I develop sites for clients on a regular basis (which is often why it’s difficult for me to find time to post here), and there are still some who are resisting the use of social media as an important part of building relationships with their readers. It took me a while to understand the value of Twitter, so I know it can be a hard sell. After all, there is only so much time in the day.
I already use RSS to keep my readers updated and interact with them in the comments. Why do I need to be on Twitter?
It used to be that you’d set up a new site, make sure that people could easily subscribe and keep up with your posts, respond to readers in the comments, and that was all there was to staying connected with those who wanted to stay updated with your site. As Twitter has become almost ubiquitous these days, many are slowly moving away from the feed reader to using Twitter exclusively. I’ve had several people tell me they can’t remember the last time they opened their feed reader.
There are many, I imagine, who are not happy with this turn of events. They don’t understand Twitter and don’t see the value in engaging with their readers this way, but that’s a rather short-sighted view of things.
Building relationships
The great thing about Twitter is that it’s a two-way conversation. Sure, people visit your site and who subscribe to your feed can comment on posts, and you can reply, but Twitter allows regular interaction with your followers, on more than just your blog posts. It’s a much more effective way to develop relationships with readers, and people are much more likely to stay engaged in your site’s content if they’re also engaged with you on a bit more personal, immediate level.
What if I have multiple web sites?
Okay, so maybe you get the reasons to use Twitter if you’ve got a web site, but what if you have multiple sites? For many, having a separate Twitter account for each site is the way to go because the content of their sites is different. For example, I have Twitter accounts for one of my kids sites, and my Solutions for WP site, along with my regular personal Twitter account. I would likely annoy many of the followers on my main account if I tweeted posts from my kids site on a regular basis and tweeted incessantly about “Mommy stuff”.
How do I manage multiple accounts on Twitter?
I use TweetDeck. I know there are several options for managing multiple accounts on Twitter, but I have found TweetDeck to be so easy to use, I haven’t even bothered checking out the others. Looking for other options? Check here.
Brand your Twitter page
Don’t take the easy route by just choosing one of the default templates. Take the extra time to brand your Twitter page. There are plenty of Twitter templates available for download.
Have fun at the Twitter party
Twitter is like a party. You go, you mingle, you have conversations, and take a break from your work. You’re not at the party too long before you know who to avoid. It’s “that guy” who is selling something. It’s usually insurance or financial planning. You can tell what is foremost in his mind. It’s not having a good time and getting to know people. He’s not really interested in people in general except that they are potential clients, and you can tell within a couple minutes of talking to him.
How to do the Twitter party the right way:
Go – show up, tweet a couple of times a day at least
Mingle - get to know lots of people, follow the most interesting and important, especially in your niche.
Relax – this isn’t all about work. You’re not there to sell yourself. You’re there to develop relationships.
Have conversations – retweet, ask questions, be genuine, be yourself, get to know people and share stuff about yourself. This is the part where you tell people what you do, share the latest thing you’re working on, talk about what you love and what you’re excited about
If you’re involved in social media- Twitter in particular- just to market yourself, people can often tell. Just like they can tell when they start talking to “that guy” at the party that he’s trying to work the conversation around to what he does, what he sells and feeling you out to see if you’re a potential customer. Don’t be that guy.
I really like the twitter analogy of a Party! You are so right. You can’t fake it without people knowing about it at some point. Good post.
thanks for the info,i like your blog info because it’s meant to me about learning something new..nice job!
I agree with your assessment of social media. It is amazing to me that people trying to run a business think it is sufficient to have a web site. Even if it hasn’t changed in 10 years. I recently started a website for a Locksmith here in Lansing, Michigan. The competition for this guy is tight but he is in a niche. I see the competition on the web and I can almost guarantee that he will be ranked #1 in the big G before very long. He is young and understands the importance of social media.
Thanks for the pointers in using Twitter. I’m fairly new at it and any info I can gather helps.
Great tips on using Twitter – However, I still find it hard to justify spending time on Twitter with so many other things on my never-ending to-do list. I have to make sure it would provide a positive return on investment. As an orthodontist here in Boise, Twitter has to be profitable for me to invest my valuable time. And I’m just not sure that is the case.
You’re right- it is hard to find the time. Like David said below, sometimes the right social media choice is Facebook depending on the business you’re in. In fact, I would think Facebook would be awesome for an orthodontist, since Facebook friends are often in the same town.
It IS hard to find the time to tweet though. And not just tweet for the sake of tweeeting. We tend to do more marketing through FB than twitter as it seems to have more functionality. I do wonder about the longevity of twitter.
Its hard for me to get people following me
help me
twitter username vision5282 – please add me
The quality of your followers is one of the most important thing to me, if you have thousands of followers and none are interested in what your tweeting, then you might as well have zero.
Great point Brady. I recommend starting small, and not just following a bunch of random people. Follow people you’re interested in developing a relationship with rather than just every random person you run across.
I just started to use twitter as a marketing tool to sell my product. I was amazed by how many companies in my industry were already using it. For me its a great way to communicate with my clients.
I personally use onlywire. every time i make a post on my wordpress blog it sends it out to all my social media sites, but i still need to brand my twitter page. but i guess the downside is that i don’t get to mingle around a bunch.
Ye @ Justin i also have just started to use twitter to promote my website that reviews ebook readers
I use both Twitter and Facebook but I find that I get a much greater following and interaction from Facebook. In the past year or two Twitter has become a bit soulless as more and more tweets are just links and not conversations
I am just beginning to realize the value of social media to build my online presence. Thank you for the helpful information. I will use it as I strive to better serve my clients in the Lansing Michigan Locksmith arena. Keep up the good work.
