Duct Tape Marketing

Like most social media platforms, Twitter accounts are easy to create – but not easy to manage effectively. If done right, though, Twitter can result in tons of leads to your site.  If you want to use Twitter to get people chirping about your site, here are some tips to help you get the most out of each Tweet:

• Profile: After creating an account, Twitter asks you to create a profile. Many online stores choose to have their Twitter account represent their online store, while others act as an outside user who is interested in that store’s products. Choosing to represent your online store through your Twitter account increases brand awareness and may help others trust your brand more. Be sure to fill in all the fields, including “One Line Bio”. Place the URL to your online store in “More Info URL”. Click on the “Picture” tab to add a picture – a must for an effective Twitter campaign.

• Posting: Once you create an account, you’ll see a white box with the words “What are you doing?” above it. That’s where you’ll “tweet”. You have 140 characters to post an interesting or informative link you’ve found online, a resourceful tip, or anything else you’d like to post. You can post as many times as you’d like, and it’s recommended that you post as much as possible, as long as the postings are informative comments, not just links to a section on your site. However, you can link to your online store every few posts or so. Just make sure it benefits your Twitter “Followers.”

• Find & Follow: Be sure to “tweet” about 4 times before you “follow”, or “add” users to your account. To add users, type a word related to your store in the white search box. For example, if you’re an online store selling fishing supplies, type “fishing” into the search box, and users who included “fishing” in their bio or recent posts will come up. Click the grey “Follow” box to follow their “tweets”. When you return back to your main Twitter page, look on the right under “Stats” to see how many “Followers” you have. Click on “Followers”, and be sure to follow them back.

• Tweet, Tweet, Tweet: Every time you “tweet”, your post will be displayed on your “Followers” Twitter page. That’s why it’s important to tweet often – your “Followers” will see your post and often read it. Search engine marketing guru and rockstar Danny Sullivan updates his Twitter account at least every hour throughout the day, and has over 3,000 followers. 

• Replies: To maximize the success of your Twitter account, it’s important to interact with other users. Ask them questions about what they think of a topic, and click on “Replies” to see if any of your “Followers” replied to you. You can reply to other’s “tweets” by clicking the grey arrow in the bottom right corner of their post.

To recap, the most important tips to create a successful Twitter campaign are adding “Followers”, regularly “tweeting”, and posting informative comments, links and tips intermixed with occasional links to your site. Take a look at successful Twitter accounts from popular businesses like Apple at https://twitter.com/apple_news and WebStore by Amazon at https://twitter.com/webstore .