7 Great Ways to Network on Twitter Effectively

Whether you want to grow your business or connect with people to land a job, Twitter is a great site that every professional should be using. However, it should never be used just to push you. Remember that “people buy from people” so take time to enhance the Twitter experience of other users and engage with them through conversation.

Here are seven great ways to use Twitter effectively.

1.     Account for Your Actions

One mistake people make when using social networking sites is to share opinions that should be kept to themselves. Use Twitter to connect with others without Tweeting about difficult topics, such as politics. What you say on Twitter should be something you’re not afraid to say anywhere else. Of course, Twitter can also be a place to explain your actions. For example, if your business got into the news for something less savoury, use a Tweet to apologize or explain what went wrong.

2.     Make it Clear What You Want to Talk About

A Tweet shouldn't be a short grouping of words and Hashtags  Your post should be meaningful and capture the attention of readers. A Tweet should never make readers question what the post is about. Think before you Tweet. Does your post make sense to you without further explanation? Consider what users who know nothing about your business would get from the Tweet. If it wouldn't  make sense, you need to tweak your Tweet.

3.     Retweet With a Purpose

People make the mistake of simply retweeting others posts simply because the person shared one their tweets. Instead, you only want to retweet posts that will be of interest to your followers. For example, if you own a business that deals in books, retweet posts about books, reading devices, and other book-related material. Retweeting is a great way to gain more followers and easily share information that is related to your field.

4.     Go the Extra Mile- Show People You Care

It’s important that you show how grateful you are to those that connect with you and retweet your posts. Take the time to send a direct message that isn’t automatic. Automatic direct messages seem impersonal and are a bit annoying. Another great tip is to give a shout-out to new followers by tagging them in a post.

5.     Engage Conversation

Comment on Tweets that interest you and ask questions through your Twitter account. This will cause more people to pay attention to your Tweets and be interested in what you’re going to Tweet next. Twitter should never be a one-sided conversation in which you simply share your links. A great tip is to start conversations about news articles that are related to your business. Ask followers what they think about the story and reply to their comments.

6.     Introduce People- Be a Connector

If you know others that are in the same career field, introduce them to your followers. Tag these people in Tweets and say something about them. For example, let’s say you have an interior design website and have connected with a number of designers. Let your followers know about their work by connecting them.

7.     Be Friendly and Approachable

Don’t be too stiff when using Twitter. Let your personality shine through so that you appear friendly and approachable. This will encourage more people to follow you. For example, share a clean joke every now and then, share a link to your favourite music video, or talk about the book you just read. You want to be seen as a real person, rather than monotonously sharing links. People want to know that the people they do business with are more than just business-oriented. People want to deal with the real you.

If you want to network with professionals in your field and those that would find your services useful, you need to use Twitter and do so professionally. Consider how you can get the most out of Twitter, while also improving the Twitter experience for others.

What can you share that they will find interesting? Who should you connect so that other users have more followers?

If you’re using Twitter for the sole purpose of sharing links for your own benefit, you’re not using the platform properly. Take the time to enhance your Twitter experience and the experience of others.

7 Steps for an Effective Weekly Social Media Marketing Schedule

Here’s a 7 step social media marketing schedule I follow. It’s not definitive but I have found it to be effective and would welcome your views and thoughts.  Hopefully this may stimulate ideas to help you create your own schedule that will meet yours and your social communities’ needs.

1          Twice a day

• Check your Twitter feed. Reply when required and check the keywords you are listening for. Join a conversation or two.
• Check your LinkedIn profile and visit some of the Groups you are in. Engage with your LinkedIn network in some way twice a day, every day.
• Check your Facebook Page company page. Post something of value or respond to comments.
• Check your Google+ page and company page. Post something of value or respond to comments.
• Check your Google Alerts for information on your competitors, mentions of your own brand and articles you feel are worth sharing with your community.

2          Once a week

• Work on your Twitter and Facebook lists as well as your Google+ circles to be better organised to send targeted marketing messages when appropriate.
• Spend some time with LinkedIn discussions in the Groups you belong to. Respond to some relevant posts and start a few discussions.
• Schedule tweets and status updates for the next week so you are consistently providing your connections with valuable information.
• Spend some time building relationships with other influencers.
• Keep up to date on new products and social tools that will increase your efficiency and reach.

3          Monday

Schedule your tweets and status updates to your social profiles.  Provide meaningful content in addition to the content you scheduled in your once a week session. This information may be less generic than the other things you scheduled.

4          Mondays and Wednesdays

Get involved in an industry specific conversation on Twitter.

5          Tuesdays

Respond to blog comments on your blog and leave a comment or two on another blog. Remember what I said about building trust and credibility!

6          Thursdays

Respond to comments within your Facebook and Google+ posts and updates

7          Fridays

Check on the things you’ve been listening to. This would also be a good day to take a look at your analytics and analyse your website and blog traffic for the week.

Your schedule could well be very different from this one. Consider your time commitments. Be sure you are leaving time for yourself to do all the important things that are relevant to your business. Make the schedule something you will really do every week. Tweak the schedule along the way but remember that consistency is the key.

Feel free to share some of your own ideas below!

7 Steps to Creating a Twitter Profile That Drives Results

When you first set up a Twitter account, you have a number of options for your profile. What goes into your profile is of vital importance, because it’s your public face on Twitter – but this is where lots of people make mistakes. Let’s look at the elements of your profile in turn.

