Just learned some twitter tricks

[sallywu123]

Originally Posted by Patty Gale

Yes and here it is. Social networking is about creating and building long-term relationships, not promoting your business. Be yourself, help others, don't be promotional and don't use shortcuts.

We've made many great connections with people in our industry and it's been a huge boost for them and us.

When you are genuine and show others you have their interest first, then people will naturally be attracted to you and will recommend your products and services without prompting from you.

The best compliment you can receive is an unsolicited mention from someone else.

Yes, this is an useful suggestion. Thanks!

[Queen Beez Handbags]

Thanks for the info.

[donnadawson]

Thanks for sharing, I'm still in the infant stage of Tweating

[Magnifique]

When Twitter first became all the new rave with people, I couldn't understand why. And I think it is the "what are you doing?" question that threw me a loop. But, it's not really about what are you doing all the time quesiton...it's more or less...what are you interested in. What's going on that you want to comment about. I decided that since social networking has been of great success to those large companies and many of the smaller ones as well, that I too would give it a whirl. I have to say I love it! lol. i know many of people think it is silly and for those, I don't think it will be a success for their business. Why you ask, well because it's the same as with what you do for a living...if you don't like what you do, you won't do it well and your success can only go just so far...if it doesn't fail in the end.

So, how I Twitter (and other posts on this thread have said the same). I am not a Twitter freak where I'm posting a hundred posts a day and all my Tweets are NOT about my business. I follow a couple of people I have networked with, things I'm interested in fashion (like some magzines and blogs). I don't think people should go about just following people just for the heck of it. Thats just my opinion and it may work for many and I think that is okay for them, but that's not for me. I like reading the posts people have tweeted and I do read them. and my followers have all found me either through my site or of those I follow that are of my interest. What my followers tweets about, I don't know unless it is someone I am already following. And I'm not going to follow my followers to just get more people to find me. I think they will find me and will follow if they are interested in my business to begin with. Those are the people I want to follow me because they are the ones that will check out my site.

I don't just tweet my sales either...I retweet too and say hey or for example "happy thanksgiving" today. I think that being apart of a social network should be...social.

As far as Facebook, I do not have a personal page and therefore keep that business only and direct people to go to Twitter if they want to follow me as well.

[Aaronbiz]

Originally Posted by OGorganics

I do not know who is on twitter but I just learned some stuff from katiefreiling.com.

Hi OGorganics,

Great topic.

When I first saw Twitter a couple of years ago, I just did not get it, like others in this forum. Why would people want to talk about what they had for dinner or their weird hobbies.

What I did not understand is this was a snapshot of everyday "Life" in addition to those trying to make the big pitch for their business.

Now just a comment with auto responses (after following somebody). It does not work for me. If someone has set up an auto response you can tell. Their message misses the vital ingredient and that is "your" name. Also it's not personalized - you can tell it's not real.

Auto Tweets can clog up the feed and you can tell something is up. I have seen the same thing in Facebook.

Tweet Deck - I like this as it organizes your feed, Direct Messages, and your Favorites that you are following.

Like everything it is a matter of sorting. If you are manually approving followers, this should not be a problem as you can check on their profile, whether there is a balance. Are they following 1,000 and only have 2 followers and 0 Tweets. That is a clue.

The trick is creating a dialogue, interaction, building trust and moving forward from there.

I do not know if you remember when email first appeared, it was not that long ago. We needed to work out email etiquette at our jobs. (ie not shouting by using CAPITALS). So I say the same thing must apply to Twitter, Facebook, & MySpace etc.

Taking short-cuts may get short term results, but in the long term something more is required.


Warm Regards




Aaron Riddell

[mjyoung]

Thanks for all the good content. i am still looking to find the best programs on the net. I am overwhelmed by all the information that is thrown at us. I would like to follow your comments to learn when I can fit in.

Maxine

[DianaF]

I don't like Twitter for personal use, but for business it works good. Twitter is getting famous very fast.

[EnterprisingMomsToronto]

I have had great success using Twitter for business. Before my organization even launched, I had guests signing up for my launch event who had found me on twitter. The best advice I can give is that it is about building relationships and being authentic. If you retweet others, provide valuable information and interact, you will have others retweet you and interact with you.

[getrichmom]

Im learning about attraction marketing which is when you establish yourself as an authority in your field. Then people naturally gravitate toward you instead of you having to do as much direct marketing.From what I understand Facebook and Twitter as well as a personal website all play a role. This may be one the best ways to use Twitter.

[EstherL]

I agree that social networking IS the way to go. You cannot escape it - it's here. Facebook and Twitter being the biggest ones, but also LinkedIn and other sites like that. I use TweetDeck and that allows me to update my twitter status and facebook status at the same time. That saves time. I also do not have a separate "business account" although depending on your business you might want to. I have found tangible results from using twitter. Like Patty said, it's all about being real and creating real connections. The worst thing to do is to only post about your business or yourself.

I haven't really used any particular "strategy" to gain followers. I simply post a few times a day about life in general, blog posts or videos that I've found helpful, inspirational quotes, etc. I mix it up so it's not always the same. And occasionally, I let people know what I do and how I can help them. But again, that shouldn't be your primary focus or you will lose followers very quickly. My follower base has gradually built up, and my FB friends have expanded over time. I am a bit more selective with FB in that I like to know the person at least a little bit before I "friend" them (even if it's just knowing them through online forums, etc).

Good luck!