100 Twitter Marketing Tips to Promote your Business Author and technologist Nicholas Carr says, “Twitter is the telegraph system of Web 2.0.” The New York Times has mentioned that Twitter is one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet. Only a few brands skimmed off profits from Twitter and others just tweeted about some direct marketing stuff. However, there are numerous ways you can leverage Twitter for your business and improve your bottom line. Here is the one-stop Twitter guide for business. Get started with the Twitter Guide 1. Create a Twitter account 2. Make sure, that you have selected a unique vanity URL for your Twitter account 3. Upload an image and customize your profile image using this tool: http://walterhiggins.net/projects/twixenate.html 4. Include a link to your corporate website 5. Promote your Twitter presence on your corporate website, client emails, etc. SEO juice – Recently, Google started indexing tweets; these tips could help you optimize your Twitter account. 6. Include your brand name as the title of your profile 7. Use the Google keywords tool and shortlist important keywords relevant to your products 8. Include those keywords in your bio 9. Use keywords in the first 30 characters of your tweets in order to be optimized by Google 10. Get re-tweeted and increase backlinks for your content A “following” strategy – This will help you to connect with your target audience. 11. Identify your target audience based on their interests 12. Use hashtags “#” (Hashtags are a community-driven convention to add additional context and metadata to your tweets) to search for your target audience using this tool: http://wefollow.com/ 13. Use more directories for search such as: http://www.twellow.com/,http://justtweetit.com/ etc. 14. Follow the influencers in your industry using this tool: http://www.twitalyzer.com/ Identify local Twitter users or tweeple – If you are a company that serves only a particular location, networking with local tweeple will add more value to your business. 15. Follow influencers in your location using this tool: http://twitterholic.com/. This tool lists all the influencers on Twitter, based on the number of followers and location. 16. Enter keywords relevant to your product and use the “near this place” option in Twitter’s advanced search to identify tweeple who are interested in your product 17. Search for tweeple near your location using this tool: http://www.tweepz.com/ 18. Network with local tweeple by searching for them with hashtags, using this tool: http://localtweeps.com/ How to make your tweets effective 19. If you prefer Web tweeting, use this tool: http://twitzap.com/ for advanced features 20. Download Tweetdeck for more power tweeting from your desktop 21. You can add additional Twitter accounts in Tweetdeck and control them using a single application 22. Schedule important tweets in advance using this tool: http://www.tweetlater.com/ 23. Use: http://cotweet.com/ for collaborative tweeting What to tweet on – Starting and joining the right conversation(s) will give you more exposure. 24. Post tweets based on the interests of your followers 25. Search for topics relevant to your product(s) and talk to influencers 26. Use hashtags to power the conversation 27. Post tweets about useful links and articles 28. Use: http://happn.in/ to talk about the trends in your locality. Twit research – Twitter is a good source for market data as prospective customers are present there. 29. Finalize the sample size of the search. 30. List hashtags relevant to your research objective 31. Get secondary data for your research based on hashtags by using this tool:http://twubs.com/ 32. Analyze hashtags relevant to your research using this tool: http://www.trendrr.com/ Get feedback –As Twitter is a real-time medium, organizations use Twitter to get direct feedback from customers. 33. Get feedback from customers and other tweeple by replying and directly messaging them 34. Use hashtags to organize the feedback 35. Get feedback from local tweeple using this tool: http://nearbytweets.com/ 36. Use: http://twtpoll.com/ to conduct a simple survey in Twitter to get real-time feedback 37. Post new product screenshots in http://twitpic.com/ and get instant feedback from your followers Twit hiring – If you are looking to hire people for your organization, Twitter is another source to find the right talent. 38. Search for job seekers near your location using advanced search features in Twitter public search 39. Use hashtags in your tweets to reach active job seekers 40. Post tweets to announce benefits such as perks, allowances, etc. for the job(s) you offer 41. Use: http://twitpic.com/ to share corporate events to show job seekers your organization’s work culture 42. You can also use Twitter to conduct background checks on employees by using the Twitter advanced public search. Tweetup – “Is an organized or impromptu gathering of people that use Twitter.” Tweetup is an excellent platform to promote products among local Tweeple. 43. Search for a Tweetup near your location using: http://nearbytweets.com/ 44. Organize a Tweetup in your locality using this tool: http://www.twtvite.com/ 45. Pitch for influencers in your location by attending Tweetups. 