1. Your name

On signing up, you’ll be asked to include your name, Use your real name here, for two reasons. I'm generally a big fan of using real identities over brand names at every opportunity:
A real name sets the right tone for making positive personal connections. You want your real name because Twitter profile pages rank highly in search engine results but that will only work if your Twitter profile corresponds to your real name.

2. Your Twitter username

Your Twitter username is your Twitter ID or “Handle”– it’s what you’ll quote any time you want to tell others where they can find you on Twitter, and it will also form your Twitter profile’s unique URL For all these reasons, your choice of username is a key decision.
You want one that’s closely associated with you and your business, and preferably memorable.
If your real name is still available, use it and shorter is generally better – short usernames are easier for everybody to remember and type.

3. Your profile image – the do's and don’ts

Profile image is one area where many, many Twitter users are making what is almost always a huge mistake.
Twitter is a social network; that means individual people interacting with other individual people. I DON’T therefore recommend using any of the following for your Twitter profile image…

Profile image DON’Ts:

The egg; The egg is the default image provided by Twitter. it fairly screams out either ‘neglected account’ or ‘this person doesn’t know what they’re doing’, and even indicates a certain carelessness,

Company logo; Impersonal and does nothing to increase personal recognition of the individual ‘Twitterer’. I know some people will take issue with that, but, as always, people buy from people, not faceless corporations, so for all but the largest, most well-established organisations, I think using a logo is usually a mistake.

Animated graphic; Just annoying!

A full body shot; You know the sort – maybe a holiday snap of you at a famous landmark. It looks fine on your laptop or even Smartphone in full size, but reduced down to about 1cm squared (the actual size most people will see it at) it’s just another incomprehensible image and recognition is impossible.

A vaguely suggestive picture of an attractive young man or woman; Nothing says ‘Twitter spammer’ more obviously than a profile picture of a scantily clad young woman.

A head shot, but with effects added; It’s very easy, with software like Instagram, to add cool effects to photos now. That’s fun, but don’t do it here. Keep it nice, clean and clear.

Profile image DO's:

Be recognisable; One of your goals on Twitter – as with any social network – should be for people to recognise and get to know your face, so if they saw you in real life they’d recognise you.

Use a good close up shot of your face;

 Use the same photo on all your social profiles; If the goal is to be recognisable, it follows that it’s a good idea to use the exact same photo on all social networks where you have a presence.

Consider getting a professional shot taken; It may be worth spending a small amount of money to get some professional head shots done; these have applications beyond Twitter and social sites too – your website and any press kits being the most obvious examples.

4. Location

Twitter is an international environment so I recommend specifying your town/city and country here. Providing this information allows people to get a better picture of where you are and start developing some trust towards you.

5. Your Bio

Your bio is arguably the most important part of your whole Twitter profile, because:

a)      It’s what you will be judged on by potential followers;
b)      You will sometimes be found on the basis of your bio by searchers looking for interesting people;
c)       As we shall see, your Twitter Bio plays a key role in determining whether people visit your website as a result of your activity on Twitter. Lots of people don’t make the most of this opportunity.

You have just 160 characters for your bio, so use them wisely. In particular:

Make it obvious what it is you do;
Include your keywords 
Include a ‘call to action’ (tell readers what you want them to do next).
This is all key, because your bio, along with your photo, is what is sent to people in an email each time you follow someone new, 
 At the time of writing, my current bio is as follows:

"Providing effective training & support tools for business owners wanting to gain more qualified sales leads. Follow me & visit my website to find how!"

I have chosen this because:

• It’s clear.
• It includes one of my keywords (“qualified sales leads”).
• There’s a call to action both to follow me on Twitter (“Follow me”) and to go to my website (“to find out how”).

6. Website URL

The website URL you associate with your Twitter account is a huge opportunity because it’s the natural thing for interested parties to click on when you connect, interact or post an interesting tweet.

7. Background image

It’s worth getting your own custom background and having at least one or two calls to action on the left hand side of the background (the natural place for it). These won’t be click-able but many will type them in.

For a more in depth look at how to create a profile that will drive results why not click here to attend one of my workshops! You will also learn the other 6 steps to building an effective Twitter marketing strategy to attract more customers for your business.

Guy Outram

7 Tips to Encourage Retweets – Please RT

Retweeting is easy – all it takes is one click. So why isn’t everybody retweeting your tweet?

Getting others to retweet you isn’t just luck. You need to encourage others to do so, but how? Here are 7 tips to help you out:

Keep them short
Don’t think of Twitter’s 140 character limit as a target. Your target, instead, should be around 100 to 120 characters – this gives others between 20 to 40 characters for their own commentary as well as “RT @YourName” too.

Use #hashtags
Hashtags identify your tweets with specific topics, so others who are searching for those topics can find your tweets. Hashtags are especially useful for events, when a lot of people who might not be following you want to follow that event closely.

Watch your timing
The timing will vary depending on your audience, but for the most part, you’re more likely to get a retweet before 7:00 in the evening. Even the day of the week matters, with retweets spiking during the weekends. Do some experimenting, and try to find out when your followers are in a sharing mood.

Give them a nudge
It doesn’t hurt to ask for a retweet as long as you don’t overdo it. Add “please retweet” or something similar in some of your tweets – you’d be surprised at how many people oblige.

Don’t be too pushy

Don’t keep linking to a sales pitch - Share things that you think your followers will find useful.

Lead by example
Retweeting others says a couple of things about you: that you’re not a bot or spammer and that you’re not focused entirely on yourself. Retweeting also helps you build goodwill with others and increases the chances that they’ll follow and retweet you.

Don’t forget your content
As I’ve already said; tweet about things you think your followers will find useful. Whatever media you use, content is still king.