Building Mailing Lists, List Building, Social Media, Niche Marketing

According to Mashable.com, a leading authority on social media, there are currently over 12 million users on Twitter. Another resource called istrategylabs.com reports that 46% of Twitter users are college grads, and another 17% have post graduate degrees. Furthermore, 47% are between age 18 and 34, and another 31% are between 35 and 49. Males and females are evenly ranked, with women accounting for 53% of users and men 47%. If your target market falls within these demographics, actively participating on Twitter is probably worth your while.

Twitter is simply a micro blogging service. What does that mean? It means that you write short updates (140 characters maximum) called “tweets” and send them out to your followers. And it is a marketer’s dream come true – it’s an easy way to stay in front of your target market and showcase your authority for free.

The myth around Twitter is that Twitter users (called tweeple or tweeps) tweet about useless information such as what kind of coffee they had with breakfast. Yes, some of that exists and it is actually important as you’ll see below, but once you understand the power of connecting on Twitter, you may become a Twitter convert, just like me.

So, if you’re on Twitter or considering starting, the question becomes, “what do I tweet about that will make this a useful tool for me?” Here are some categories you can consider for your tweets. There are others but these will get you started:

Industry Tips

This is a big one. You are on Twitter to showcase your expertise, so industry tips act as your credibility builders. Here’s how to do it: Create a list of high value tips (remember – no more than 140 characters long) and send one or two out every day. If you don’t want to have to manually do this yourself every day, consider a free tool called TweetLater.com to set up your tweets in advance. If your tweets are really good, others will send them out to their lists as well. This is called a “re-tweet,” and it’s a super way to quickly build your list of targeted followers.

Here is one of Meredith’s recent tweets that had a great response:
Connect Others: Be willing to connect others even if it has nothing to do with your business. What goes around, comes around.

About Your Business

Use this category sparingly. In other words, if you use Twitter as a place to advertise your products and services too much, people will stop following you. This is not what Twitter is about. It is really about raising awareness of you and your business and impacting others. Use the 80/20 rule here. For every eight tweets about things other than your business, you can post two things about your business.

Here is an example:
Hey Columbus: I’ll be on Fox tomorrow at 7:45 where you can see me interviewed about my new book, Flourish!

Re-Tweets

When someone re-tweets you, they are giving you the highest compliment you can get on Twitter! It means that the person who re-tweeted you thinks that what you said is worth sharing with their own list of followers. This is like having someone ask you to a meeting so they can introduce you their entire list of contacts. When you get a re-tweet, send them a short tweet thanking them! Re-tweet others who are tweeting things that you agree with or want your followers to read.

If you are not familiar with Twitter, the example below probably won’t make a lot of sense because of all of the abbreviations, but they are necessary given that you only have 140 characters. Abbreviations are outside the scope of this article, but just know that it’s really not as scary as it looks!

RT @getgreatcopy: New blog post: The Sixth Habit of Highly Effective Communicators http://bit.ly/ 175XGS Gr8 stuff Jan, as usual.

Quotes

Tweeps seem to love quotes. If you are also a fan of quotes, compile a list and send one or two out every day. Again, you can use TweetLater.com to set these up in advance so you don’t have to manually enter them every day. Simply set up these tweets for a month and then watch your re-tweets happen!

Here’s an example of one that Meredith recently posted:
“The pursuit of pleasure must be the goal of every rational person.” Voltaire

Invitations

Invite tweeps to your free events. No-cost events like teleseminars are great to tweet about because people love to share high-value, low-cost information with their lists. When you provide something without a cost – a workshop, teleseminar or report, your tweets about it are likely to get re-tweeted, which provides you with greater exposure to your target market.

Here’s an example of one of my recent posts:
How 2 write your book in a weekend – free telesemimar w/ @donnakozik. http://bit.ly/127GtU

Personal

Include some personal things that are going on with your life. What you choose to include is entirely up to you; however, be sure to be relatable. You don’t have to share your deepest inner thoughts or too much detail about your family, but sharing something about what you did over the weekend makes you more relatatable. Remember, Twitter is about connecting with people. Other people on Twitter want to connect with people – not stale businesses. People often connect on a personal level over food, pets or hobbies. This is why these seemingly unimportant tweets are actually very fruitful. These are pretty safe personal topics. General things about kids are another hot topic under this category. Just be aware that anything you say is out there for the world to read.

