Attract Traffic with These Twitter Tips

Twitter is a great and powerful way to attract and drive traffic to any website and boost brand awareness for any type of business. 

All social networking sites are good tools to connect with a wider audience and promote your business, products and services, but Twitter connects you with your followers in real-time communiqués, which means you can let people know what's happening on your site or with your business the moment it happens.<!--more-->

Breaking into a new method of marketing can be overwhelming, especially when there's a lot of keep track of, as there is with Twitter. Here are some Twitter tips to help you get the most out of Twittering.

Twitter Tip #1: Think Strategically

Twittering for business means you need to think strategically about your tweets. There is a good rule to follow about tweeting business; your tweets should be 90 percent helpful and only 10 percent promotional. That 90 percent can include funny, inspirational or other community-building types of tweets. You can send advice, tips, and informative updates. You can send links as well, but they should be links to content, not sales. Save the promotions, discounts and sales tweets for the 10 percent.

Twitter Tip #2: Create a Good Profile

It's important that your Twitter homepage match your business brand and make a great impression. You can do this by perfecting your profile and customizing the look of your page.

Take the colors and fonts (even the background) that you use on your company's site and use them on your Twitter homepage. That way the homepage looks like a natural extension of your website.

The main element of your Twitter profile is your bio. You only have 160 characters to describe yourself, your company and any theme or purpose for your tweets. The best way to get the best bio is to practice. Write a few drafts of your bio, and then you can pick the most compelling version and use it on your page. New followers will want to know what you're tweeting about and why they should follow you and your bio is a chance to convince them.

Twitter Tip #3: Set a Schedule

You want an active Twitter audience, so post questions to engage your followers, and tweet regularly. Followers like getting tweets; but not every few minutes! Start slow if you're new to the process and unsure of what to say – maybe just one tweet a day, or three times a week, about something new in your niche news or on your site. Then you can build up, but watch your follower list as you do, if followers start dropping off, you might be tweeting too much. Remember the 90/10 rule!

Twitter Tip #4: Connect with Your Followers

You can use Twitter to find out more about your target audience, prospective customers and potential users. Start by checking out what's being talked about in your niche. You can search the Twitter website to see what people are saying about the topics you're interested in. Then you can click on a @username and check out his or her homepage and see if you want to follow. If you look into what the buzz is about your industry, you can see what issues need to be addresses, and what people are looking for. This can help you and your business to meet those needs and gain new customers.

Twitter Tip #5: Retweet

Retweeting is a good way to build a bigger audience, provide more useful information to your followers and build your brand. Retweeting is simply passing along a message, and it can be helpful if you are coming up blank with something to tweet, or if you see a tweet that's really great. Say someone you follow tweets some really good advice, and you'd like to share it with your group of followers. If you repeat the advice word-for-word, it's taking credit for an idea that isn't yours. So what you can do is rebroadcast the tweet, or retweet it.

You can retweet any tweet of someone you follow. The retweet includes link to the original tweet and Twitter-er, so credit is given to the original poster. Retweeting helps you provide your followers with useful information, great tips and advice, and new perspectives. It also helps you build your reputation as a resource. This makes retweeting a great Twitter strategy.

One of the great things about Twitter is the way it pops you into the conversation and lets you respond. You will be connecting to returning and potential customers, so make sure you answer any questions tweeted quickly and politely. Remember the golden rule – treat others as you would like to be treated yourself – and the golden rule of Twittering for business – 90 percent helpful, 10 percent promotional.

This will remind you that building trust and confidence is the way to happy, long-term customers, and a happy healthy business!