My background is in pay per click marketing, but I have learned that it takes a variety of media to deliver your message and have some impact. This includes paid search, organic results, and social media. I work for a second tier search engine that works with a lot of novice advertisers. Many of these advertisers are relying on our traffic to power their promotional advertising, as opposed to utilizing other platforms in conjunction with us. I have found that by expanding your reach and building a brand or identity, you are able to help drive your traffic levels up.
One of the ways to do that is Twitter, and I have been making all of these interesting discoveries as I implement this into my daily routine. It’s a great tool because you see the impact of your work almost immediately. The newsfeed updates in real time, allowing you to pass your message to your followers, as well as the rest of the network, and tie in relevant content to your overall message.
I use Twitter marketing to connect with clients and to learn more about my industry.
It also helps me deliver my message in the form of links to blogs. I do that by retweeting links that I find informative and easy to digest, by communicating with established advertisers, and by working on building relationships with new advertisers. I recently retweeted articles on the traits of a strong business based on a Harvard study (http://tinyurl.com/7hgp4ta), a great blog on Google data analysis tutorial (http://goo.gl/L1pSp), and the President’s Start Up America initiative to help drive small business growth (http://on.ft.com/yFsm02).
I am trying to increase my knowledge and also lend my experience to marketers who are looking for a different perspective. I want my profile to be a resource that users turn to for valuable insight. By adding quality content that is relevant to my potential audience, I am building a platform for future growth.
The reason I am guest blogging today is because Accelerated Freelance reached out to me on Twitter, and I was more than happy to oblige! That kind of connection comes from choosing to seek out information that can help you grow your business. This directly reflects who you are. When you put that “energy” out there, that same energy will come back to you.
Twitter also shows you what the world is talking about. By default, you are able to display worldwide trends to the right of your profile, which shows, according to Twitter Help Center, “topics that are immediately popular, rather than topics that have been popular for a while or on a daily basis, to help people discover the “most breaking” news stories from across the world.” The latest topics that are in conversation, pulled from network users, are indexed and give you an idea of how people are communicating. By clicking on each item, you are taken to the conversation. You can see the differing opinions and how users deliver their messages. Many lessons are to be had in this section.
You have the option to be geo-targeted for up to 30 countries and for as many as 48 cities in the US. This kind of information to a marketer is invaluable. For example, I changed my Worldwide Trends to United States > Chicago. Some of the topics that appeared were Black History Month, the decision by the Susan B. Komen Foundation to stop funding for Planned Parenthood, and the death of Don Cornelius (RIP). Having access to this kind of targeted activity can help a marketer craft his message for his audience.
There are sections that help track your interactions and how you are mentioned on Twitter. Tracking your history can help you to determine what direction your Twitter campaign has to go. Are users responding to your work? Are you gaining followers? Are your followers relevant to your brand or simply bots or future blocked users? You are also judged by whom you keep company with. Don’t add followers or follow others in order to pump up your numbers. Think quality, not quantity.
Their help center provides a lot of good instruction that novice users can use immediately. The dedicated advertising section combines the teaching tools of the help center and optimization section, which allows you to see examples of other businesses using Twitter, as well as Twitter widgets and buttons to add to your site, and the promoted products section, where you can begin to appear in the top spot of Twitter updates and trends for best visibility.
It’s a great tool for communication, research, trendsetting, and promotion. The free portal is projected to be the nest big advance in social media marketing. I would take some time to experiment with it.
Adam Chronister is co-founder of Enleaf, an award winning Web Design and Internet Marketing Firm. You can find him on Facebook Facebook and Twitter.