Here’s an example Meredith tweeted recently:
Interesting pop culture moment: Told a story to my sister, who lives in Vietnam & realized she doesn’t know who Sara Jessica Parker is!

As you can see, Twitter is simply an online forum for connecting with others in 140 characters or less. Big and small brands are using Twitter to connect and impact their target markets and locate joint ventures. Can you, too?

About The Author
Meredith Liepelt, President of Rich Life Marketing, offers a free report called “101 Ways to Attract Ideal Clients, Build Your List and Raise Your Profile,” which can be downloaded immediately at www.RichLifeMarketing.com.

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By now you know that pretty much everyone in the universe has joined you in the Twitterverse. Yep, even the President, Martha Stewart and Steve’s mom have decided that you were right all along.

But a teensy problem with everyone joining the party is that they are bringing tons of wonderful, exciting, useful, new, curious, strange, odd and oh-dear-god-how-did-that-get-in-here hostess gifts.  And because so many of these gifts are now wrapped up in cute little packages without so much a tag hanging to show what might be inside, you never know whether you are going to get something “cute” or something “oh-dear-god-how-did-that-get-in-here.”

Basically, its getting harder and harder to find the good stuff on twitter–the stuff that’s relevant to you. And because the Mixx purpose has always been to help you find the content that matters to you–whether that’s stories, videos, or photos, we thought “who better than us to tidy up this little mess?”  And so we launch today what we humbly believe to be the most useful product the Twitterverse has ever seen: Tweetmixx!

As you might guess from the name, Tweetmixx blends the best of Twitter and Mixx to give you:

• A better way to search across twitter for content that is of most interest to you.  No need to follow 10,000 people in hopes of finding the best content about the Beatles.  Just enter “Beatles” in as an interest and we’ll find the best content being shared!
• A Shortcut to just the links your friends are sending.  We all have those friends that tweet great links that get lost among their AWESOME weekends and their mommy problems.  Cut out the clutter and get just those links using the YourFriends view.
• Automatic unpacking of all those itty bitty URLs into useful headlines and descriptions.
• An all-in-one Twitter dashboard that replaces having to go to one place to tweet, another to do saved searches, another to see your friends’ links, another to check out hot topics, and yet another to see the most popular content on twitter!  Whew–see how we like to save you time?

In short, Tweetmixx turns Twitter into a content recommendation site, even if you don’t follow anyone.

We could go on and on, extolling the benefits of Tweetmixx, but we think it might be better for you to head over there and give it a try–we’re pretty sure that you are going to love it as much as we do.

As always, we want to hear what you think, so please send your Feedback. If you can’t fit it into 140 characters, that’s ok.  We’ll let you run on–especially if you’re telling us how much you love, love, love it!

So what are you waiting for, go check it out:  www.tweetmixx.com

Posted by Kerry on September 9th, 2009 on MIXX.com

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Here’s a short video tutorial from Twitter on how to use Twitter and set up a Twitter account in 10 easy steps …

ALSO …
Fun Stuff: friends, favorites, and stats!

There’s more to Twitter than OFF and ON! Use the commands below to send private messages, mark updates as favorites, or even remind someone to update their Twitter page if you’re wondering what they’re doing!

@username + message
directs a twitter at another person, and causes your twitter to save in their “replies” tab.
Example: @meangrape I love that song too!

D username + message
sends a person a private message that goes to their device, and saves in their web archive.
Example: d krissy want to pick a Jamba Juice for me while you’re there?

WHOIS username
retrieves the profile information for any public user on Twitter.
Example: whois jack

GET username
retrieves the latest Twitter update posted by the person.
Example: get goldman

NUDGE username
reminds a friend to update by asking what they’re doing on your behalf.
Example: nudge biz

FAV username
marks a person’s last twitter as a favorite. (hint: reply to any update with FAV to mark it as a favorite if you’re receiving it in real time)
Example: fav al3x

STATS
this command returns your number of followers, how many people you’re following, and your bio information.

