Twitter is quickly becoming the most used platforms out there for social media & interaction with consumers.  I spend almost as much time each day on my twitter account as I do here on ActiveRain.  In fact, they are normally running simultaneously on the two monitors.  Over the past few months I have watched thousands follow me & start their twitter career.  I cringe each time I hear someone say, oh I just signed up for twitter because I can then send out links to my blogs.

I have already covered why this is a bad idea a few weeks back in the post Are You Optimizing your ActiveRain Blog on Twitter? So, today I wanted to give a few tips I have learned over the past few months of using Twitter.  First though I must admit this:  I am by no means a twitter expert or guru.  I am just someone that enjoys the network & uses it regularly. That being said, here are a few things to help you incorporate your blog effectively into twitter:

1.  Do Not Send a Link to Your Blog on First Contact. I know this goes against every single thing you have ever been taught about marketing in real estate but trust me.  This is a big NO NO!  Those that use twitter regularly will immediately block your account if you send them a message immediately after connecting that says: "Hi, thanks for connecting with me.  I look forward to connecting.  Visit my site at http://worstpersonontwitter.com" Messages like this SCREAM to consumers that you are gonna try & sell them something.  You know how excited you are when the telemarketer calls you during dinner to tell you about the free vacation you won?  Well, that same feeling is what the person you sent that message to is feeling. I can't even begin to tell you how many times I have seen someone write: "@XXXXX just spammed me w/their site!  They are Blocked!  When will they learn?"

Instead of sending a message instantly trying to get them to visit your site, try connecting with them.  Read some of their recent messages.  You will find something that you can relate to, or interact with them about.  Comment back to them about that & begin the relationship that way.  Once the ice has been broken & you are interacting.  Then you can send information about your blog posts.  Which brings me to my next point.

2.  Be Creative with how you market your blog.  Sometimes you have to be creative about how you get the message out & drive traffic to your blog.  Instead of just saying, Please visit my Real Estate Blog, or Check out My Blog, you need to get creative and unique.  If you make it sound more informative & less of an advertisement, you will be way more effective.  Here are a few examples of tweets that I did the other day about my post Is Being Right Always Right? The Good, the Bad & Really Ugly of Social Media each of these messages also included a shortened link to my post here on ActiveRain.

• Is it Always Right to be Right? (link)- This one was Retweeted 4 times.
• The Good, Bad & Really Ugly of Social Media (link)- Retweeted 3 times & One of those even reblogged my article.
• Thanks to @barcelona for taking the high road for once! (link)
• In Case You Missed it, United Breaks Guitars :) (Link)
  

Then, in addition to these that I posted over a 48 hour period, there were other members who posted tweets:

Jon Washburn-Great post on how Social media changes entire reputations of Companies - overnight. @myrtlebeachblog http://bit.ly/5NSCV 

Lisa Oden- http://bit.ly/5NSCV <---[ Impact of social media to your brand - a MUST read ]

Because I have built relationships with my connections on twitter, my post that I wrote about 4 times throughout a 2 day was republished 9 times for others to see. This also does not take into account the countless responses I received about the post directly through twitter.  The key is to be creative with how you send out the messages.  If I had just tweeted: Just posted on ActiveRain: Is Being Right always Right.... Probably the response rate would have been much lower.

3.  Share more than just links to your Blog.  People on twitter love to read, watch videos, and listen to music.  So the more of that you share & build confidence that you provide stuff worth their time to click on, the more likely they are to click a link to a blog post.  What I do is during the day when I need a break from reading or typing, I will head over to youtube & watch a video or two.  If it is something that catches my eye, or makes me laugh like this video, then I will share it on twitter with my friends.  Those links to videos do a couple things.  First, they help me to take a break & relax from the monotony of the day.  They also help to spark conversations & interactions on twitter. 

Just like on my blog, comments & interactions is what builds the relationships & trust between me & my readers.  The same holds true on twitter.  As you build those interactions, you build trust & form relationships with others.  Once those are formed, they will in turn start to promote you & your business for you.

Every Friday there is a thing on twitter called #followfriday.  This is where you get to recommend your favorite people on twitter to others on the network.  Every week, I receive anywhere from 10-30 recommendations from friends on the network.  That means 10-30 people are advertising my account every week for me without me even having to ask them to do so.  All because of our interactions.

If you apply these 3 simple steps into your daily routine you can begin promoting your blog easily & effectively through twitter.  As you begin to master these three steps those that you interact will start doing the promoting for you!