My name is Mark Raleigh, and I consider myself a free-spirited entrepreneur. I'm the guy in the sandals sitting near the lake honing his marketing plan, the guy reading about zen alongside the latest e-commerce trends. I've always loved business, majored in it in college, worked at a fast-paced marketing agency in NYC for years, and finally decided an online business was for me. I love to share my e-commerce knowledge, insights, and business advice with all. A year ago, would you have thought that 'twitter' was an effective marketing strategy? Or that 'tweeting' in public would not earn you weird looks? That was before Twitter, Inc. asked the world, “What are you doing?” Twitter.com, a fusion of social networking and instant messaging, is a rapidly rising social media site that welcomes nearly 2 million visitors each month.
- 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 .