More marketing with Twitter Driving profits with 21st Century communications

Today I posted how to market using Twitter. I thought I’d open it to the experts on LinkedIn. I got some REALLY idiotic advice. As I’ve said, LinkedIn has gone downhill. Here’s the first answer on the question: “Once you get people to follow you on twitter, then you can market to them. The easiest way is on a daily basis, that way you limit the amount time you are spending on it. Twitter has some problems. The people that are followed the most are stars thus unless you are famous your reach will most likely be limited. Think of it as one of many tools you can use to market your business.”

Let me translate – if you want a hot dog, get out a hot dog bun and warm a hot dog. Real intelligent, eh? The person hadn’t even read the post before making this wise comment. In other words, it’s like getting the mustard, ketchup and bun out to discover you don’t have any hot dogs. This person’s answer reminded me they removed Michael Jackson’s brain (are they trying to beat James Brown’s record of how long before he is buried?).

Most of the answers were like that above.

Amit Thard, an account manager with Strategic America in Des Moines, came up with a great strategy, “I have done some successful campaigns using twitter and here is what I have learned:

“1) Get a targeted following. Use Twellow.com to find appropriate people in your niche.
“2) No more than 20 tweets per day. Twitter is a tool that can be used for marketing, not the backbone of your marketing plan.
“3) Engage in conversation: I used a 4:1 ratio. For every 4 tweets, I put a link in one. In the other tweets, I talk to people, answer questions and build a reputation.
“4) Time management: I go on twitter 3 times per day. The total time spent is probably 20 mins per day.
“5) Follow back.
“6) Spend 1 hour a week on twellow, following people in my niche.
“7)Cross promote: My website has a link to my facebook profile and twitter account, and my facebook page has the other two and my twitter page has the site and facebook. I use one platform to promote the other.
"8) Profile: My twitter profile has my name, website URL and a decent look.

“Most important, I am flexible. I try different things and see what works. I always track my results and traffic generated.”

Jonathan Jaffee of New York City (remember the Pace picante ad?), said, “Well it takes a lot of effort. I agree with what you wrote.

“(1) make sure to update the background of your profile to an image that contains a solid marketing message such that when people look you up, they see your message

“(2) make sure that your tweets have something of value to add related to your business, not what you ate for lunch or that your plane is delayed

“(3) don't share secrets you don't want to leak out to your clients/competition (from Marketing Sociologist – my daughter has a habit of this – “not home, on vacation” in other words, empty out my home. Same with every aspiring rock star – did you know Ashley Tisdale is somewhere in the Midwest – clear out her California and Hawaii homes)

“(4) use TweetDeck or some such tool to conduct the type of searches you wrote about to target narrowly potentials - don't use TwitFollow or such services because they get it wrong - see @rogermoor for example

“(5) put a personal picture for your profile such that people feel you are a real person (Marketing Sociologist again – uh-oh, but as Alyson Michalka said in Bandslam, “People don’t need to know my business.”)

“Follow me on Twitter @jkjaffe” Nice sales pitch and close.