Harold Mansfield
07-25-2009, 06:21 PM
Working with Twitter is very time consuming. Here are a few [free] things that I have learned that helps to make the process a little easier and helps to grab targeted followers in the process.
*Once you have your account created, the first thing you should do is head over to Tweet Later (http://www.tweetlater.com/) and set up your account there.
It will help you set up an auto response to new followers, follow back people who follow you, and auto unfollow people who drop you. It does other things, but for now these are the most important.
Tip: Sending self serving links are a big no-no, and are basically spamming. A simple "thanks for the follow, look forward to discussing (niche)" or a little something about your interests will do nicely.
Some Affiliate Marketers will tell you that putting an affiliate link in your auto response is the way to go, but at this point is is so old and saturated that it turns people off.
Tweet Later will also send you daily emails, so that you can see who is talking about your niche.
*Next, head on over to Twollo (http://www.twollo.com/). Twollo will let you automatically follow people (from 10-500 at a time) who are disusing your keyword or phrase. You can set up multiple Keywords, and also auto unfollow people that drop you. It takes some time for it to get going, but it works pretty well, although I have never followed more than 10-20 people at a time..which is good anyways.
Sure, you could set it up to follow anyone that Tweets the word "the", but that won't do you any good in your marketing efforts. The name of the game is not how many people you can get to follow you, it's how many people can you get to follow you that may be interested in what you have.
*Next. Get on over to TweetFeed (http://twitterfeed.com/). Tweetfeed will let you set up auto Tweets using RSS. You can set time in between tweets like every 5 minutes , or once a day.
This is good for Tweeting relevant news and information of your niche and keep the information going.
Tip: Don't just grab a general feed, make it related to your niche. You can use Yahoo, Google to set feeds up based on keywords, or your own sources. No need to use your own blog, because you will be sprinkling in Tweets from there every now and then anyway and they won't look so obvious.
If you have a Google account (free just get a gmail address) you can set Google alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en) based on keywords. For instance if your Twitter account is based on your blog about the New York Yankees, you can use that as your keyword to alert you of all headlines that have "New York Yankees", or "Yankees" in the headline.
If you want to use multiple feeds from different sources, you can set that up as well, just make sure to set the frequency correctly so that you are not spamming Twitter every minute with 20 headlines. If you are not going to physically be on Twitter everyday, I don't recommend more than a few auto tweets a day.
You may have to open a Bitly (http://bit.ly/)account as well to use Tweet Feed. It's a URl shortener that also offers you some statistical information on your click throughs.
Tip: Don't feed over saturated niches (like internet marketing or the New York Yankees). Try and stay as original, or (subniche) as possible. Try and find original feeds, unless you have an original niche like "Coin Collecting" or "Model Trains".
If you are in an over saturated niche, try using a personal interest, and still have a professional Profile Bio, and Background for your Twitter page. Nothing wrong with being a web designer by day, who tweets about the San Jose Sharks, or the college you graduated from.
Now, you can only follow so many people before you reach the follow threshold (I think it's 2k and then you can only follow 200 more than are following you).
A good number of people will return the follow, but many won't. After a week or so from the time you follow them, if people aren't following you back they aren't going to ..so, you can mass unfollow people using Twitter Karma (http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/). It will show you who you are following, but not following you back and you can whack them all at once to open up more follow room.
Keep in mind that you may not want to whack everyone. If you are following the official NY Yankees account, odds are they don't follow everyone back, you still may want to keep them as a follower.
I usually look at the most inactive people, like haven't tweeted in over a month, and whack them first, and then cherry pick who I want to keep after that.
Be careful not whack people who are following you.
These are some basics, but they are still not exactly the holy grail.
I highly suggest a custom background, even if you do it yourself using a photo editor like Photoshop or Gimp. People are more apt to follow you if you look like you will be around and that you have a particular interest, not just trying to get a bunch of followers.