INVITE phone number
will send an SMS invite to a friend’s mobile phone.
Example: Invite 415 555 1212

For more info on Twitter, or to view Twitter FAQs, please visit Twitter’s help page

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Twitter is a wildly popular microblogging service. It involves writing Tweets, which are short updates of a maximum of 140 characters that tell your followers what you are up to. Although your Tweets are technically supposed to answer the question, “What are you doing?” Twitter has moved far beyond that. Tweets are used to share stories, link to photos, promote content, break news, and a whole lot more. Twitter has also become an incredibly important tool for social media marketing professionals. Here are 12 ways in which Twitter can be used in your social media marketing campaign.

1. Sharing Links to Items of Interest

As soon as you read something online that you think is interesting, it is easy to share it on Twitter with all of your followers. Twitter is highly effective in this manner because it is such a quick way to be able to reach a large group of people. You can also get a lot of great ideas for blog posts from Twitter since many new ideas and stories are floating around that haven’t even made it to the blogosphere and definitely not to mainstream media.

2. Building Your Network

Using Twitter is a great way to build your network because it allows you to find and follow people with similar interests. You can use Steeple to find people who live in your geographical area. You can also use other tools that help you find new people to follow based upon who your Twitter friends follow.

3. Build Relationships within Your Current Network

People in different networks often use Twitter to connect with their contacts instantly rather than using instant messaging for that purpose. Furthermore, many people use Twitter to connect with their network during events like conferences.

4. Re-Distributing Content from Your Blog or Website

Twitter can be used to redistribute content from your blog or website. However, you should take care to do this thoughtfully since many of your Twitter followers may already read your blog. For that reason, you may want to avoid using a blog plug-in that automatically Tweets your posts. Your best bet is to Tweet your content manually and customize each Tweet so it doesn’t get old.

5. Get Involved in Live Tweeting Events

Twitter launched at SXSW last year, catapulting microblogging conferences to fame. Live Tweeting events are great because they are a form of citizen journalism that allow you to connect with several new people in your niche while making active and valuable contributions to current discussions in your community.

6. Pitching Stories to Journalists on Twitter

You can send a direct message to a journalist who is following you on Twitter to pitch a story idea.

7. Communicating with Your Team

You can use Twitter as a company intranet that connects all of your employees. Twitter can be particularly useful in this regard if you have a virtual business with employees in different geographical locations. You can set your updates to private for security reasons. Anytime you are working on group projects, you can stay in touch with your team members using Twitter.

8. Brand Monitoring

Stay up to date with any mentions of your business on Twitter. If there is anything negative, you will be able to counter it quickly. You can also use Twitter as a way to receive feedback from your customers and improve your business. Just ask your followers to give their opinion on something. For example, if you designed a new website, ask your followers what they think about it and get their constructive criticisms so you can make your site design even better.

9. Acquire More Votes on Social Media Websites

If you have submitted a story to Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, or any other social voting website, tweet a link to that submission to try to score more votes from your followers. If your followers like what they see, they are sure to vote for your content.

10. Hiring People

Looking for a programmer, designer, or writer? Whatever type of professional you seek, try finding them on Twitter. Simply send your followers a tweet telling them you are looking for someone for a job. They can either recommend someone to you or offer themselves for the job. Using Twitter in this way is ideal for finding qualified freelancers. It is much more convenient than putting out a classified ad.

11. Build Your Personal Brand

When you use Twitter to talk about things as mundane as what you ate for breakfast or how you are going to sleep early tonight, you make your followers feel like you are casual and approachable. Even those running a company that has a cold, corporate brand image could create more appeal and build a unique personal brand using Twitter.

12. Streamline Electronic Communications

When you use Twitter, you’re likely to find yourself using IM, email, and other electronic communication methods less. Twitter not only provides public chatting through Tweets, it also allows you to send direct messages. Twitter will help you streamline your electronic communications, allowing you to scale back online.