It’s a really interesting way to build a website, but is it really important to brand our Twitter profile? I think it’s “too much”.
Remember that there are those who will click through a tweet to see your profile, and what you hope is that they’ll click through from there to your web site. If your Twitter profile is branded, with some “selling points” in the background graphic, they are more likely to do that. Your Twitter profile is just one more way to establish your brand. Since you want to stand out as being unique and interesting, the last thing you want is for your Twitter profile to be just like everyone else’s- especially since it’s so easy to change the background image in Twitter.
Twitter is an excellent place to gain viewers for a website, although I feel like Twitter usage will decrease in the future. As a previous comment said, quality of followers is key. Just because you have a ton of followers doesn’t necessarily translate into an increase in business. I am an investor, and Twitter isn’t the best marketing area for me because most people don’t look for investment advice through Twitter.
Great point on having multiple Twitter accounts for multiple websites. I think I’m up to four different Twitter accounts that I use on a more or less regular basis. Many of them are set up to instantly tweet my latest WordPress posts. Hugely convenient this last, but also probably keeps me from interacting nearly enough with other Twitter users. On the to-do list…
I’m actually not sure on how to implement twitter in a positive way for my webshop.
Doesn anybody have any exp with this?
Excellent Article!!!
Well, using social media to offer the readers engaged is a good method however, too much of self promotion kills it too. I have seen many people unsubscribing if you keep on tweeting nothing but your blog articles. What is your thought on this?
I’ve just started using Twitter and Facebook to help promote my Graphic Design and Web Design business. So far I haven’t plastered our web site with Twitter logos and Facebook follow me badges. This is probably the reason we don’t have many people joining our ‘party’! It will be interesting to watch what happens once we add them. Has anyone else had first hand experience of this effect?
Twitter’s a funny thing, i started using it ages ago and got right into it and then got bored, but I find myself getting back into it lately since working on a clients site. Like Alec I hadn’t until lately added facebook and twitter logos to my site so will be interesting to see what difference it makes.
Also I now use the tweetmeme extension in wordpress as well which seems to be quite good, all my new blog posts are posted to twitter automatically. I just need to get into the habit of using it more than just blog posts, if only there were more hours in the day!
I’ll vouch for tweetdeck as well I use it on my PC and iphone and it’s great as I have 3 feeds that I manage.
Amazing stuff. Thanks for sharing those nice looking icons
Do you also do the background graphic for Twitter?
I’ve just started an account on twitter and will likely set up other accounts for my new and upcoming sites and was pleased to read that you can manage all sites from one “Tweetdeck”. That makes management so much easier, without having to login and out from all the different accounts. Thanks for the info, very helpful!
I’ve now been on Twitter for three years, but it took me a long time to find out the real advantage of using it.
To start with I found it interesting to follow some people, but couldn’t work out why other people might be interested in what I was tweeting about. However, it is exactly like being at a party. Find out who you’re interested in or move on. Interact with the people you do like and maybe they’ll follow you back. If they don’t, well so what.
It certainly isn’t about the number of followers you have, which many people just don’t get. Just like real life, it’s the quality of connections that is important.
To me “The great thing about Twitter is that it’s a two-way conversation” is the main point. No doubt twitter is now become a big source of promotion of business but many of its user still not able to take advantage from it.
Twitter can work wonders for organisations however it also presents certain risks. If something goes wrong it’s hard to moderate and can spirral out of control. Also, many firms set up twitter, facebook pages because everyone else is, almost like collecting badges on their homepage. This blog goes someway to show WHY we should have a twitter account set up. Good work.
Having a twitter may boost up some traffic for your site. And publicity of-course. Other than that how can it be more helpful? Good article anyhow.
Twitter is a job all in its own, some people go on faithfully everyday, and if you are not participating at least weekly they will drop you. We will start using twitter soon, check out http://illustrativestyle.com they have some informative info as well.
I love your site it is beautiful and provides a lot of great content.
Yeah using twitter to keep in touch with your followers is great also a fast way to share thoughts
Nowadays it’s harder and harder to gain page rank, even if your website is good. A possible solution is social marketing, and indeed Twitter can help if you know how to use it in our advantage.
I always have a hard time keeping up with some of the folks I follow. It seems many of them at large firms probably pay an intern to tweet for them. I have had success with page rank support though.
Twitters titles disappear from Google in less than 90 days. So, independent record labels like LazyCats lose the benefits from tweeting.
Excellent Article!!!
Thanks
Twitter’s titles disappear from Google in less than 90 days. So, independent record labels like LazyCats lose the benefits from tweeting.
The trouble with twitter is the ‘noise’ from automated posts and overload of links to irrelevant topics. I’ve just completed a follower cull and working less on number of followers and more on the quality of the conversation. As a result I have seen improved visits to my site http://www.offyoutrot.co.uk from Twitter rather than less.
There’s a party over here!
Twitter Party is a great way to explain the correct way to use Twitter and social media in general to grow your business.
If you have a business you need to have a presence online. As your online you may as well make use of all the methods to drive traffic to your website as possible.
thank you. nice share.
You definitely have to keep your Twitter accounts separate. Personal friends don’t care about my business posts and I have no desire to see my personal friends posting whacky stuff on my Twitter business accounts.
We develop all our sites in WordPress
Twitter is great and there are lots of tools out there that can help manage relationships. I also like the ‘list’ features.. very good for organizing the content.
Thanks for the post but is there any twitter etiquette. I am peeved with irrelavent tweets from those whom I follow.
The idea of relevance is a subjective matter. If what people are tweeting annoys you, unfollow them.