tips on using twitter properly and effectively

Here are four tips to use your Twitter account effectively.
Following other Twitter accounts that are in your target
demographic will help you get an idea of what the
conversation is. Then you need to post updates about your
company, brand or product. As with any online medium, you
want to be very careful to never spam any of your
followers. Lastly, make sure that you follow successful
online marketers, and look for other participants who are
in your industry.

First Build an Account for Twitter Marketing

The first thing that you should do is to set up your
Twitter account and populate it with several interesting
Tweets, which are Twitter posts. Then begin following
people who are also using Twitter, and you will find that
most people will follow back. When your entire Twitter feed
has blanks, though, most people will not bother to follow
you. Once you start a micro blog post, you can get on with
following any target demographic, and this can be done in
either of two different ways.

1. Go to Twitter.com and do a search by typing in keywords
that relate to the demographic that you are targeting. For
example, if you are trying to sell an application for the
iPhone, you would enter the keyword 'iPhone' or 'iPhone
app' or anything that may find people who own an iPhone.
It's easy to follow people. If your posts are interesting
and relevant, you will probably pick up some followers this
way.

2. Locate Twitter accounts that you want to follow by
clicking the 'Find People' option. Then enter your
keywords, related industries, locations or other defining
detail to locate followers, and begin following them.

Twitter Marketing Uses Current Information

By adding news that is interesting and relevant about your
services or product, you can keep your Tweets current. You
can also add information about related news for your
industry to keep Tweets interesting and informative. For
example, if you sell cooking gadgets, you may want to post
news about food and recipes.

As you work on developing your targeted demographic, you
need to keep your followers engaged, so you will want to
tweet, or post, often. Make sure to retweet relevant tweets
from other Twitter followers. This is another great way to
pick up new followers, and when they start to follow you,
you also are plugged into their followers. Retweeting is
one of the fastest ways to build your following or network.

By checking with search.twitter.com frequently you can
look for brand names and see what customers are saying. You
can follow these Twitter accounts and thank them. If you
see customers who are angry or dissatisfied, you can follow
them as well. Then you can retweet them and solicit
solutions to the problem. Your customers will be thrilled
with the feedback from you, and even more thrilled when you
rectify the situation. Twitter makes it easy to grow a
'word of mouth' reputation virally.

Twitter Marketing and Spam Do Not Mix

Spam in any electronic media is the kiss of death. If you
begin spamming your followers, they will drop you like a
hot potato. Spam activity would include only posting
information on your own products, retweeting the same URL
repeatedly, obnoxious Twitter handles, and frivolous
tweets. Twitter followers are savvy consumers, and anything
deceptive or patronizing is going to leave a bad taste in
their mouth.

Twitter Marketing Can Assess the Competition

If you want to build a quality following, then follow
quality people on Twitter. There are many online marketers
that are experts on Twitter like Dave Peck, Chris Brogan
and Guy Kawasaki, and they should definitely be included in
your list on Twitter. Also look for corporations that are
active on Twitter. They are blazing a trail with their
marketing, and you can get good marketing information from
them.

Do not forget to look at what your competition is doing.
See how they are going about increasing their own following
on Twitter. If you want to be a smart marketer online, then
you need to constantly be aware of what your competition is
doing out in cyberspace. You have a huge marketing
opportunity if they rarely post on Twitter, never retweet,
or attend to negative posts.

Twitter Marketing Requires Patience

When you are using Twitter as part of your Internet
marketing plan, you need to give it time to work. Twitter
results take a while to appear, because it is one of the
more long-term strategies. You will have to build up your
networks and following, and if you use the correct
strategies, it will happen in a timely manner. However, do
not start a Twitter campaign if you are not going to see it
through to completion, because an unattended Twitter
account is worse than no account at all.

Once you have built a good Twitter following, then you want
to market with a gentle touch. Instead of using 'in your
face' marketing tactics, pose a question where your product
or service is the answer. Tweet that there are updates on
your company's blog instead of trying to cram the
information into your tweet, and people that want to know
more will click through to your blog.

Always respond when your followers tweet you. If you do not
keep up with your following, it will begin to crumble. If
you have too large of a following to maintain, then
outsource your retweets or assign an employee to monitor
and reply to your followers.

source: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2010/mar/15prt.html