Big Tip : I decent profile photo of yourself with a big cheesy grin or friendly expression is far more effective that a logo or avatar. It's a social network and people like seeing who they are talking to. (I need to do that myself this weekend).
You will still need to participate and have personal interaction with people to get the full effect, but you don't need to be stuck online all day twittering to keep fresh info flowing from your profile.
Pick a good time of the day or week and spend a little time on it.
Remember that you can use your Twitter feed on your webpage, or to update your Facebook account too.
Tools like Tweet Deck (http://tweetdeck.com/beta/), and Hoot Suite (http://old.hootsuite.com/signup) are a lot more user friendly than Twitter and you can monitor multiple accounts at once to respond to any DM's, @ replies, or any Tweets that you want to chime in on (this is where multiple monitors comes in handy).
Just remember that Twitter is full of spam. Everybody is selling something. If you start out like you are just there to get people to visit your website or sell something, people will ignore you.
If you are adding valuable, informative, or entertaining conversation to the community, people will visit your profile (which is where your website link is), and check out your occasional link that you tweet. You don't need to try that hard to be engaging, or witty. Just be natural.
Remember that Twitter is just like the rest of the internet, people are on more at certain times, than others (after work, after school, etc) . Remember also that there are traffic surges on the web coinciding with all time zones...and twitter times out a lot, so better to use one of the tools like Tweet Deck.
You can use Twitter to your advantage but you have to think of it as a long term community that you will be a part of, not a quick fix for quick traffic. It will not work like that anymore...to much spam.
Some things that I do with my Twitter accounts :
On my music account I frequently give away CD's and Music downloads.
On my Politics account (which is new), I try to get on during the news cycles, Press Conferences, or breaking political news. I also follow all the conservative groups and individuals so that I can have someone to argue with.
On my Sports account. I always tweet a little after a game (it helps to actually watch the game, or have access to the quick run down and stats). I also plan on hosting a Tweet up ( a get together of twitter folk) this football season and Tweeting from the bar during the games.
You can do anything you want with it, but the main thing to remember is, you have to participate to get any credibility with your followers.
*Once you have your account created, the first thing you should do is head over to Tweet Later (http://www.tweetlater.com/) and set up your account there.
It will help you set up an auto response to new followers, follow back people who follow you, and auto unfollow people who drop you. It does other things, but for now these are the most important.
Tip: Sending self serving links are a big no-no, and are basically spamming. A simple "thanks for the follow, look forward to discussing (niche)" or a little something about your interests will do nicely.
Some Affiliate Marketers will tell you that putting an affiliate link in your auto response is the way to go, but at this point is is so old and saturated that it turns people off.
Tweet Later will also send you daily emails, so that you can see who is talking about your niche.
*Next, head on over to Twollo (http://www.twollo.com/). Twollo will let you automatically follow people (from 10-500 at a time) who are disusing your keyword or phrase. You can set up multiple Keywords, and also auto unfollow people that drop you. It takes some time for it to get going, but it works pretty well, although I have never followed more than 10-20 people at a time..which is good anyways.
Sure, you could set it up to follow anyone that Tweets the word "the", but that won't do you any good in your marketing efforts. The name of the game is not how many people you can get to follow you, it's how many people can you get to follow you that may be interested in what you have.
*Next. Get on over to TweetFeed (http://twitterfeed.com/). Tweetfeed will let you set up auto Tweets using RSS. You can set time in between tweets like every 5 minutes , or once a day.
This is good for Tweeting relevant news and information of your niche and keep the information going.
Tip: Don't just grab a general feed, make it related to your niche. You can use Yahoo, Google to set feeds up based on keywords, or your own sources. No need to use your own blog, because you will be sprinkling in Tweets from there every now and then anyway and they won't look so obvious.
If you have a Google account (free just get a gmail address) you can set Google alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en) based on keywords. For instance if your Twitter account is based on your blog about the New York Yankees, you can use that as your keyword to alert you of all headlines that have "New York Yankees", or "Yankees" in the headline.
