27th March 2013

Why Twitter is Amazing for Professionals

Social media success for professionals starts with being part of the single biggest conversation, Twitter.

No matter what type of professional advice you provide, a proportion of your clients and the people that influence them are active on Twitter. In today’s competitive market, it’s crucial to engage with your clients and potential clients wherever they spend time and as real time as possible.

Getting Started

Opening a Twitter account is easy, but deciding what to say and when is the key. Just like any other marketing aid, you should have a plan detailing the finer points such what you want to be known for and what you want to achieve.

Before you formulate your plan, spend sometime on twitter just listening. Follow your the social stream of your competitors and industry leaders that you know are active on Twitter. Look at how they interact with their followers. Consider how often they post and what they post about.

Integrate Twitter with your other marketing tool, like web analytics, which will show you when your potential customers are online as they are tracked visiting you web site. That’s the time to Tweet links out that link to content on your site.

Keywords and timelines

You don’t have to limit yourself to Tweeting about your own content – this is where Twitter becomes an instant interactive reputation and brand builder.

• You should have your keywords mapped out in your strategy, so using a tool like Sprout or Hootsuite, put in searches for your keywords and watch the timelines.
• You’ll see who is actively promoting ideas and comments, so follow them and join in the conversation.
• Don’t be rude or crude if you disagree, just post a polite comment expressing your point of view.
• Make sure your replies contain your keywords and always a link back to a landing page on your web site.
• Tracking landing page traffic will show you how well your Twitter campaign is progressing, as you can identify the users coming from the social media site.

Networking

• Thinking of Twitter as a separate marketing tool is where many businesses go wrong. Twitter is part of the mix and another channel for attracting leads to your web site.
• Followers hitting on your keywords will start to add you as a resource. This is when the reputation and brand building starts.
• A lot of Twitter traffic is retweeting – sending on someone else’s Tweet with a comment.
• If your followers are retweeting your messages, then you are making inroads in to their list of followers, and so the phenomenon grows.
• For professionals, Twitter is not only about leads, conversions and sales, but networking as well.
• Don’t forget Twitter can help your web site page ranking on search engines. Google and Bing both state they take Twitter chatter and links in to account when they look at ranking web sites, and retweeted links carry even more weight.

That’s why tweeting a link to a blog is important – as the retweeted links are prizes that build page

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