Twitter! It's everywhere! Ever since Oprah talked about it, you can't read the paper, go to a website, or even watch your evening news without being invited to follow them on Twitter. So what's the big deal, and why are so many businesses embracing Twitter?
The first thing you need to know: There is a right way and a wrong way to use Twitter, especially if you are using it to promote a business.
Every day, I'm out there talking to Real Estate Agents who can't wrap their minds around Twitter. "No one cares that I just ate dinner", they say. For the most part, they're right. But then I hit them with a curve ball. I tell them that Twitter is more about "Listening" then "Tweeting".... and I see a dumbfounded look on their face.
I go further, Twitter is about engaging people, interacting with them, and discussing common interests. At this point their face has an expression of complete confusion with a bit of frustration. They ask, "How do you engage when you are just blabbing about what you just did in 140 characters"? It's a great question - and one that after some time - I finally discovered the answer.
You see, the Twitter website is a bit tough to "get". It's not until they download a third party software like TweetDeck (www.tweetdeck.com) or Seesmic (www.seesmic.com) that most people can truly "GET" Twitter.
These 3rd party apps allow you to set up searches (in convenient columns) for keywords that are of interest to you. This allows you to "LISTEN" to anyone who tweets your keywords. If you are a business owner, listening to your key words becomes an invaluable tool to see what your potential customers, and your competition are saying.
It's also a good idea to set up a search for your geographical area (city name) and know exactly everything that's going on in your area when people are Tweeting about it. You can "Listen" for anything, this just scratches the surface.
After you build these "listening searches" you will get a feeling for Twitter, how others are using it, and most importantly, how to INTERACT with these "Tweeps" via @Reply's, Re-tweets, and DMs (Direct Messages). Now we're really getting into the nuts and bolts of Twitter. For more details on what this all means, watch my video series on "How To Use Twitter for Business". If this lingo goes over your head, don't sweat it, it's just Twitter-speak for ways to interact on Twitter.
Here's the most important thing to remember for those of you wanting to use Twitter for business. Think of Twitter as a huge cocktail party. You would not walk into a cocktail party and scream a promotion out loud. You would be friendly, engage others, build trust, discuss different things and [eventually] work what you do for a living into the conversation. It's a VERY soft sell. Less then 10% of your Tweets should be about your business.
So remember - Go gentle, be friendly, Engage others, and occasionally remind them what you do. When the time comes to employ your services, they'll call!
If you want the soup to nuts on Twitter, watch my video series on "How To Use Twitter for Business. It talks about setting up columns to listen using TweetDeck, and goes in depth about interacting, and what to Tweet about.
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