Using Twitter For SEO and List Building

[Brawnydt]

Hello fellow Warriors. So this is my first thread I'm starting. Gotta say it's a little intimidating. Don Quixote put it well when he said "Here there be giants."

Here are my thoughts on Twitter, though I'm sure not much of it is original. But in this day and age, I really think email marketing is on its way out. It's going the way of snail junk mail. This is especially true in the IM niche, though it's not as true in the other niches as much since it hasn't been over exploited as much. I know email marketing still has its place, and is helpful, it's just old news.

Twitter is cutting edge. I know many people "don't get Twitter." So let me show you how I have used, and have seen others use Twitter to great effectiveness:

•Building a list
Not only does Twitter let you build a list, it provides you an avenue that is still a little new for advertising. Your tweets have a chance to sink in much more than an email blast since peoples defenses aren't up to red alert like they are when they get a sales letter in their inbox.
•Building trust and confidence
If you are selling something (an IM product, a service, a brand...) You can use twitter to build peoples confidence in it. Mention problems and solutions, ask how people would like it to be improved, offer specials, talk about how the product has helped you personally... set up multiple twitter accounts and praise yourself lavishly.
•Sell Affiliate Products
So you don't have a product? Build your lists trust with tips and advice, and sell them some affiliate products. Tiny URL shortens your URLs so the affiliate link isn't as blatant, and the twitter goes out on a TON of aggregated sites, you could end up selling to far far more people than you expected. Don't sell crap, or your followers will quickly dwindle.
•Generate TONS of hype in a product before you launch it
You know that WSO that you've got but nobody is buying... try using twitter to hype it up before it goes live. Talk about what it is going to do, how your product is going to change peoples lives, talk about the work you are putting in to make it extra different and special from all those other products, generate hype by offering it free or discounted to a certain number of people when it first goes live. Offer a badge for people to display saying they have been accepted into the "limited edition, life changing, best thing since facebook, money making program of a lifetime." You can get a lot of people very excited for something by building hype on Twitter- without showing them much to start.
•Link Building and Trading
Who doesn't hate getting those automated link trade emails saying "Dear Sir/Madam/person of indeterminate gender, I like your website I think it's really great. Trade links with me and my weight loss website. I promise I will delete your link the second you are not looking." With Twitter you can avoid all that and get at people directly and when their defenses are lowered. Follow the person you like, tweet him a couple times in a friendly manner, RT a few of his tweets, and then suggest a link trade in a direct message. It works much better than email.

So those are just 4 ways you can really get a lot out of twitter, I'm sure all your creative minds can come up with a ton more ideas. There is so much room for creativity in marketing, the sky is the limit.

Tips to be a better Twitterer:
•The key is not to always promote your own product, but to carry on a conversation and provide some value. It's easy to do in 140 characters or less.
•Twitter is a giant conversation, so don't always be that guy who talks about himself and pushes products, nobody likes that guy. People can choose to unfollow you, so you have to show them a measure of respect.
•Also don't follow a million people you don't know. That's an obvious sign that you are spamming people and you get a large untargeted audience that way. You get much better results having them follow you first. It's the whole Opt-in thing vs. shotgun marketing issue.
•To get followers you need some "Twitter bait" if you will. (Post on forums... like Warrior Forums for example... find a niche and post on the forums with your twitter id in your sig, put your twitter name in your article marketing...)
•Keep your personal twitter id and your niche specific twitter id(s) separate. Try to get the keyword in your twitter name so like: Ipodexpert or something.
•Use it wisely, there is a lot of power in this as of yet unspoiled system.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not bashing email marketing, and in many niches, twitter marketing just won't work. But if your niche is of interest to the social Web 2.0ers who likely already have a twitter account and use it frequently, then you've got a great platform to reach them!

[jrailsback]

Good first thread, thanks! Twitter is pretty much limited only by your imagination.

[bwj292]

Great thread, thank you.

I use Twitter myself, I have only started recently but it is amazing the amount of traffic you can generate from it. I wish I had started using it earlier

Ben

[understandyourniche]

Nice thread! Do you have any suggestions for getting followers in the first place?

[bwj292]

Originally Posted by understandyourniche

Nice thread! Do you have any suggestions for getting followers in the first place?

Sorry for jumping in here but I just wanted to say that although I am pretty new to Twitter people tend to find you and follow you if they are interested in the same things as you. For example my interest/niche is affiliate websites and so the people who are starting to follow me are people with the same interests.

I recommend you find some people who you have an interest in and follow them, you will soon see that people start to follow you, also make sure you update at least once a day.

Hope this helps
Ben

[Pat Ordenes]

yeah, i just started building my followers, and have simply try and maintain conversation... just broke the 100 followers! wont push anything big till later on though... good first thread btw!

[understandyourniche]

That'd be mega-cool I'm too new to twitter to have experienced such nirvana, I guess.

I'm guessing but here's a strategy that might work:

* Follow the top 100 twitter users with the most followers.
* For each one that does not follow you, unfollow them and re-follow after a few days.
* Everyone that starts to follow you, you follow them automatically (probably still need to do it manually, unless you use tweetdeck). This starts a virtuous cycle.

