Today, I’d like to introduce you to my guest author, Harris Fellman.
Maybe you’re like I was just a few months ago, thinking:
“Twitter is short for Time Waster”
or
“Twitter is just not a business tool”
or
“I joined Twitter and I just don’t get it”
I’ve introduced a number of people to Twitter and I hear things like this all the time. Especially the last statement.
Typically what happens is someone will join up, invite some of their friends, and then lo and behold, sit there and wait around for something to happen.
Although the founders of Twitter claim that it’s just a micro-blogging tool, it really has become a rapidly growing , if somewhat rudimentary, social network.
There’s a right way and a wrong way to go about attacking Twitter for your own purposes. If you’re jumping into Twitter and looking at it primarily as a way to make money, you’ll fail miserably and you’ll fail quickly.
Allow me to remind you of my rules for “right” Twittering:
- First get a good network of followers going.
- Build relationships with your network.
- Get your followers to click on your links & tell others about you by retweeting your messages.
- Then, and only then, consider how you might monetize the network.
I actually recommend that you don’t even bother thinking about making any money with your twitter contacts until you’ve got at least 5000 followers.
I know what you’re thinking. HANG ON THERE! 5000 followers? How am I gonna get 5000 followers?
The answer is quite simple, my friends.
Follow other people first.
It’s based on the law of reciprocity: you follow someone, they follow you back. It’s really the ‘way of the world’ on Twitter and it works far better than any one of the other systems out there.
Some of those other ideas for getting followers can work, but truthfully, at the core “follow others and they’ll follow back” is the best system out there. You’re in control of who you’re following & thus what ‘target audience’ you’re hitting as well.
Depending on what niche or business you happen to be in you can expect somewhere between 20 to 50% of those people to follow you back.
Wait a second, Harris… What’s this “business or niche” part?
Let me explain:
One of the coolest aspects of Twitter is that you can really focus down and TARGET people who are interested in what you have to say.
I first recommend that you create a good profile and decent background for your account that really shows off your personality and main interests. Make it, what I call, “Follow Friendly” so that when you follow people, they see your Twitter account, the right people will want to follow you back. (The ‘right people’ being people that are also interested in what your key interests or business is all about.)
I’ll finish up this post by letting you in on some some great services that will help you find people who are in your niche and share your personal interests. Be sure to check out MrTweet.com, WeFollow.com, and Twibes.com.
All you have to do at these sites is type in your keyword and find people in your industry or niche. What you’ll want to do here is find people on Twitter in your area of interest with (generally) between 2,000 and 100,000 followers. And then what you want to do is … not only follow them, but FOLLOW THEIR FOLLOWERS, TOO.
Twitter allows you to follow up to 1000 per day – I recommend more like 300-500 per day.
And don’t think you have to do it all yourself – you can hire a virtual assistant to do it for you for a few hundred bucks a month or get a software tool that does this as well. And believe me, there’s plenty of tools out there! I’ve personally tested out a large number of these “follow tools” and the one I recommend is called “Tweet Adder“. It’s only $50 and does everything (and more) than software I’ve seen at 4 times the price.
Thanks for Reading,
Harris Fellman
CoupDeTwitter.com
You are right: you don’t have to comment or retweet, but would it help if I told you it would be much appreciated? 
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Maybe there was a update but this is getting really hard to do now. You can follow 2000 people. But after that you can only follow %10 more than follow you. So you have to start UNFOLLOWING people. Then some people will unfollow you………..
So it’s hard. I love twitter but I only have 40 followers. They are targeted followers though. Any tips Ana?
Scott invites you to read: How to make a panoramic picture in Photoshop CS5
Twitter traffic is notoriously not very well converting, Scott.
So if you want to get any significant results from it, you have to focus on quantity a bit more.
Yes, it sounds hard, but in reality, I’ll take you a week to do this.
There’s much more on the subject in this post: http://www.trafficgenerationcafe.com/how-to-get-twitter-followers-targeted-traffic-from-twitter/
Ana | Traffic Generation invites you to read: What Are Blog Tags and What Can They Do for Your SEO?
Hey Ana, another good post. The first post I read and commented was 202 bit-sized tips to gain “monster” traffic. That was one legendary post, btw.
However, I think that I might have my own “security lapse” regarding the tips provided by Harris.
It’s “you” and only “you” who knows who to follow and (if they follow back) how to keep the relationship and conversation nurtured.
Now, the “assistant” point will cost you money and that person might end up with people following who you will never dream of.
Let’s say my niche is sports. And, I happen to be a Yankee supporter. Now, if that assistant end up in following Red Sox people then that would be shame, although; the niche is still same and exact.
Relatively, working on so-called “software” is not ideal as well.
For me, No matter how “Bill Gates” or “Einstein” you are, you still will have at most one hour (collectively or in bits) for twitter. And in that one hour, you can do the twit-things much better than the “money and time disaster” assistant and software.
Vampy.
Interesting point, Vampy.
I use Twitter as a traffic generation tool. My goal there is to point my followers to my blog and gain them as readers as fast as possible.
The strength of such tactics is in numbers. I look for people who I THINK might be interested in traffic generation, but I don’t always know that for a fact. However, I let them decide.
And if they do decide to connect with me on my blog, I will definitely maintain a closer relationship on Twitter as well.
Does it make sense? Twitter is just a means for me, not my main place to connect.
I do see your point for your specific niche though; however I would still explore ways to take yourself out of the process as much as you can so you can dedicate that 1 hour per day on things that are more important to your business.
Thoughts?
Ana
PS BTW, how did you get from reading my 202 tips to this post?