If you want to use multiple feeds from different sources, you can set that up as well, just make sure to set the frequency correctly so that you are not spamming Twitter every minute with 20 headlines. If you are not going to physically be on Twitter everyday, I don't recommend more than a few auto tweets a day.
You may have to open a Bitly (http://bit.ly/)account as well to use Tweet Feed. It's a URl shortener that also offers you some statistical information on your click throughs.
Tip: Don't feed over saturated niches (like internet marketing or the New York Yankees). Try and stay as original, or (subniche) as possible. Try and find original feeds, unless you have an original niche like "Coin Collecting" or "Model Trains".
If you are in an over saturated niche, try using a personal interest, and still have a professional Profile Bio, and Background for your Twitter page. Nothing wrong with being a web designer by day, who tweets about the San Jose Sharks, or the college you graduated from.
Now, you can only follow so many people before you reach the follow threshold (I think it's 2k and then you can only follow 200 more than are following you).
A good number of people will return the follow, but many won't. After a week or so from the time you follow them, if people aren't following you back they aren't going to ..so, you can mass unfollow people using Twitter Karma (http://dossy.org/twitter/karma/). It will show you who you are following, but not following you back and you can whack them all at once to open up more follow room.
Keep in mind that you may not want to whack everyone. If you are following the official NY Yankees account, odds are they don't follow everyone back, you still may want to keep them as a follower.
I usually look at the most inactive people, like haven't tweeted in over a month, and whack them first, and then cherry pick who I want to keep after that.
Be careful not whack people who are following you.
These are some basics, but they are still not exactly the holy grail.
I highly suggest a custom background, even if you do it yourself using a photo editor like Photoshop or Gimp. People are more apt to follow you if you look like you will be around and that you have a particular interest, not just trying to get a bunch of followers.
Big Tip : I decent profile photo of yourself with a big cheesy grin or friendly expression is far more effective that a logo or avatar. It's a social network and people like seeing who they are talking to. (I need to do that myself this weekend).
You will still need to participate and have personal interaction with people to get the full effect, but you don't need to be stuck online all day twittering to keep fresh info flowing from your profile.
Pick a good time of the day or week and spend a little time on it.
Remember that you can use your Twitter feed on your webpage, or to update your Facebook account too.
Tools like Tweet Deck (http://tweetdeck.com/beta/), and Hoot Suite (http://old.hootsuite.com/signup) are a lot more user friendly than Twitter and you can monitor multiple accounts at once to respond to any DM's, @ replies, or any Tweets that you want to chime in on (this is where multiple monitors comes in handy).
Just remember that Twitter is full of spam. Everybody is selling something. If you start out like you are just there to get people to visit your website or sell something, people will ignore you.
If you are adding valuable, informative, or entertaining conversation to the community, people will visit your profile (which is where your website link is), and check out your occasional link that you tweet. You don't need to try that hard to be engaging, or witty. Just be natural.
Remember that Twitter is just like the rest of the internet, people are on more at certain times, than others (after work, after school, etc) . Remember also that there are traffic surges on the web coinciding with all time zones...and twitter times out a lot, so better to use one of the tools like Tweet Deck.
You can use Twitter to your advantage but you have to think of it as a long term community that you will be a part of, not a quick fix for quick traffic. It will not work like that anymore...to much spam.
Some things that I do with my Twitter accounts :
On my music account I frequently give away CD's and Music downloads.
On my Politics account (which is new), I try to get on during the news cycles, Press Conferences, or breaking political news. I also follow all the conservative groups and individuals so that I can have someone to argue with.
On my Sports account. I always tweet a little after a game (it helps to actually watch the game, or have access to the quick run down and stats). I also plan on hosting a Tweet up ( a get together of twitter folk) this football season and Tweeting from the bar during the games.
You can do anything you want with it, but the main thing to remember is, you have to participate to get any credibility with your followers.