By Ron Knight (c) 2009

About The Author
Ron Knight is a US based Internet Solutions consultant with many years of experience helping people and businesses out in establishing a stronger presence on the web. Many Internet Marketing Service companies have benefited immensely from his advice.

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Twitter has made some revisions to its terms of service, to address issues like advertising, tweet ownership, APIs, and spam. There’s not as much news in this as one might expect, but there are some things worth noting, namely, Twitter’s stance on who owns tweets.

“The revisions more appropriately reflect the nature of Twitter and convey key issues such as ownership. For example, your tweets belong to you, not to Twitter,” says Twitter Co-founder Biz Stone.

With regards to advertising, they’re leaving “the door wide open.” Stone says they want to “keep their options open.” So nothing concrete there.

As far as APIs, Stone says developers using Twitter APIs authorize Twitter to make content available. There is a separate set of guidelines for APIs that can be found here. It is still a work in progress. Current guidelines are as follows:

- Identify the user that authored or provided the Tweet, unless you are providing Tweets in an aggregate form or in anonymous form in those exceptional cases where concerns over user security and anonymity are involved.

- Maintain the integrity of Tweets and not edit or revise them. Tweets may be abbreviated for display purposes and as necessary due to technical limitations or requirements of any networks, devices, services or media.

- Get each user’s consent before sending Tweets or other messages on their behalf. A user authenticating with your application does not constitute consent to send a message.

- Get permission from the user that created the Tweet if you want to make their Tweet into a commercial good or product, like using a Tweet on a t-shirt or a poster or making a book based on someone’s Tweets.

Spam guidelines are the same and can be found here.

The Tweet ownership stuff has already received some criticism for further clouding an already unclear subject. “If Twitter can do what they want with ‘our’ tweets, including reproduction for their own (financial) gain, what do we actually ‘own’?” asks Shéa Bennett at Twittercism. “If Twitter loses our data, closes our accounts or goes out of business, do we still own those tweets? Or are they retrievable in any way?”

Twitter’s terms of service are not necessarily finalized though. Stone made it quite clear that they are still open to feedback, and will make adjustments if they deem them necessary. There is even a feedback link right on the terms page. So if you have concerns about anything within, don’t hesitate to let Twitter know.

About the author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Twitter: @CCrum237

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Ordinally posted on: April 14, 2009

Several new programs and eBooks have just come out to help you successfully use Twitter in this Web 2.0 world. Here are two that I have noticed …

– ViralTweets (Free and upgraded versions)
– Garry Parkes just released his “Dominating Twitter”, Volume One

ViralTweets has recently been updated and offers both a free and premium version to it’s end users. The main difference being the free version is branded with the ViralTweets logo and website url and can be used on only one domain. The premium version allows you to remove that branded link, can be used on unlimited domains and has an auto follow feature.

ViralTweets lets online marketers and webmasters specify the tweet message that is sent out automatically as well as the page that the user will be directed to after the tweet is completed (i.e. free ebook, free online tools, bacially any squeeze page). For more information on ViralTweets or to get the software – go here.

Garry Parkes just released his “Dominating Twitter”, Volume One in which he shares how he grew over 17,000 followers. In his ebook he reveals exactly the secrets you need to know to build up a massive following in a very short space of time. It’s FREE!

To download Garry’s ebook, just click here or visit his landingpage at: www.dominating-twitter.com

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Of people who both blog and tweet, the majority would overwhelmingly prefer to have more blog readers than followers on Twitter. This is according to surveys conducted by Darren Rowse who runs ProBlogger and TwiTip.

This is not entirely surprising, since generally, much more effort is put into a blog post than a 140-character or less tweet, but there is certainly a gold-rush for Twitter followers. Jason Calacanis for one is willing to pay a pretty penny for them.

Rowse polled both his ProBlogger audience (which is presumably comprised mainly of bloggers) and his Twitip audience (which is made up of Twitterers). As expected, the Twitip crowd favored Twitter followers slightly more, but there was still a very clear majority wanting more blog readers.

