Just learned some twitter tricks

[OGorganics]

I do not know who is on twitter but I just learned some stuff from katiefreiling.com. For auto responses go to Tools to Boost Your Social Media Productivity SocialOomph.com (used to be tweetlater), for branded backrounds go to Free Twitter Backgrounds - Custom Twitter Backgrounds or MyTweetSpace.com - Free Twitter Backgrounds - Brand your Twitter Profile for Free!, for shortening your url go to www.bitly.com, there is also Twello.com which is like a twitter yellow pages. She also suggested TweetDeck and Twollo: Twitter Auto-follow. All these are FREE! Also, www.KatieFreiling .com has a 7 day FREE social media course that has alot of good information!

[Yelena]

I've just started using Twitter (after hearing all the hype and reading a couple of ebooks on the subject), but I still can't get over the feeling that I am wasting my time there
Does anyone have any real, tangible results from using Twitter for business purposes? Please share!

Yelena

[Linda Hinkle]

I can't say that I have I got bored with it! Every now and again I go back to it and I don't know what it is I just can't get excited about it at all! Maybe it's just me

[stupidcamel]

Social networking is developing at dramatic speed these days. New functions keep being introduced into the market place. For many web-based business, more and more media need to be taken into consideration when making online marketing strategy.

[RMercon]

Social networking is the way to go. Though, I think that it does take a bit of time. With making consistent posts to social networking sites, you are able to improve your organic search engine rankings and increase the visibility of your business. Though I am definitely not a pro, posting to such places as Twitter and Facebook, along with any other forums that are in your market area as well as creating and maintaing a blog that is filled with content rich information should help to increase traffic to your business.

[Miss Lara]

While I agree that social networking is rapidly changing the way we market our businesses and connect with others, I do not agree we have to be on every site, posting all the time. Take the time to understand a particular network's strength and options. Consider what you are trying to achieve as well so you can craft a strategy that truly multiplies your efforts without sucking time and energy out of our limited supply.

Surf safely... post with aplomb!
Lara

[Patty Gale]

Does anyone have any real, tangible results from using Twitter for business purposes? Please share

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.

[ChriztiMN]

Twitter can help you, but you need to get followers. I see many tweeting constantly to advertise their site, but they only have 50 followers. Ok, there, you are wasting your time for sure.

You have to follow to get followed. It takes time, but you have to build up your followers. Remember, the more followers you get, the more that hear your message. I'd start off following about 100 a day. Once you get more followers, you can increase that a bit. Don't be too aggressive or twitter gets upset.

Never tweet your store inventory. That will bore twitterers, and they will stop following you. Tweet about discounts and special deals. You can tweet about an item here or there or a new line you are getting. Just be sure it's not repetitious and add in some personality once in awhile.

[Yelena]

I'd start off following about 100 a day.

I've seen this advice from every Twitter "guru" out there, but I have a problem with this approach. I know it's the latest technique or something, but tell me one thing: do you really read all the tweets from the thousands of people you are following? I bet you don't. I also bet your followers (who are also using the same "technique" and following thousands of people) don't read yours. It's humanly impossible, especially when you take into account that some Twitterers have a Tweeting diarrhea - they will tweet dozens of times per day, adding to the unread tweet log.

Besides, I know a great lot of people use special software tools to send welcome messages, automated tweets and to add "friends" ( they don't "follow" people manually). So in reality a huge % of your return followers with this method will be "robots", not real people.

Finally, after only a couple weeks of being on Twitter, my observation has been that most people are only interested in pushing their own stuff, they don't read other people's tweets that much (only a selected few), and very little real interaction and socializing is going on (at least among business owners).

Now to me, this approach simply doesn't make sense. I suspect that the success on Twitter is not about the quantity of your list, but the quality of it.

Right now I am only following people whose tweets I am really interested in (33 right now and I'm thinking of removing 3-4 of them). Some of my followers (20 in total) are people who found me through search or my website. I'm doing my best to keep this whole thing real, it's interesting to see what comes out of it. But right now I am still not optimistic about this whole Twitter thing. Still feels like a waste of time, but I keep telling myself that I'm doing an experiment

Anyway, these are just some thoughts from a Twitter newbie, don't take them personally


Yelena

[Knotso]

I'll admit that I did not get the Twitter thing at first. If you want real interactions with common thinking people, spend your time on forums and Facebook. Twitter is great for 3 things.
1. Discovering Trends -- San Diego fires first broke on Twitter as an example
2. Targeted marketing for your business -- Sushi lovers in Denver that love flying
3. "Stalking" Celebrities. Just the other day I was tweeting with an actress.

If you find yourself confused with Tweeting trying to justify the time demands and really want a more automated system (who really has the time to tweet?). I highly recommend Tweet Adder software.
Cheers
Knotso
Follow me on twitter @RetireEarly