46. Give away promo codes to attendees in the Tweetup to spread your product virally. Follow your competition – This can give you insights on what your competitors are working on. 47. Follow your competitors on Twitter. 48. Use Twitter public search to get more insights on competitors’ activities 49. Analyze their Twitter account and follower patterns using: http://tweetstats.com/ 50. Compare your network statistics with competitors using: http://twitter-friends.com/ Twit coupons 51. Increase sales for your business by giving exclusive coupons to your followers 52. Use http://twtqpon.com/ to distribute coupons via Twitter 53. Get your tweets indexed in http://cheaptweet.com/ by using cheaptweet hashtag and increase exposure for your deals Twitter promotion 54. Now you can run sweepstakes offers via Twitter to create brand awareness, increase sales, etc. 55. Set the objective for Twitter promotion 56. Make sure that there is no bias in your promotion and be transparent in what you offer 57. To participate in the offer, ask users to include hashtags in their tweets 58. Track the performance of your campaign using this trend-tracking tool:http://www.trendrr.com/ 59. Make sure that you do not spam your followers and avoid sending too many tweets about your sweepstakes offers 60. Calculate the ROI of the campaign by breaking it down into: Number of new followers gained, products sold, new visitors to the websites, etc. Blog sync 61. Increase traffic to your blog by using this auto-feed tool, http://twitterfeed.com/ 62. Tweet the comments in your blog using this wordpress plug-in: http://www.jonbishop.com/commentwitter-plugin-page/ 63. Include your Twitter conversations in your blog using this wordpress plug-in: http://www.paulmc.org/whatithink/wordpress/plugins/twitter-friends-widget/ 64. Include a retweet button in your blog to spread it virally using Twitter. You can install the retweet button from here: http://tweetmeme.com/about/retweet_button Facebook sync 65. A Facebook page is a marketing channel for most brands. A marriage between Facebook and Twitter will initiate greater engagement and conversations 66. Integrate your Facebook page with Twitter using this Facebook application: http://apps.facebook.com/twitter/ 67. Avoid spamming your fans in your Facebook page with too many Twitter updates 68. Use this application: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=115463795461 to post selective Twitter updates Press Release Optimization 69. Get more exposure for your Press Releases (PR) by sharing them on Twitter 70. Use keywords in the first 30 characters of your PR tweet for SEO 71. Ask your followers to retweet your PRs to spread them virally 72. Use hashtags to track the PRs 73. Deliver your PRs to top journalists on Twitter using this paid service: http://muckrack.com/press_releases 74. Analyze the number of tweets your PR receives using: http://www.trendrr.com/ Direct messages (DM) for direct marketing – DM’s are new way to market your product via Twitter 75. Avoid sending DMs to all of your followers 76. Analyze the interests of your followers before sending them DMs 77. Customize your offering in DM based on followers’ demographics 78. Avoid using automated tools for sending DM’s 79. Always maintain a human touch while sending DMs Brand monitoring 80. Monitor real-time conversations about your brand in Twitter to understand customers’ linguistics 81. To start with, use a simple tool like Twitter public search 82. Monitor various keywords associated with your brand using this tool: http://monitter.com/ 83. Manage multiple Twitter accounts and brand monitoring using one single tool: http://splitweet.com/ 84. Paid tools like Radian6 provide many insights along with real-time brand monitoring Customer support 85. Sometimes your brand will get punk’d in Twitter and customer support plays a vital role to protect your brand from crisis 86. Monitor your brand in real-time and respond to various customer tweets before a brand crisis occurs 87. Assign different queries to employees in concerned departments usinghttp://cotweet.com/ 88. Set up a 24/7 automated response for customers’ tweets by using this tool: http://www.localbunny.com/ 89. Analyze the number of issues solved via Twitter to measure ROI Twitter Insights 90. Measure your Twitter performance using parameters like retweet rank, Click Through Rate (CTR) of your tweets, follower count etc. 91. Find your retweet rank using: http://www.retweetrank.com/ 92. Track the CTR of your tweets by using short URL services like: http://bit.ly/ 93. Analyze your web traffic from Twitter by adding UTM parameters in each tweet link using this tool: http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55578 94. Analyze your follower count at: http://twittercounter.com/ 95. Find which tweets help you gain or lose followers, using: http://www.tweeteffect.com/ 96. Measure your share of voice by using tools like Radian6 Security tips 97. Never use third party Twitter applications that do not support Oath authentication 98. Use strong passwords to protect your account from hackers. Use this tool: http://strongpasswordgenerator.com/ to generate strong passwords 99. If any security lapses occur on Twitter, change your password immediately 100. Do not click any links in DMs from strangers.