There are certainly arguments for the value of both categories, and Rowse covers them pretty well here. There are some pretty

obvious ones for blogs:
- they require more time/effort
- they provide more info
- they are most likely not going anywhere, while Twitter may be hot right now, but who knows where it will be in the future?
- the more blog readers you have, the more times your posts are likely to be linked to on Twitter anyway

There are obvious benefits to having Twitter followers too though, particularly for marketers.

- More followers is a good indication that there is demand for what you offer as a business, and that people are interested in your product(s)
- relationships easier to form (yes blogs have comments, but typically not the real-time conversation factor, and people are at Twitter to talk…they’re not necessarily at your blog to do so)

Of course people who both blog and tweet know they don’t have to choose between one medium or the other. They compliment each other, and ideally can work to each other’s benefits. Twitter can gain you more blog readers, and a blog can gain you more Twitter followers.

It’s all in the execution. Write good content that Twitterers want to link to. This has plenty of potential for getting you more readers. Include chiclets on your posts, making it easy to share your content (this shouldn’t be limited to Twitter). Include a prominent link for people to follow you on Twitter (a Twitter logo here will help draw attention).

Link to good content from others when you Tweet. If people like what you’re pointing them to, you’ll likely gain more followers. Who would’ve guessed it all comes back to content? You could also mention your blog casually from time to time. This may increase awareness of it. Just because someone follows you on Twitter, does not mean they know about your blog. That said, you probably don’t want to ram it down their throats either.

By Chris Crum 2009

About The Author
Chris Crum is a staff writer for WebProNews and iEntry Network.

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There’s a new web application on the block that has everyone talking and it goes by the name of Twitter. Twitter is fast becoming one of the more popular methods for communicating online and has a large number of loyal followers who stick with it despite the growing pains and competitors. While this article won’t cover everything possible with Twitter, it will give you a good starting point on how to start using it and how you can use it for your business.

What Is This Twitter You Speak Of?
So what is Twitter and how can it be of benefit to you or your business? Twitter is a free online micro-blogging application which gives you the ability to send out short messages (up to 140 characters) called “tweets” to people who are following you on Twitter.

You can send tweets either through your computer or by using your cell phone via a text message. These tweets/messages can be about anything you want and they can include links, as well.

Making Twitter even more useful is the ability to send a direct message to someone you are following (this is done by entering @username at the beginning of your message) or replying to someone’s tweet with your tweet. You would be surprised how common it is to reply to someone’s message then to have someone who is either following you or the person you sent the reply to reply to your initial message and so on.

People can follow you and your tweets by first signing-up for their own free Twitter account at the Twitter site then adding you to their líst of people they are following. Once you have created your account, you can either check your Twitter page (your personal page which appears after you sign-in at the Twitter home page) for any of your friends’ new messages or you can send out your messages. But it is much easier, in my opinion, to use one of the many online or desktop applications which give you the ability to do all of this and more.

Twitter As A Communication Tool
Twitter is a quick and easy way to communicate with family, friends, business associates, and also within a company setting. Being an online service, Twitter is available to anyone with online access. All you have to do is login to your account through any number of third-party applications developed for Twitter or through the Twitter site and you are ready to go.

Within a company setting, employees could have a Twitter account created for them with the option to have their messages protected. This means only people they (or you or the person in charge of creating the Twitter accounts) approve will be able to send and receive messages from them. The same thing could be done using an instant message program but with Twitter, there would be no software to install and it would be accessible from anywhere with an online connection. Additionally, the person who is in charge of the Twitter accounts will have the power to control who is and who isn’t part of this private Twitter network.

Even though there are tons of online communication applications available, Twitter can also be used as a way for people who are collaborating on a project to stay in touch with one another regardless of where they are. And depending on which third-party application they are using to Twitter with, these conversations can be saved for future reference. There are even some third-party apps which you can use to send files up to 10MB to anyone you are following as long as they are using the same application, that is. Still, a handy feature to have and one which may become a feature of Twitter if there’s a big enough demand for it.

Marketing With Twitter
Herein lies the great thing about Twitter from a business perspective: the marketing potential it offers users. Sure, it is great to send messages and chat using Twitter, but it can also be a great marketing tool if used correctly. Have some breaking news you want to get out quickly? Send it out as a Tweet. Made an important update to your blog or web site? Let people know about it instantly with a Tweet.

