You are in charge of your brand!
Whether you seek to bolster your company’s reputation or simply socialize with like-minded people, Twitter is a great venue for it. These two goals are typically handled somewhat differently, but will often have some overlap.
Particularly now that Bing and Google have acknowledged that they’re now paying attention to social signals from Twitter and Facebook indicating the influence level of a user, social media is important to our sites’ traffic.
However, it’s not just a matter of tweeting that you’re at Starbucks or stuck in traffic on the freeway.
There’s a very old programmers’ saying: GIGO… which means garbage in, garbage out. If you want to gain any real benefit from your Twitter activities, you’ll need to build a rock-solid reputation and nurture it.
The Basics
Assuming that you’ve already locked in the ideal username, completed your profile and established a few relationships, there are some basic guidelines you should follow, in order to continue building your Twitter persona.
Don’t follow everybody that tweets something funny or interesting once, or only now and then… follow those that do so often. And if they don’t have something in common with you on a professional level, do it with your personal account, not your business account.
We all have friends, neighbors and acquaintances with other professions and backgrounds. But a Chicago dentist isn’t likely to work with a carpenter in California or a beautician in Budapest. If you want to connect with them, super! But do it with your personal account and keep the business account for business relationships.
Behavior
Twitter is networking, plain and simple. And the rules of networking aren’t really any different from the “real” world, in terms of participation.
- Everything shouldn’t be “me…me…me…” – it’s not all about you. Get over yourself;
- Do favors for others, BEFORE you need a favor from them, even if you may never need it;
- Interact with others, don’t just use them.
For instance, here are some posts on retweeting:
Authority
Become recognized as a resource or an expert in your niche. Staying abreast of the most recent developments in your niche and being the first to share them with your followers can rapidly establish you as an authority on a subject.
Opinions can be enough upon which to build a reputation, provided they’re based upon sound theory. Back them up with verifiable and authoritative data, and the effect is much greater, however. If you’re going to state just opinion, take care not to make any misstatements though, as just one can undo months of effort and cast doubts on your reliability as a source.
Mix it up
Don’t be constantly promoting just your own information. Mix it up a bit and be generous in promoting others, too. They’ll appreciate it, and will probably return the favor. Remember that productive relationships are two-way.
Feel free to join in some light banter now and then, as well. Let your personality show and you may find that you’ll collect more followers, willing to engage.
Here’s a great post on that:
Track it
You can track the clicks and retweets on your tweets, using HooteSuite or another similar platform. This can help you determine what sort of tweets aren’t getting the attention you want, and which supporters are supporting your activities.
This can be extremely helpful, if carefully analyzed, as it will show which activities garnered the most support… very important in establishing an effective pattern.
Engagement has two sides, and you need to monitor not only your active engagement with others, but also that of others with you. Generally, if you notice that one is falling off, you’ll see that the other is, as well. The faster you fix that, the better off you’ll be.
Don’t change
In other words, don’t become distant or snobbish, thinking that it will help you establish the reputation you seek. It won’t! All it’ll do is keep new friends at arm’s length, and chase old friends off. Pick your style, stick with what works, and be sure that any changes are positive.
If you stick with the above, and let your personality shine through, there’s every reason to believe that you’ll not only establish a viable social persona, but one that grows in popularity with time.
If one day you find that you’ve become the authority you wanted to be, don’t forget that your followers helped you get there. They may have the same goal, and now you have it in your power to help them.
I am a wife to a great husband of 13 years (here ya go, now I have to make changes to this sentence once a year), a mother to a beautiful and, no doubt, genius little girl, and a successful internet entrepreneur. I also devoted my life to Jesus Christ many years ago, and He remains my true priority, focus, and hope.
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
Great Post Sheldon! This is a great reminder of how we should be utilizing twitter to help our business. I’m creating another account for my blog so that there are no confusion.
Kevin´s last blog ..What’s Your Favorite Web Hosting Service – Hostgator Review
Hi Doc,
Excellent tips you are sharing here. Twitter can be hard at first, but with time it gets better. The key is to implement to the right strategies become good at it.
