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There are many ways to use Twitter to market your organization, business or services.

Twitter is commonly used as a quick and easy way to microblog in 140 characters or less about the goings-on of one’s personal life. More and more businesses and organizations, however, are coming up with creative ways to use Twitter for effective online and word of mouth marketing.

First and foremost, Twitter is an interactive publishing medium. To use Twitter well for marketing you have to write, write often and write strategically.

Here are some high-level steps you need to take to use Twitter for marketing your organization, business or services

1. Get on Twitter – setup an account with a name that makes sense, is easy to spell and matches the name of your organization, business or services. If someone is already using your name then you have to get creative and come up with an alternative spelling or add a dash between two words etc.
2. Create a Twitter Marketing Strategy – Figure out how you can best use Twitter to your advantage and come up with a plan for how you’ll roll out your strategy including how you’ll get followers, the types of people/companies you’ll follow, posting frequency, posting content type, landing pages, on and offline promotion, etc. Some common Twitter strategies are:

• Post regular specials or sales on Twitter
• Use Twitter to search for people Tweeting questions you can answer as a way to build relationships and potential future customers
• If your business is mobile you can use Twitter to post your daily location
• Encourage word of mouth between your followers
• Post quality content with the aim to get others to Retweet and spread it to their followers
• Notify followers about events you’re attending or putting on

3. Start Following People on Twitter – Start following others on Twitter who are working in your industry or who are somehow related to your industry. See who those people are following. Follow some of those people too. Don’t go overboard following thousands of people right away or your account will quickly start looking like one of the many Twitter spammer accounts out there that follow thousands, have no followers and only post affiliate or viagra links
4. Setup URL Tracking using hootsuite or bit.ly or tinyurl so you can track which links you post get the most clicks
5. Use Proper Twitter Tools  & Twitter Etiquette – make sure you use good third party Twitter tool such as TweetDeck to enable you to post and read posts of those you’re following quickly and easily. Remember to not just post about yourself, how great you or your services are. Instead, interact with people, retweet useful & relevant content posted by those you’re following.
6. Setup Twitter Landing Pages on your company or organization’s website to optimize conversions when you drive people from your twitter page to your website.
7. Promote Your Twitter Address on your company or organization’s website, facebook page, in your email signature, etc. Even consider having your tweets publish directly to a section of your website or have your website blog posts publish directly to your Twitter account
8.Record, Measure & Assess Results. Keep doing what’s working. Stop doing what’s not working. Don’t be afraid to ask your followers for feedback along the way

What ways have you or others you’ve seen used Twitter to promote yourself, your organization, business or service?

Need help creating or implementing a Twitter marketing strategy? Contact us at Twitter Marketing Agency today for a free consultation and strategy session.

Small business owners around the world are discovering the benefit of using Twitter to speak with customers just as they would in person. Small businesses often get half of their business from word of mouth, so Twitter acts as the perfect digital word of mouth marketing tool. In fact, some business owners find it’s easier to setup and maintain a Twitter account than a business website, and the short 140-character posts offer a quick and easy way to stay in touch with clients and soon-to-be-clients.

Curtis Kimball opened a creme brulee cart in San Francisco not really knowing the purpose of Twitter. Now, with over 5000 Twitter followers who wait for him to post his daily cart location, Twitter helps keep his business flourishing on a daily basis.

Umi, a sushi restaurant in San Francisco, gets many new customers every day as a result of people finding them via Twitter. Umi staff tweet about the latest fresh fish of the night and offer specials to patrons who mention Twitter.

The Woodhouse Day Spa in Cincinati tweets discounts for manicures and massages. They prefer Twitter to email because it’s quick and can be sent from a cell phone.

Studies show that for many Twitter users, Tuesday is the most active Twitter day. Wednesday and Friday have the second highest Twitter activity. Monday and Saturday are the slowest days. There are also general trends that people will check their Twitter accounts when they first get to work, at lunch time, and/or near the end of their work day.

Twitter is Global

Remember that your Twitter followers are likely from all around the world, so if you post to Twitter from Los Angeles on Wednesday at 12:00 noon,  it’s Wednesday 3PM in New York, Wednesday 8PM in London and Thursday 3AM in Beijing. If you’re trying to reach a certain geographic region, plan your posts to match high Twitter activity times in their timezone. A good free timezone tool is available at http://www.timeanddate.com/

Twitter Marketing Experiment: Find The Best Time For You To Tweet

Want to find out the best time for you to Tweet to get maximum exposure and/or clicks on your post links? Try an experiment by reposting a few different high-quality retweet-worthy twitter posts over a couple weeks — reposting them on, say, tuesday, wednesday, thursday and friday in the morning afternoon and evening — using a trackable url shortener system (ie bit.ly or hootsuite) to determine when your experimental posts are clicked on the most. Repeat the experiment a few times with different content and look for trends. Some suggest it’s worth repeating important tweets up to 4 times in about 18 hours. Typically, that would be evening, late evening, next morning and then the afternoon. You need to not overdo it and turn your readers off, so post carefully and don’t hesitate to ask your readers for feedback.

I’m posting this to my blog (which auto posts to my twitter account) at ~4pm on Tuesday. Lucky me.

Growing numbers of individuals, small businesses, corporations and non profit organizations are jumping onto the Twitter bandwagon. Those who will find the most success will take the time to consider how they can use Twitter to their strategic advantage. Here’s a few suggestions how to make the most of Twitter for your marketing & PR:

Marketing & Advertising

Follow customers & future potential customers. Integrate your online and offline marketing &
advertising messages with your Tweets. Provide links to promotions, microsites, videos,
advertisements.

Reputation Management

Follow experts, industry leaders, news & media. Develop a reputation as an authority in your industry or niche. Open dialogue with others in your or related industries.

Events

Follow individuals or groups interested in your events. Provide event notifications, reminders,
twitter-based event discounts, updates, photos, videos, articles. Tweet live from events. Encourage attendees to tweet during and after about the event. Dialogue live with attendees.

Promotions

Follow customers & future potential customers, offering twitter-user-only deals and promotions as incentives to follow you on Twitter. Provide links to online deals or twitter coupons, discount codes
time-based promotions. Interact with your followers & aim reach a large audience through word of mouth & viral retweeting.

Crisis & Issues Management

Monitor your brand, products, name(s), and issues related to your business or organization. Provide relevant information to address customer needs such as company info, tips, frequently asked questions. Dialogue with followers about the issues, encourage them to get involved and to retweet your posts.

PR & Customer Relations

Follow customers, future potential customers. Create content directly related and relevant to your target audience. Engage customers by asking them questions. Answer questions. Build positive sentiment about your brand.

What do you think?: How have you used or seen Twitter used to help achieve (or hinder) an organizations marketing & PR goals?

photo: kimba

TwtQpon lets you create coupons for promoting your products or services and then post them in your Twitter feed as part of your. If you have products or services you want to promote to your Twitter followers, consider offering a small discount or incentive in the form of a coupon and take advantage of the viral / retweeting features of Twitter.  TwtQpon says: ” Enhance your social media marketing by offering discounted coupons to the Twitter-sphere!”

See a sample Twitter coupon here: http://twtqpon.com/cbm8zk