Twitter Marketing Strategy

Twitter Marketing Basics: Create a Twitter Marketing Strategy
Many people jumped onto the Twitter bandwagon in early 2009 thanks to celebrity Twitter endorsement from the likes of Oprah. This sudden influx of users has caught the eye of marketers looking to take advantage of this social network of Twitter users. The most successful Twitter marketing campaigs start with a solid Twitter marketing strategy. Here are a few tips for using Twitter for marketing and creating your own Twitter marketing strategy:

Create a Twitter Marketing Strategy
You’ll find the most success if, before your start Twittering, you first write out your Twitter marketing strategy including what types of things you’ll try to post about, how often you’ll post, how your twittering will help you achieve your marketing goals, how many followers you’ll try to reach, how your twittering fits into your overall offline and online marketing strategy, who you can get to help write/submit posts, etc. Once you’ve got your Twitter marketing strategy nailed then start posting to your twitter account. If you’re not sure where to start then consider hiring a Twitter marketing consultant help you create and /or implement your Twitter marketing strategy.

Make & Follow Twitter Friends
Engage with others on Twitter. Follow influential bloggers and business owners and media on Twitter. In some cases they will follow you back. Interact with your followers and those you're following to build relationship and community. Contribute valuable information to the conversation. Retweet relevant posts made by those you’re following. Post links to great articles you or others have written.

Manage Your Brand in Twitter
Do searches using Twitter Search for your own brand or product name to see what others are saying about you or your products or services and interact when appropriate. Develop a plan for how you will reply to positive and negative posts about your organization and who will reply to what kinds of posts.

Get your Staff Twittering.
Twitter offers a great way to manage connections, share industry insights and network. Since Twitter posts are limited to 140 characters even busy staff can find time to post to Twitter while following your organization's Twitter marketing strategy and/or corporate social media guidelines.

Automate Twitter Posting From Your Blog
There are many great apps out there that enable you to automatically post your blog posts to your twitter account. Consider feeding your Twitter account directly from your blog using one of theTwitter apps available via Wordpress and elsewhere. Your Twitter posts from your blog will link back to your blog post, driving your followers into your blog.

Tweet about Events
If your organization is holding or taking part in any kind of event, post about it on Twitter. Invite your Twitter followers to attend or take part in the event. Provide event promotions, summaries, last minute updates.

Use Twitter Software

While you can post directly from Twitter.com, you'll have more success if you manage your Tweets and followers using one of the many Twitter desktop tools available such as HootSuite.com or TweetDeck or Tweetie for the iPhone.