Thanks for sharing. Enjoy your holidays!
Mavis
Mavis on Attraction Marketing´s last blog ..Blog Traffic – Are The Famous Forums Dying
Excellent tips Sheldon; I’d like to flip the coin on mixing it up, if I may….
Yes indeed you must tweet others and not just yourself, but I learned first hand, it’s not all them them them either.
I went through a phase in 2010, I tweeted everyone. 1200+ tweets with only a handful, maybe two of them being ME…i was told in so many words, that ain’t good either.
Dennis Edell @ Direct Sales Marketing´s last blog ..Link Roundups – How Many Links is Too Many Links
Hey Sheldon,
Knowing how to manage your Twitter account can definitely make an impact on that site’s quality as a traffic source. A few months ago when I had absolutely no clue on the workings of the micro-blogging platform, I was struggling to get a single visit to my blog via the links I was tweeting. Although one of the setbacks was in the small amount of followers I had, the other thing was too much self promotion. Even though tweeting your own stuff regularly might seem like the best way to squeeze the most out of Twitter, this isn’t exactly true. Being generous and retweeting other’s tweets is in my opinion the key component. It is good to add a few non-link tweets from time to time as well. Interaction is yet another important factor, being disregarded by many. Building relationships with your followers is a must.
Great work mate! Happy holidays!
Daniel Sharkov@Blogging Tips´s last blog ..Want a Better Blog Tomorrow Morning - Do These 6 Things Tonight
Hi Doc,
Thanks for sharing your twitter insight.
Engaging is a key to successful tweeting. Fellow tweeters connect with people, not profiles. Don’ hesitate to let your personality out too. When I began to chat a little bit more about stuff outside of my niche I noticed an instant increase in followers. Lighten up to gain a more responsive following.
Have a powerful day!
RB
Ryan Biddulph´s last blog ..Home Based Opportunity - Why An Army General Makes a Swell Network Marketer
“Fellow tweeters connect with people, not profiles.” Couldn’t say it better, Ryan!
Thanks for chiming in with that. I think it’s the key to successful reputation management.
Doc,
Great Twitter advice… my favorite is “Don’t Change”. Being yourself is a big part of social media and Twitter is no different. Building a Twitter community can be fun a lot of fun.
Sheila Atwood´s last blog ..4 Obstacles Female Online Entrepreneurs Commonly Face and How to Conquer Them
Hi, Sheila- thanks for ringing in!
A lot of people forget that Twitter is a microblogging platform, which implies that many of the same rules we follow on our blogs apply equally on Twitter. I think “being yourself” is a biggie!
And you’re absolutely right… it can be a lot of fun building both your reputation and a community on Twitter.
Doc Sheldon@SXO Clinic´s last blog ..What I’ve Learned about SEO and SEOs
I guess Sheldon did a guest blog entry on this one and I must say these are great tips.
I’ve already been picking up these methods lately and started to unfollow a ton of people. It used to be a competition about who has the most people following you… and then you suffer the effects of it! Everyone’s just flooding your twitter with messages on some affiliate product or something about them. I rarely see stuff that seems to be of great value, so VALUE content definitely catches my eye.
I’m also starting to get rid of people who are not within my niche and concentrating on following people who are in my niche. It definitely makes a lot of difference to whom you’re following. I get very surprised myself when people outside my niche follow me, I believe it’s a bot or something though.
Loved this post Sheldon.. and thanks Ana for inviting Sheldon to do a guest entry.
Regards,
Darren Spruyt
Darren Spruyt´s last blog ..What Your Doctor Can Teach You About Network Marketing…
don’t forget that your followers helped you get there
That’s what makes the difference between short and long term success.
Ivan
Doc:
Great information. I can’t agree more with your statement about separating the personal account from the business account. In the bricks and mortar world, we have a business persona and a personal one, so it should carry right on over to our virtual world.
