Updated 08-18-09. We’ve read all the buzz about using Twitter, from sources in print and online, from friends to co-workers. Do a quick search on your favorite search engine and you’ll find the latest tips on how to deploy and employ Twitter for personal and business purposes. It’s not hard to find tweeting theories, tips, tools and zillions of other advices on how to tweet successfully. What’s really lacking is a practical, realistic step-by-step guide to tweet, but I believe I’ve found one that’s easy yet detailed enough that will work with almost all things you apply to. I’m still testing it but so far it’s working great for me, and based on the process I believe it will continue to help me for a long time to come.
Like many marketers, I’ve looked for solutions for tweeting but never really found anything that sounded and looked good enough to even start. And I know many others have actually tried a few with varying degree of success, but those were never long-term successes for many reasons. This process I’ll describe here works because it’s simple, realistic and doable. There are some pretty basic ideas mentioned here, plus a few more advanced concepts. Together as a package they provide one powerful tool. So here’s the process.
- Social network etiquette still rules. Whatever you do, do not forget the basic rules and etiquette of social network and social marketing. After all Twitter is a blogging tool and a social networking tool that you should respect while using it. Take advantage of it like you would LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace, but do not abuse.
- It’s still all about helping others find what they need. Unlike traditional marketing (some call it “outbound marketing”,) social network has never been and will never be about you and/or your company. It’s all about contributing what you can to the social network and help other people solve their problems.
- You must know your target social groups and customers. Assuming you have something to offer (expertise, skills or knowledge,) you need to focus on your niche and not take the shotgun approach. By focussing on your target groups you’ll be more relevant. There are plenty of tools out there to help you find people with particular interests, but one of the best ways to target a group is to tweet from both your heart and your head, consistently (see 5. below.) Over time your group will find you. It’s inbound marketing at work.
- It’s important to apply your branding to your Twitter account. This includes your username, bio, background, etc. Use your business sense to do this, but whether this is for personal or business purpose, your brand is what you present to the world about you.
- Start blogging, not just about what you had for lunch, but what you’re all about, what your interests are, and what you find important and useful you can pass on to others. You should know what your brand is about, and many tools are available to help you post/blog relevant topics all day long (as your time permits.) One such tool is the Google Alerts service. Also there are tools to automate posting of your content as well.
- Find your targets to follow. Just like in any other industry, it’s all about finding and associate with people with the same interests, problems, pursuits or passions as your own. In the business world, another layer would be finding people with the same interests, problems, pursuits or passions as your business, either to give help to or get help from. In time if you have something to offer they will follow you back. And this is how you build your network. Again automation tools abounds to help you find targeted people and build your follower network.
- Set up automation to greet new followers when they first follow you. It’s part of the social landscape, and greetings, together with your brand, are the first impressions in the social networking sphere. Be professional and never pushy. People who greet others with a sales pitch give a poor first impression.
- Know what you want. I saved this for last but it may as well be your very first step. You must know what you want to achieve with Twitter in particular, and with social network in general. Whether it’s brand awareness, click through rates, traffic counts or whatever else is important to you, only you know this. So clearly define your goals and stay on track.
I have applied the above process successfully in conjunction with a tool called the “Twitter Traffic Machine.” It is an effective tool and process combination, and I’m applying it with great results for my clients. The Twitter Traffic Machine, and a few other similar offerings currently floating around the Internet, are getting a bad rap for what they’re trying to do as the end goal and are considered spam tools by many. My view is, of course any tool in the “wrong” hand or used irresponsibly can result in undesirable consequences. For me as a marketer, it’s a tool that I’ll take advantage of in my own ethical way.
The bottom line is, if you put this tool/process combination in your marketing toolbox and use it everyday with your other tools like SEO, SEM, direct/email marketing and ad promotion and tracking apps, then you’ll benefit from it. And like other great tools of the trade, you’ll have to really use it to benefit from it.
By the way for interesting reads on the Twitter bird and the brand, read Nils Geylen’s “The Twitter Logo, Or Is It?” and Cormac Kelly’s “The Birdie brand and the Twitter bird.” As it turns out Cormac Kelly is not making his post available online any longer, but he is very generous to allow his full post content republished here. Thanks Cormac! Find out what Cormac is up to these days, head over to Birdie Web Design.
The Birdie brand and the Twitter bird
Since I launched the Birdie site a couple of weeks back, there has been loads of great feedback, which is always appreciated, but it’s been mentioned a couple of times that the Birdie icon is similar to the Twitter bird. In this post i’ll address the comparisons and give a bit more background on the brand.
About Twitter
Twitter, for those living under a rock, is a mobile micro-blogging application. Users send and receive updates via text messages, and there are a load of third-party apps to feed updates to blogs and the like. I havn’t played with it much myself (it’s a bit too pervasive for my taste, but thats just me) but it’s a bit of a phenomenon and is widely used. Twitter have a very strong brand presence as a result.
In hindsight the comparison was always going to happen. Twitter has a lot of momentum right now, especially within the blogging and web communities, so pretty much anything with a little bird reference is going to bring Twitter to mind at the moment. Obviously this wasn’t my intention!