Am I on the right track?

Originally Posted by bwj292

Sorry for jumping in here but I just wanted to say that although I am pretty new to Twitter people tend to find you and follow you if they are interested in the same things as you. For example my interest/niche is affiliate websites and so the people who are starting to follow me are people with the same interests.

I recommend you find some people who you have an interest in and follow them, you will soon see that people start to follow you, also make sure you update at least once a day.

Hope this helps
Ben

[bwj292]

Originally Posted by understandyourniche

That'd be mega-cool I'm too new to twitter to have experienced such nirvana, I guess.

I'm guessing but here's a strategy that might work:

* Follow the top 100 twitter users with the most followers.
* For each one that does not follow you, unfollow them and re-follow after a few days.
* Everyone that starts to follow you, you follow them automatically (probably still need to do it manually, unless you use tweetdeck). This starts a virtuous cycle.

Am I on the right track?

Yes pretty much, just make sure you follow people who you have an interest in and who also will have an interest in you. So for instance if you are into website design then it would be a great idea to follow the top guys on twitter who are into design. If you follow these guys many of them will also follow you. In addition always try and make conversation with them, show an interest in them or their products before mentioning yours, try to be yourself.

This has so far been working for me anyway, it seems to be going well.

Good luck with your new twittering

Ben

[JustaWizard]

Good info, thanks!

David

[Brawnydt]

Thanks guys! I thought I'd share something useful with everybody!

In response to how to get targeted followers, here's a few ideas to get you started

•Likely you've already got a website with a product right? That's probably part of why you want to 'twitter market' in the first place (What would you call that- TwiMarking? Marktwiting...) So that's a great place to start. Put your twitter name there and tell them to follow you to get advice.

•There is a badge you can put on your site: TwitterCounter Stats: The Ultimate Twitter Statistics Provider! as well.

•When you comment on blogs, post in forums, send out emails, always include your twitter link in it.

•Talk to other people. Find somebody you like and tweet them, get them to tweet back, and it is posted on their twitter page for all their followers to see.

•Post some genuinely useful tweets on your topic. Include the keywords in your tweets. People search twitter for keywords they are interested in.

•Teach your followers what an RT is (a retweet) that gets your name out there to other twitter groups and can get many followers. Highly retweeted tweets get aggregated to popular twitter sites and thousands of people will see it then.

Anybody else have ideas?

[bwj292]

Originally Posted by Brawnydt

•Well the idea is to get targeted followers. So, likely you've already got a website with a product right? So that's a great place to start. Put your twitter name there and tell them to follow you to get advice.

•There is a badge you can put on your site: TwitterCounter Stats: The Ultimate Twitter Statistics Provider! as well.

•When you comment on blogs, post in forums, send out emails, always include your twitter link in it.

•Talk to other people. Find somebody you like and tweet them, get them to tweet back, and it is posted on their twitter page for all their followers to see.

•Post some genuinely useful tweets on your topic. Include the keywords in your tweets. People search twitter for keywords they are interested in.

•Teach your followers what an RT is (a retweet) that gets your name out there to other twitter groups and can get many followers. Highly retweeted tweets get aggregated to popular twitter sites and thousands of people will see it then.

Anybody else have ideas?

Agreed, the retweet appears to be an extremely powerful way of going viral with whatever your talking about. Word of mouth is certainly a powerful thing if you can use it to your advantage.

[Jill Carpenter]

yep. Very easy for listbuilding. There is a method, but definitely you need to convert those twitters to a separate list for your own long term protection.

Didn't see this first, but just posted on how I am #1 on google search for my name b/c of Twitter - and there are a few of me.

[viralmania]

Share, be honest, be helpful, courteous and learn the twitter etiquette and you'll attract followers in no time.

I attracted over 2000 followers in a couple weeks. It was a lot of work but so worth it as I made a lot of great friends...and helpful friends.

All the best!

[donrock]

I've only been Twittering for a little while and even though I have 1,100+ plus followers I'm still trying to figure out how best to make money from the site. These were some very helpful posts, hopefully other Twitter experts will also share their knowledge. Thanks to all who did here.
donrock

[OmarNegron]

Thanks for the tips man....

much appreciateed

[dsmpublishing]

i add hundreds of new subscribers with twitter everyday and it really has to my favourite list builder right now!

[Jasim]

Great post and I had not thought about having more than one Twitter account thanks for the suggestion, interesting take on emails though I still think sometimes it is hard to say everything you might want in 140 characters but definitely easy way to stay in touch daily as sort of a hi!

[Zachary R. Skinner]

This is really great post, well done!

There are so many applications and uses for twitter that it's just plain ridiculous.

Two of the really cool things about twitter that you didn't list are its viral power and the ability it gives you to network with lots of like minded people.

In just a few months twitter has quickly evolved from an intriguing social media site to an indispensable part of my online business.

I also have nearly 30 twitter accounts at present :-)

[bombdiggity]

I'm going to have to look more into Twitter. I always thought that it was a pretty cool service, but I guess I just never noticed it's marketing potential. The popularity of these Web 2.0 sites just baffles me sometimes.

Good post, very informative. Thanks for sharing what you've learned.