Lisa
Lisa@basic marketing tips´s last blog ..The One Question Every Blogger Should Ask Themselves
Hello, Lisa-
I think that using one account for both can work for some businesses, but not for the majority. Typically, I think it’s better to separate the two accounts, even if the connection is obvious. It allows you to establish more “personal” connections with your personal account, and some of that benefit will carry over to the business account. Yet some users just aren’t comfortable with the notion of a business account having a “personality”. It can be a tough call for some of us, I think.
Thanks a lot for your comment, Lisa!
Hi, Robin-
I think consistency is important, whether you post 100 times per day or only 5. If you skip two or three days, it can be felt and seen in your tracking. More important, though, is the quality of your tweets, in my opinion. I spend a lot of time on Twitter, and I find myself consciously ignoring the tweets of some folks that tend to pop in with 6 or 7 news tweets, clustered together, and then disappear until the next day. I find no value-added in that. Pointing out something important, like breaking news is one thing, but trying to be a news-aggregator is something else.
Thanks for your comment, Robin.
Great article and increasing brand and authority is even more important in 2011 since google and bing are using retweets and likes as part of their real time results ranking algo.
Hello, Andreas-
Absolutely! We can’t be sure how much yet, but it’s certain that brand/authority in the social media area have taken on more importance. I think it’s important to note that that’s not the case only in real-time results, either.
It should be interesting to see this more clearly defined in the year to come.
Thanks a lot for your comment, Andreas.
I think I have been trying to do the same since I have become active on Twitter. I ti s hard to establish the first connections but after that, with the right approach, it gets much easier.
I don’t ask people to RT my tweets and I am happy when they do.
But I do RT best articles I read, and I consider that a part of “being a good twitter user”.
It gives a bit back to the person that wrote a great article and it helps my followers to pay attention to really good blog, as I never RT something I don’t think is of great value.
Brankica @ Live Your Love´s last blog ..Wanna blog better Top 5 blogs to learn from
Hello, Brankica- thanks for commenting.
I think you’re on the right track, in tweeting interesting content that you come across. Re-tweeting the tweets of others is an important part of establishing connections, too. I wouldn’t be hesitant to occasionally ask folks to RT, but personally, I try to keep it to a minimum. I see some users that add “Pls RT” to nearly every post, and as a result, I think that gets “lost”.
Re-tweeting, to me, is somewhat like a “vote”, so I’m very careful to RT only things that I think are really interesting.
Thanks for stopping in, Brankica.
Hey Ana,
I have a suggestion for you. You should place your Twitter button within the post. This will allow individuals to tweet your content that read it on their mobile devices… Like me
This is a segment that is highly increasing. That is why we are seeing more and more mobile devices applications.
Thanks,
Josh
Josh Garcia@Generate Free Leads´s last blog ..Blogging Tips From Santa Claus You Don’t Want To Ignore
Hey Ana,
This statement, “Become recognized as a resource or an expert in your niche.” this is the goal everyone should be striving.
In my area, I network with small business owners to show them how they can explode their presence online utilizing blogs and social media.
I do this by sharing Or tweeting information on social media and blogging of well known reputable sources that small business owners recognize. I like to call it leverage of other people’s work.
Twitter is a tool that will provide additional exposure to anyone.
Have a great day,
Josh
Josh Garcia@Generate Free Leads´s last blog ..Blogging Tips From Santa Claus You Don’t Want To Ignore
Hello, Josh-
Glad to hear you’re already on-board with the benefits of social media.
Thanks for stopping by to comment.
I think that the best way to build a twitter brand is to be very consistent in you tweeting. I personally tweet everyday over 100 tweets a day.
Congruency is important too. You can tweet about internet marketing one day and the next day post about hip hop culture. lol
I totally agree with you about not only tweeting your own content but other peoples content that you like as long as its relevant to your brand.
Alot of people on twitter need to ready this post.
Thanks For Posting Ana
Robin Marks
Robin Marks´s last blog ..Killer MLM Article Spinning Strategy For More Leads Video Tutorial