Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Using Twitter to Establish a Brand

Twitter is a very simple social networking application. But when it comes to using Twitter for marketing purposes, there are all sorts of intricacies involved. You've got to attract the right kinds of followers, use proper etiquette to avoid alienating them, and choose the right topics to tweet about. And perhaps most importantly, you've got to remember that marketing on Twitter is more about building your brand than making sales.

Those who go into it hoping to increase their sales by "X" percent in 6 months are often in for a rude awakening. It quite simply does not work that way. Yes, the ultimate goal of any marketing endeavor is to increase profits, but there are avenues for doing that directly and avenues for doing it indirectly. Twitter happens to require a more indirect approach.

If you set up a Twitter account, follow some users and get them to follow you in return, and start posting links to each item in your catalog, you're going to have a bunch of upset followers. Twitter users expect more than that. They want to get to know the “personality” of your brand, not to be subjected to a hard sell every time they read one of your tweets.

That doesn't mean that you can't ever mention a product or service that you offer. It just means you need to be more subtle about it. Start conversations about topics that are relevant to what you do. Search for users that are facing problems that you could solve, and give them some advice. Share links to blog posts (on your blog or others) that would interest your target market. And in between all that, you can throw in a promotional message here and there.

Marketing with Twitter is inexpensive and effective, but doing so effectively requires an understanding of what the Twitter users in your target market want. You can learn all you need to know in 5 Day Twitter Course. Get your copy today!

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