A lot can be done with 140 characters. If you do it right. Twitter isn’t about telling people what you had for lunch…who cares? Twitter is all about strategic marketing. Twitter uses keywords to track trending subjects. This makes it easy for you, dear marketer, to discover others that need your product or service. Businesses that have products or services related to popular searches will soon experience an increase in followers.
But how do companies find potential customers on Twitter? Here’s how: Do a search to find out what your potential customers are talking about. Pick some companies you think may be strong potential clients and follow them. Usually, when someone is followed, they’ll follow you back. You’re now in their Twitter stream, and they’ll see all your posts promoting your company. I can hear you now: ”Twitter may be great, but who has the time to invest in it?” I’m right there with you! I’ve ignored Twitter and need to be more active. Here are a few ways to take some of the demands off your time:
1. Set up a Tweet plan. A Tweet Plan is nothing more than scheduling your tweets in advance. You can spend a few hours once a month to write your Tweets. Schedule them in advance, up to four weeks out, of you like. Let’s say you want to write five Tweets a day, seven days a week. That’s 35 pre-scheduled Tweets a week. If you want to schedule your Tweets a month in advance, that’s 140 Tweets you’ll have to write at one sitting. But, well worth the time in the long run.
2. Decide how many pre-scheduled Tweets you want to Tweet each day. These should be in addition to the daily Tweets you do yourself, so don’t backslide and let these pre-scheduled Tweets be your only Twitter presence.
3. Pick out the keywords you want to incorporate into your Tweets. The right keywords will attract qualified potential customers. Remember to build each Tweet around one key word or phrase.
4. Select the number of keywords you want to use to promote your business. If you pick out, say, 10 keywords or key phrases, write each Tweet around one of these keywords.
5. Decide when to publish your Tweets. Schedule your pre-planned Tweets throughout the day, so that they appear in between the posts you publish in real time. SocialOomph and Hootsuite are two of the more popular scheduling tools out there. A Tweet Plan is a useful, time-saving tool, but don’t use it in place of Tweeting real-time. It’s main purpose is to increase and then maintain brand awareness consistently, and attract the most qualified readers. Find a balance between real time Tweets and pre-scheduled Tweets. The best way to do this is by asking, and listening to, your audience’s opinions and preferences. Then alter your approach to better meet their needs.
Do you think a Tweet Plan would be helpful to your business? What do you do to get the most out of Twitter?
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