?
Which leads the first two, the two we almost never hear about.
Approach determines how you look at the project (or your career). Do you read a lot of books? Ask a lot of questions? Use science and testing or go with your hunches? Are you imperious? A lifehacker? When was the last time you admitted an error and made a dramatic course correction? Most everyone has a style, and if you pick the wrong one, then all the strategy, tactics and execution in the world won’t work nearly as well.
As far as I’m concerned, the most important of all, the top of the hierarchy is attitude. Why are you doing this at all? What’s your bias in dealing with people and problems?
Many Twitters struggle after their initial month with what to say in their Tweets. They come to Twitter with a burst of enthusiasm and write their “brilliant Tweets.” After six weeks on Twitter, they find ourselves running out of stuff to Tweet. At this point many people quit Twitter.
Seinfeld Classics
Several years ago, I received a Christmas gift from my daughter, Laura, the best episodes of Seinfeld. I never tire watching his classic shows.
Here’s how those Seinfeld can help your Twittering. Among the Tweets you have made, I am sure you can find 20-25 Tweets you consider your best Tweets. They sparked with others and even when you read them today, you say, “Wow, hat was pretty good!”
Rerun them like I do my Seinfeld classics. Why does this work?
First of all any Tweet has a life cycle of approximately 30 minutes at best. Twitter is a constant stream that is always moving. Second, people do not go into your Twitter archives like they might on a website or a blog. Third, if your best Tweets are evergreen, meaning they are not limited to a particular event or time, you now have classic Tweets that help get you exposure in front of an every changing audience.
Conclusion
Repeat your best Tweets every 5-6 weeks. Now you give others the best of your thoughts and insights on a regular basis. Who knows, maybe they may become like the Jerry Seinfeld classics!
Here’s an interesting post by Joel Comm a leader in social media marketing. He shares his insights on how talking about mundane things in your life can be an important step in building a relationship that can lead to new business. His specific references are to Twitter. However, his principles apply to all social media sites. The reference to his complete post is found at the end of this post. Enjoy.
Four Steps in Marketing
If we analyze the four phases of successful marketing, they are:
1) Like me
2) Know me
3) Trust me
4) Pay me
In almost all instances, you can not circumvent this process if you hope to sell your products or services. People will not pay you until they trust you. They will not trust you until they get to know you. And they will not get to know you if they don’t like you.
When we tweet about our favorite food, cute things our children say, pet peeves of our spouses, an article we just read or any number of other seemingly mundane activities or thoughts, we give people an opportunity to like us. After all, we are drawn to people who share experiences we can identify with.
Not only that, but sharing small pieces of our daily activities also helps people to know us. For example, one might think, “Aha! Joel likes CHOCOLATE donuts. I’ll remember that in order to tempt him to meet me for coffee one morning!”
Knowing someone opens the door to trusting them. We trust ourselves with our experiences and are far more likely to trust others who we can identify with.
And finally, trust opens the door to doing business together. If you trust me, you are far more likely to purchase something from me.
Twitter
Those who don’t get it, totally miss the point about Twitter.
Twitter may be a good many things and it may be easier to make a list of things that Twitter is NOT.
But the one thing that it IS is a relationship-building tool which allows millions of people to connect faster and more efficiently than ever before. This happens when we bond with others and relate to them through shared human experiences.
So go ahead. Don’t be afraid to tweet that you are taking your dog for a walk. It’s ok if you want people to know that you haven’t shaved today. And I won’t balk if the subject matter of your tweet is french fries. I’ve done that as well, and I can tell you that people WILL engage with you.
How much more likely are they to interact when you DO have a product or service you want to introduce to them via a tweet?
Conclusion
Bring yourself to Twitter, in all the uniqueness that is you. People will appreciate your authenticity and seek to engage with you.
Have you ever gone to a local fair and had a caricature sketch done on you? Do you know the secret of caricature artist? They find one thing about your face or body and then they exaggerate that feature in the sketch. Have big ears, the ears are twice as big in the caricature. When you look at their completed work, you immediately recognize yourself.
Success on Twitter comes when you use the secret of the caricature artists in your Twitter bio, your background and Tweets. You need to exaggerate one or more features of you or your business.
Stage Presence
They tell stage actors they need to make bigger movements and expressions on stage so the audience can participate. Every action needs to be exaggerated to be felt by the audience. The same is true of your Twitter participation.
Caricatures and Stage Presence and Twitter Followers
In the Twitter stream you are competing for attention with millions of other people. You need to stand out. Be more social. Be more original. Be more controversial. Be more humorous. Be more of anything!
Some don’t feel comfortable with self caricatures or having a stage presence. They have been taught not to offend anyone. Being you, even a caricature or stage presence of you will result in three types of Twitter followers. One third of the people will not care; one third of the people will hate you; one third of the people will love you and tell others about you. You will love the loyalty of the people who love you!
Conclusion
Twitter as a social media site gives you that opportunity to have your own style and your own caricature. Use it to your advantage in doing Twitter marketing.
As they cast around for ideas, Current staffers noticed something interesting during the conventions. When the candidates gave live speeches, there were surges of commentary on Twitter. “A lot of us are Twitter users,” says Current’s vice president of strategy, Robin Sloan, “and we saw this real-time commentary track that suggested a parallel to the commentary you normally hear on the news.”
As far as I’m concerned, the most important of all, the top of the hierarchy is attitude. Why are you doing this at all? What’s your bias in dealing with people and problems?
Seinfeld Classics
