Have you been “tweeting” your own horn? If you don’t know what we’re talking about, it’s past time to catch up on the latest social media phenomenon – Twitter.
Twitter offers you the chance to send short messages of 140 characters or less — commonly known as “tweets” — to any other Twitter member who has chosen to “follow” you. You can send the messages from your laptop or desktop – but most users send and receive tweets on their cell phones.
Twitter accounts are free, and if you learn how to gather a community of followers, you have a guaranteed audience you can reach out and “tweet” with your message anytime, anywhere. If your tweets are helpful, entertaining or just plain great, your followers will pass the tweet to their followers, and so on.
The key to social media, however, is to remember that it is: SOCIAL.
If you learn how to gather a community of followers, you have a guaranteed audience you can reach out and “tweet” with your message anytime, anywhere.
Your followers need to know upfront if you are a retailer out to sell a product or if you just want to give them some great information. In-your-face selling is OK only if you have a customer base that wants your tweets on exclusive sales, giveaways and other deals only for Twitter followers.
Otherwise, use Twitter to rave to your new best friends about something great you’ve discovered. Give them insight; share a little about yourself. Build community. Above all, don’t be phony. Slick salesmanship won’t cut it. With Twitter, like Facebook or even MySpace, it’s all about relationship-building.
Can Twitter get the word out about your business by the millions? Absolutely! Will it happen overnight? No way.
Build a loyal following by reading the tweets of popular members. See what they say and how often they say it. Read the responses they get. Get to know Twitter, then get your fingers ready to Tweet your own horn!
Tags: networking, social media, tweets, Twitter