In this article I have to answer to three questions: Why to use Twitter for business purposes? then How do you know how crowded is your market on Twitter? and finally How to attack this market?
Let’s get started with the first question, and that is why to use Twitter for business purposes. I think that everyone that is using Twitter and have his/hers updates publically has an objective. Twitter is a different social network than others. The stream is live and real-time. The level of connection is deep. The feel of an actual meeting is present. Twitter it’s easy to use and configure. If you know what you’re doing you can attract very quickly many eyes on you. The pitfall of Twitter is to have many spammers as followers and thus you may have the impression of an audience which in reality doesn’t exist – or to have as followers people that have few tweets but follow thousands of people. Tweets are shown in Google searches and also the Twitter username so you can use it for SEO purposes.
Now, how do you know how crowded is your market on Twitter? Simple: just search your keywords on Twitter and look at how often related things are tweeted. For example the SEO market is extremely crowded: few tweets per minute. You can also check for different trends for your keywords or the differences between the volumes of tweets containing different keywords by using this simple tools: tweetvolume.com and tweetscan.com
In case the market is a crowded one here are some tips on how to approach it:
- Twitter is not a channel that you can use to directly promote your business so don’t try to broadcast, sell directly or pitch people with your product
- If you’ll tweet only things related to your market you have no chance in making yourself heard; you’ll just be one of the many that already do that
- You have to get an approach more closely to real life: you make friends (preferably influential users on your market – you can do this by first establishing a contact on their blogs) and talk to them (talk like you do in real life: small talk combined with technical things – keep it real). Those discussions will draw attention on you from the people that are following your friend
- Monitor the tweets and if someone searches for help offer some free short tips/suggestions
- Interact by retweeting (but do it wisely – don’t just RT everything) or by reading the tweets and talking with users about what they tweeted
- A more technically thing that have low influence (but every small thing counts in the end) is to place your main keywords in your Bio description, fill the website URL and customize your Twitter background
Here is what kind of comments I would like from you but you can express whatever you want:
- Do you have anything to add to these rules?
- How obvious do you think these rules are? If the rules are obvious, do you think that people apply it?
- Do you apply these rules when using Twitter? If no, then how do you do it?
- Do you have a good reason for not using Twitter to leverage your business?
- Did you used Twitter for your business and have no effect?
Hi Toma,
I really appreciate the meaningful conversation about twitter that you’ve sparked here. I haven’t seen these “rules” so well articulated yet. I think that it’s just as important to think about the environment you’re posting in as much as the post you create (in fact I think the environment greatly determines the content.)
Your rules articulate some important differences between twitter and other social networks. I have found facebook good for connecting with people I’ve actually met, while “Twitter is a different social network than others. The stream is live and real-time. The level of connection is deep. The feel of an actual meeting is present.”
“Tweets are shown in Google searches and also the Twitter username so you can use it for SEO purposes.”
– Some people try to seperate SEO and social networking. I think that the two are deeply connected and that it’s important to understand both and make sure that you’re tweets / posts help you achieve our seo goals–keywords aren’t just for google search spiders, they also help you connect with your audience.
“approach more closely to real life: you make friends (preferably influential users on your market – you can do this by first establishing a contact on their blogs) and talk to them (talk like you do in real life: small talk combined with technical things – keep it real). Those discussions will draw attention on you from the people that are following your friend”
– Totally agree, this is what I’m doing right now by commenting on your blog and guess what? I find it really helps me establish deep connections with people.
“if someone searches for help offer some free short tips/suggestions.”
- Always good. As the CEO of Secretary in Isreal said, “don’t be worried about giving too much away for free. if people want to do something on their own they’re going to do it.”
@Alison – thank you for your comment and the time you spend reading and writing the answer. I really appreciate the effort. Thanks again!
Too much retweeting is not good as you point out. As an additional rule I check every single link (even from trusted sources) before I pass it on.
It’s good to map out a content strategy and keep providing value over time.
Yours
John
Thanks for those links but you might get banned too.