Want to promote your project, book, movie, whatever by giving away a free download or preview? Send out a Tweet with a URL to the free download. Only want to market something to certain individuals you are following? Simply enter their username preceded by the “@” and you are set.

Another simple marketing tool available with Twitter is the ability to befriend people who are following someone you already follow. While this practice could backfire on you if you begin to add everyone you find following someone you are following, be picky and just befriend those who either share similar tastes that you do or work in the same field as you or already follow many of the same people you do. Otherwise, you could come off as a spammer which will be a hard image to shake.

Twitter Now And Beyond
Twitter represents a fundamental change in the way people communicate online. There have always been instant messengers and they have their place and purpose but they don’t provide the one thing which sets Twitter apart and that is the ability to instantly communicate with either a couple of people or potentially thousands without the need for proprietary software. No need to download this piece of software in order to communicate with this person or that organization.

Much like how blogging has become a staple of today’s society, Twitter and “twittering” is on the same path to becoming ingrained in today’s culture despite only being around for less than two years. So simple in its execution, powerful in the marketing opportunities it offers, and ease of use, Twitter will be one of the top web technologies to gain worldwide prominence in 2009.

If you like, you can follow me on Twitter by going to http://twitter.com/GeekEntrepreneu and clíck on the Follow button.

By Wesley Craig Green (c) 2009

About The Author
Wesley Craig Green is The Geek Entrepreneur, an entrepreneur who is a publisher, owner of an online classified ads network of sites, two web sites focusing on independent and digital comics and graphic novels. You can check out his personal blog, Geek Entrepreneur which is dedicated to entrepreneurship, blogging, inspiration, technology, and small business.

SitePro News

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When I woke up this morning and started thinking about last night’s coaching webinar w/Alex, the first thing that came to mind was “Linking, Twitter & Blogs… oh my!, Linking, Twitter & Blogs… OH MY!” Linking I get. It was one of the things I was going to focus on today. Linking with other sites and ‘social networks’ like DIGG, MIXX … fast exposure on Google, okay. Visiting and posting on similar blogs in which helps in building a reputation, exposure… it’s the people not the product, important I get it, but Twitter?

I spent (maybe wasted) an hour or so there today trying to figure out what benifit this could provide, and mainly try to find others in the “Fortunate 500″. I honestly don’t have time to just hang out there and chat. Uses: Potential customers? OK… Search Engine spiders finding my Twitter page? Alright … Can someone please comment on what else I seem to be missing here?

Blogs and blogs of blogs …
These things are amazing! I knew about blogs helping in SE rankings, but I wish I had used more of these like we are using them now. If I had, my business would look quite different I believe. I think Alex’s point about using the YouTube method and keyword searching for other potential blogs to post on was right on. Confession- I’ve never been one for casual conversation. Writing articles, now I could get into that, but to talk just to talk … I’m finding it difficult to just jump into an existing conversation (blog post). Anyone else out there feeling the same way? Show of hands … Well I guess it’s time to go knock on a few blogs and say “hello”

Oil Rig Hopping (or as I’ll call it “Crosstown Traffic”)
The Interent can be large place (like an ocean), but put in prospective, it can actually be rather small. [Que drums, background vocals and kazoos] “It’s like Crosstown Traffic …” You can be talking with, buying from, or selling to, someone next door or across the planet with a click of a mouse. Just like writting lyrics to a song, you need a hook to catch the attention of your listeners. In Internet marketing it’s very similar. You need something to attract people (potential customers or “fish”) to your PPP pages.

“Net Work” a fisherman’s story
I personally have always made the mistake of using the “shotgun” approach to fishing. Give a lot of options/choices, let ‘em have it (kaboom!) and then wait for the fish to float to the top. Doesn’t really work =( You really need one strong net, one good hook to be an effective Internet fisherman. Target your audience, cast your hook and – happy fishing.

* Kazoo background melody in Crosstown Traffic provided courtesy of the Jimi H. Experence

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