Spending time on Twitter
I’ve been spending a lot of time on Twitter lately and really getting into reading the many tweets our followers have been posting. What I have noticed though, is how many people use Twitter improperly and use it mainly for spamming their followers! Why?
Why would you want to spend time building a relationship with so many people just to turn them off so quickly by filling their Twitter feed with so much garbage! Wasn’t Twitter meant to update your followers with stuff like “What are you doing now?“, “Where are you at?“, “What are your plans?“, “What do you Like?“, etc…
I’m wondering if the folks at the helm of Twitter expected it to become a platform for everyone to send out their sales pitches or tout their business opportunities. I doubt it!
The Wrong Way to build Twitter Friendships
You see it all the time, people posting their business opportunities and products on Twitter with nothing more that a quick “Click here..(you know the rest)” post in hopes that you will be naive enough to click on their link and join their opportunity or buy their products. Really? Do you think your followers are that dumb?
It used to be that email was the preferred method used by spammers to get their sales pitches out in front of people. Now it seems that more and more are using Twitter. Mostly, I think this is occurring because it is so easy to build a following on Twitter. However, if you are building your list of followers so that you can spam them keep one thing in mind.
The only followers you are going to get are the other spammers on Twitter that want to send you their spam posts!
Increasing your Twitter Followers
Let’s talk about the Right Way to gain Twitter Friends
Face it, you should be spending a lot of time on Twitter following users, reading their bios, and getting to know them in hopes that they will do the same for you. This two-way relationship is built on trust. If someone has taken the time to read your bio and get to know you to the point that they want to follow you and receive your future Twitter posts, then respect that trust. It takes time to build a large follower base on Twitter and you need to nurture and build those relationships carefully thus ensuring that you are following people that you truly want to engage with. In return, they will feel compelled to get to know you and follow you. Once you have gained your followers trust then and only then should you provide them information about your opportunity, and only if they ask for it!
In marketing terms this is known as Magnetic Sponsoring. Magnetic Sponsoring begins when you have followers that trust in you and thus want to listen to what you have to say because they respect you as an authority on your topic or at least like you enough to listen and follow what you have to say. You are not selling to your followers instead you are providing a vital resource of information for your followers and they will listen to what you have to say if you position yourself as a leader first.
Twitter Guideline
Here’s my guideline of the right way to use Twitter;
- Do become genuinely interested in your followers
- Provide valuable/usable information that your followers want
- Post sparingly to Twitter (over posting is as bad as spam)
- Post links to interesting articles that others may have provided on the internet
- Retweet your followers posts only if they contain articles and information that your followers are interested in
- Use Direct Messages as an alternative to general posts when the information is only relevant to a few of your followers
- Become an expert on the topics you post about
- Gain your followers out of respect for you
Summary
Twitter is a great tool for marketing as long as you remember the correct marketing approach. Draw your followers to you, get them interested in who you are, what you do, and why they should respect your opinions and the information you provide them. Don’t rush this process as “Rome was not built in a day”, it takes time to build trust and respect and to gain the quality of followers that you seek. As you build a solid follower base guide them to your products and services, don’t sell your followers on them.
This is great info, and I will put it to good use trying to build my twitter following list. Thanks so much!
Thanks for this great article about Twitter. I have an account, but rarely use it…as I keep getting spam followers. It’s pretty irritating. I think you hit on some very important points here and I’m glad to see you encouraging the building of relationships, REAL relationships, not simply using people to line one’s pockets with $$$.