The origins of Birdie
A bit of context on the Birdie brand will help here. I came up with the name while I was looking at domain hacks, inspired by the social bookmarking site del.icio.us and the (really nice) Irish photo sharing site pix.ie. I started going through words that end in .ie and came across Birdie. It was perfect – memorable, personable and, in combination with the domain name, it gave me a real ’smile in the mind’ as they say.
It all tumbled along from there really. I ran it past a few people and they liked it (and my girlfriend loved it), so I registered the name, and then the URL. (Which I couldn’t believe was still available.)
Visual Designs
I designed the logotype and decided on the colours based on nothing more than my current personal taste. The final element was an icon to fit the name.
It’s here the Twitter comparisons really come in I guess. I don’t think it’s all that similar, or at least it’s no more similar than any other vector bird. Nils Geylen has kindly provided a comparison which puts this better than I can. (Thanks Nils.) Thing is, the two birdies have very similar histories: They are from the same place.
The Twitter bird imagery, on the home page at least, is from iStockPhoto, and is mostly by Simon Oxley of idokungfoo. The Birdie, um, birdie, is taken from iStockPhoto illustrations by Freelance Bloke. Take a look at Twitter’s here and Birdie’s here.
So there you have it. It’s all very flattering to be compared to such a good brand, and though I resent the rip accusation a bit I know it’s not true. There is also quite a long story about how I got my particular icon, but it’s too long and dull to get into here. Anyway, you know what they say – there is no such thing as bad publicity!
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Thanks for the very nice information shared.
Thanks for visiting swasa. Glad you find the info useful.
Cuong
PS. The link to Cormac Kelly’s site is broken.
Just my 2 cents.
Ivan: thanks for pointing out the broken link. I’ve contacted Cormac Kelly to find out if he’ll continue to make his post available, otherwise I’ll have to take the link off. Hopefully it will come back. It’s certainly an interesting read.
So Cormac Kelly suggested that I include the referenced text directly in this post, and take the link to the old post off. You can now read the complete piece above.
I’m currently attracting 50-100 new followers per day on twitter. The only problem is that most of them are trying to sell me stuff and they don’t even read the messages I send them. I have to sift through a lot of crap to find the gems and make the worth while connections.
I would love to hear if any of you are having similar experiences on twitter. Are any of you experiencing this same thing on Twitter?
@CurtClapier.com As far as I know, Twitter is not establishing guidelines and rules regarding many things, including what people consider as “spams”. They do suggest that people follow @spam then DM them their issues. Personally I think Twitter needs to get to the next step of providing additional features within their toolsets to allow users more control. On the other hand, more restrictive control is not necessarily good. Here’s an interesting discussion:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009.....-fight-it/
Like many mentioned in that discussion thread, there are a number of things you can do right now, including unfollow. I think in the social networking space there is no absolute easy way to find the “gems” you’re talking about. By definition, you have to sift through the junk to find the gem, otherwise it’s no gem is it?
Nobody says marketing or social networking is easy…
I agree. Thanks for the input.
I think that searching for the right people on twitter is kind of like bidding on the right key words. For example in the home business industry if you search “home business” or “mlm” then you are likely to find 99.9% people who are trying to sell you something not people who are looking for info on home businesses or training.
I try to find the gems by thinking of “buying” keywords that I can search for and then engage in conversation with people who I know are in the market for products or services that I market.
“bidding on the right key words” That’s an interesting concept, the mechanics of which still remain to be developed, and effectiveness to be seen. But in the end I think we’re all doing the same thing. Everyone is selling something, whether or not he/she is aware of it or admit it. Where we differ is our approach to engage others, our patience with that engagement and the time we’re willing to invest. Maybe the “gems” I’m looking for do not want to be found too. Interesting concept but maybe very true.
Here’s how I look at Twitter. I don’t have the hard numbers to prove it but this is what I believe. There are 2 types of Twitter accounts: those that use Twitter purely for social purposes, and those who want to sell something. The first group may account for at most 30% of accounts and consists purely of people who really want to converse about various subjects. You know, the real social stuff. The second group consists of people who join Twitter to find out if they can use it as another way to sell whatever they’re selling. So we’re right back to the basic human nature and behavior that existed for centuries in a wide open marketplace: there are buyers and hawkers, there are people who won’t buy and those who want to sell, and there’re always those who make more noise than others.
The only difference is it’s now on Twitter, and our mileage will vary.
[...] Making and maintaining contact. Once you find out where you can beneficially contribute to the conversation, interact with both those already familiar with your brand and those new to it. Think carefully before you engage to make sure you understand the conversation and meaning behind each and every conversation thread. Again your involvement in the conversation must be relevant and helpful, or at least contributes on an informational level, otherwise you’ll be looked at as someone just out for personal gains. Lastly, maintain all social networking etiquette at all time, because you need to. To read more on social networking etiquette, here are a couple of articles to help: SEO and Social Networking as Reputation Management Tools, and Putting Twitter in Your Marketing ToolBox. [...]