I didn't get Twitter right away. I mean I "got" it (as in set up an account), but I didn't really see how it could be a beneficial business tool at first. It just seemed like a way to discover what your friends, family or favorite celebrity had for breakfast.
I sort of get it now.|
What follows is an overview of some of the ways that I use Twitter accounts to build not only Twitter followers but also readers of my blogs and visitors to my web sites.
As is always the case with social networking applications, one of the keys is to not toot your own horn too much. If every Tweet or blog posting is nothing more than links to your own stuff, your followers may get tired of your shameless promotion and Unfollow. (I still break this rule a bit too often, but just mentioning it may help remind me to knock it off.)
If you have multiple interests and more than one blog and/or web site, then you should also have multiple Twitter accounts. Some of my Twitter accounts are related (ie: humor oriented), so I have the additional traffic generating opportunity of Retweeting my own Tweets. More on that in a bit.
So, by way of example, let's start with my http://jokingsmoker.blogspot.com blog. Initially, this blog was to consist of primarily cigar and smoking accessory reviews and information. But, as it turns out, it's the one I use to rant and write whatever is on my mind, so I want to reach more readers than just cigar smokers.
So, my initial Twitter account, which was connected to this blog is http://twitter.com/cigarponderings. Whenever I would write a review of a cigar or smoking accessory I would log into my cigarponderings Twitter account and post a blurb about and a link to the blog. This informed my followers that I posted something new (since I don't see a lot of blog subscribing these days), and also alerted the search engines that my blog had another backlink (which helps improve rankings).
Once this initial process is complete (writing the blog and linking to in from Twitter), it was time to further promote the blog post.
First stop, Facebook.
First stop, Facebook.
Since there is a whole community of cigar smokers and afficianados on FB, I make it a point to visit a number of FB groups and post a link to my new blog entry. (Yay! More backlinks.) Of course, this is after I post the same link on my wall.
Then, back to Twitter, where, one by one, I log into my other Twitter accounts and Retweet my twitter post. Since I have a whole bunch of Twitter accounts for all of my varied interests, this does increase (although not dramatically) the interest and traffic to your Twitter account and the blog.
If you follow my Twitter accounts and check out the postings, you'll see that usually each of them Retweets the others.
There is a slight advantage to creating a completely different posting for each of your Twitter accounts (as opposed to Retweeting), but it's much more time consuming to do each one separately. However, if you only have a couple of accounts, this does afford you the ability to add different #hashmarks and @ information at the end of your message so that different Twitterers may find it when searching for different keywords.
Here's an example of a jokingsmoker Twitter post:
"Spitball gun confiscated in algebra class cuz it was a weapon of math disruption. More puns: http://bit.ly/obfKOK #funny @comedycentral"
Perhaps just checking out a bunch of my Twitter postings on my Twitter accounts will help it make more sense of this:
So, if you haven't yet created a Twitter account, do it now. Even if only to observe and learn. And make sure you search for others with similar interests and follow them. There's a good chance they'll return the favor and follow you.
Then all you have to do is come up with something to say.
Here's an example of a jokingsmoker Twitter post:
"Spitball gun confiscated in algebra class cuz it was a weapon of math disruption. More puns: http://bit.ly/obfKOK @omgthatspunny #punny"
Now, since I have another account (http://twitter.com/comedygary), I have two choices: 1) log into that account and RT (Retweet) the spitball posting, or 2) rewrite the posting with different hashmarks and at signs:
"Spitball gun confiscated in algebra class cuz it was a weapon of math disruption. More puns: http://bit.ly/obfKOK #funny @comedycentral"
You get the idea.
And of course, when you do click on the link to see more puns (on my http://interactivelunacy.com/ web site), you will also see banner ads to some of my other web sites and blogs and maybe visit them as well.
Additonally, if you're lucky enough to attract readers to your Twitter account because they searched for something you posted, this also gives them an opportunity to click on whatever links you may have in your Twitter profile, further promoting your web sites and blogs.
In my case, the main purpose of most of this is to generate readers, traffic and hopefully revenue from visitors clicking on the ads on my pages.
Perhaps just checking out a bunch of my Twitter postings on my Twitter accounts will help it make more sense of this:
So, if you haven't yet created a Twitter account, do it now. Even if only to observe and learn. And make sure you search for others with similar interests and follow them. There's a good chance they'll return the favor and follow you.
Then all you have to do is come up with something to say.
No comments:
Post a Comment