Archive for the ‘Twitter’ Category:
Spending time in an airport is like visiting another world entirely separate from your everyday world. Everyone is working to get to different destinations, moving in different directions.
Recently on a vacation to the Grand Canyon (my first time to see it), I was in an airport waiting for my next flight. As I watched people walk by, I knew each one had a different destination to which they were heading. We were al a mishmash of travelers all under one roof.
I find the same patterns when I am on Twitter. Everyone is there for a different purpose. One person may be marketing an ebook. Another person may use Twitter to entertain friends with clever posts. Another might be looking to connect with like-minded people.
We all have a different purpose, like travelers, and we end up in one huge network, connecting to each other, making discoveries, building relationshships. Twitter can be so many things to so many different people. In my mind this is what distinguishes it from Facebook or LinkedIn.
If you’re new to Twitter, and you’re not quite getting it, hang in there. Keep showing up. You will find your way slowly. Soon you will discover you’ve gotten the hang of having conversations on Twitter. You will find the ways the network can really work for you.
Maybe you will use it to stay in contact with other people in your industry. Maybe you will use it to discover the newest trends related to your business. Maybe you will find it a good place to show others what you are blogging about.
But wait, just when you discover how you will use it, then you will find another use and another use. When you do, share it with people. Let others know what you have learned. Users on Twitter, much like people in the airport, are all going in different directions. As you make your way to your destination, stop occasionally, look around, help a fellow traveler on their way to their destination.
How do you use Twitter in your business?
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Before I started using social media, if I Googled my name, I would find about four listings for a couple sites where I’d written an article or two, and results from 5K road races I’d run. That was it. Most of the other entries on the page were about other people with my name. One is a doctor. I wonder if anyone has mistakenly thought I was a doctor. That would be uber cool.
As I opened my business, Tekkbuzz Internet Marketing, I knew, if I was going to have any success as a business, I needed to be found when people Googled my name or the name of my business. I, of course, started my blog, adding posts each week about social media. I made sure I used keywords in my post titles, such as social media, entrepreneurs, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
As a social media consultant, I am active every day on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. I’m even starting to use YouTube (which is a whole other post).
Now when I Google “Deborah Richmond” or “Tekkbuzz”, I see ELEVEN PAGES of search results that directly relate to my business and myself. What are the results showing? They are showing links to pages of my website, links to specific blog posts I’ve written, to my social media profiles, to guest posts I’ve written for other blogs. The road race results now appear on pages 6 or 7, which is too bad because my results were good!
This is a clear indication that social media is working to make me more visible to search engines. Now a searcher will find all kinds of information about me and my business. They will have a very good sense of what I am all about. And luckily, there are no questionable photos of me and an Elvis impersonator anywhere in the results.
Here are some key ways that using social media helps your search engine optimization:
1) Getting quality, relevant inbound links
A successful social media marketing campaign can result in thousands of new inbound links to your site. Inbound links are one of the most important things that influence the rankings of your site. Put two and two together, and it’s easy to see how social media can be a great way to improve your rankings.
The best thing about this is that the majority (if not all) of the links that come from a social media marketing campaign are natural links; they’re not reciprocated, bought, or solicited.
2) Fresh content = more hooks in the water for search
The more content you have on your site, the more traffic you will snag from search engines. Also fresh content keeps your site updated, which gives users a reason to come back. People don’t want to visit static sites, we’re already too used to sites being social.
3) The engines like frequently updated sites
Feed those indexes with fresh content and get rewarded with frequent visits by the search spiders. Search engines love fresh new content. They will see new content in your Facebook stream, LinkedIn profile, Twitter updates and blog posts. And they will direct traffic to all of those places for you.
When you Google your business name, are you seeing the results you want? Leave me a comment.
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Site visitors 1230
Facebook Friends 105
Twitter Followers 977
LinkedIn Connections 177
Email List Members 207
Inbound Links 819
I’m pleased that my site received a few more visitors than last month. My traffic efforts certainly seem to be consistent, bringing me roughly the same amount of traffic each month. In the next few weeks, I will be implementing a new strategy to, hopefully, grow that traffic.
Twitter is growing again. I made a change this month. I set my account to automatically follow people who follow me. I knew it would increase my followers a little because some people unfollow if you don’t follow them back. I now see how many people that really is because those people are now staying with me, and my number of followers did grow. I haven’t done anything else to grow my followers this month.
Inbound links continues to baffle me. I don’t know why this is growing so rapidly. But I’ll take it!
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Building trust is one of your main goals when using social media to market your business. One way to build that trust is to give away really good content to your community.
A potential buyer will buy from you much more readily if they feel they know you and can trust you. By giving away good information that they are looking for and can use, you are taking a large step in building trust. Blogs are an excellent example of giving away good content. For example, if you are a human resources consultant, write about all of those areas of human resources that often trip your customers up. Why do they come to you? What questions do they have? Answer those questions on your blog. You could write about “7 Things You Should Know About New Hires”, and explain all of the necessary paperwork and details required when a small business hires a new employee.
The content you share, doesn’t always have to be your own. No, I don’t mean you should take other people’s stuff and give it as your own. But you can recommend articles written by other people to your Twitter followers. If you read an article that you think your audience will like, cut and past the title and the URL into a Tweet. Your audience will appreciate that you’re sharing good content. By sharing content related to your field, you are also demonstrating to your audience what issues you focus on. This also helps establish you as an expert.
Some people are hesitant to give their best content away. They have learned over the years to protect their information so that they can offer it to only their paying customers. This is no longer a strong strategy. With information flowing so freely, if you hoard yours, no one will ever know you are out there sitting on great information. A better strategy is to freely share information. If you demonstrate you are an expert in a subject I am looking for, I will be far more likely to come to you for further assistance if I need it.
What content do you give to your community?
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When using Twitter to market your business, there are all kinds of reasons to start a conversation with other Twitter users. You want to be able to connect on a regular basis with people who might be potential customers, or with people who may have information you are interested in. If you don’t ever speak to anyone on Twitter, then you are just putting messages out and not actually networking with anyone. You are speaking AT people, not TO people.
I know when I first joined Twitter, I didn’t really know how to get people to talk to me. I was waiting for them to remark on one of my tweets. I wasn’t getting much response. But, of course, this was like being a wall-flower at a networking event. I don’t wait for people to speak to me when I’m at a live event. I walk up and speak to them. So I needed to learn how to start a conversation with my online networking as well.
If you are at this stage of your Twitter journey where you don’t know how to start a conversation, I have a good resource just for you. My friend MarenKate from Tweeterpreneur.com has an excellent video about How to Join the Convo in Twitter. If you haven’t got the hang of starting a conversation yet, you HAVE to go check this out. This short video is a simple primer that is perfect for learning how to start a conversation on Twitter.
Don’t be a wall-flower at the party. Grab a drink and start mingling!
For more ideas on using social media, go to the right sidebar of this page and sign up for my FREE Ebook “PumpUP Your Profits, Using Social Networking to Market Your Business.”
Now it’s your turn. How do you start a conversation on Twitter? Do you just drop comments randomly? Do you look for specific topics of interest? How do you get the party started?
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Spending time in an airport is like visiting another world entirely separate from your everyday world. Everyone is working to get to different destinations, moving in different directions.
