Twitter is more than an ridiculously popular way to let your friends, family and followers know the latest thought to cross your mind, it’s a great way to market your services, products and brand to customers and new audiences and while generating website traffic.
Once you’ve got your site built and your services set, you need to attract traffic. Using the social networking site Twitter to build your brand, share information and generate website traffic is a good way to attract potential clients and customers. But in order to be successful at creating website traffic and optimizing Twitter like a pro, you need to approach the messaging service as you would any other marketing tool. You need a plan.
Who are you?
Take time to think about your business and identify your customer. What are you really providing them? Is it information? Security? Tools to advance their careers? Personal satisfaction? Enlightenment?
Also think about your company. What’s your brand? What’s your image? Knowing who you want to follow you on Twitter and the style in which you should be tweeting is actually really important to using Twitter to direct website traffic successfully. With this information you’ll be able to use Twitter to showcase your services.
The Message is the Marketing/The Marketing is the Message
The key to marketing is messaging. You need to figure out the right balance for what you say, how you say it, and especially how often you say it. To use Twitter successfully, you cannot overwhelming your followers with tweets. Constant updates – especially if you are including links in the tweets- can get you more ‘unfollows’ than sales.
There’s a golden rule for generating website traffic with Twitter that’s the 90/10 split. 90 percent of your tweets are informational, 10 percent are promotional. So for every 100 tweets, only 10 should directly endorse your business, the other 90 should be tips, advice, observations, etc.
Use What You Know
Twitter may feel like it’s a whole new ballgame. After all each tweet can only be 140 characters. That’s little more than the last two sentences. Just remember, while the format may be new, the same sentiments apply. What works best for generating website traffic to your site now? What are the advertisements that get the most clicks and attention? What type of email newsletter gets a response? What on your site gets the most attention?
If it’s the tips in the newsletters, the Q&A session with customers you offer, then chances are it’s the information you provide that appeals to your audience. You can bring that knowledge to work on Twitter by tweeting tips. If you find people really respond to sales and coupons, you can tweet tips about discounts, links to finding coupons and news about upcoming promotions.
It’s really important to watch the response to your tweets. If you are losing followers, you might be tweeting too often or pitching too much. If you’re gaining, keep providing the same great content. The more followers you get, the more your audience grows. The more your audience grows the more website traffic you create, and the more business you can generate.
