Social sites like Twitter and Facebook are great free tools that you can use to drive traffic to your website or blog. You can meet and interact with all kinds of people and build good relationships with them. Then, after showing your new friends respect and building their trust, you can show them what it is you do. Maybe they’ll be interested in learning or buying from you or maybe not. It may take some time to gain their rapt and devoted attention and get them to follow all your suggestions.

Marketing tips to use when building your lists on these social sites…

1. You can go for large numbers of followers and just let the ones who aren’t interested fall off. The benefit to this is that you will be seen as more of an expert if you have a large list of friends and followers. You can also market and reach a lot more people. Just because someone rides broncs in a rodeo doesn’t mean he might not be the right person for my coaching site. He may be tired of breaking bones for a living and want to just stay home and teach others how to ride ‘em cowboy on a blog. You can never judge someone by what they are doing now. You can also be accused of being a spammer if you follow tons of people. Use good judgment on this one.

2. You also can be very picky and only follow and be followed by those who are in the same arena you are in. You will definitely have a very targeted list, but you may also have a very competitive list. You may very well be teaching your competition your closely guarded secrets. Your list will be small, but it may be much more receptive to you. Small lists can do very well if you train the people on those lists with great valuable information that they can use and succeed with. As you can see, both methods can be good and bad, your choice.

Using either method can work, but the trick is to be personal and transparent. Let your audience get to know you well. Respond to all those who Tweet or post on your Wall if they have something important to say or ask. Get to know those who are your friends or who are following you, be interested in them. Everyone is watching and if they see you as being friendly and helpful, they may refer you to their list.

Your informative content is the next most important thing. You have to be giving these people something they can use, something that will help them get where they want to go. Don’t post junk. Talk about what has helped you to succeed in your online marketing business. Give them tips that work. Send them to other good content by RTing or giving them links. Just show your list that your heart is in the right place and that you are there to help. They will listen.

When using these marketing tips, just remember that both ways work. Just be there for your list. Answer them, talk to them, and show them that you care.

I don’t consider my self a Twitter marketing expert, because I don’t have a million followers, or even 100,000. But I do think that for my purposes, (sharing what I know), following quality people is the key and the 40+ thousand followers I am lucky enough to be associated with are appreciated by me a lot more because of it. Sharing my Twitter marketing tips and being helpful and credible builds trust, attracts faithful followers and results in a new method of social networking. Just one Tweet may or may not make a difference, but when you add them up over time, a bigger picture starts to emerge.

Twitter Marketing tips are easy to come by. You need to watch which advise you listen to however. There is good and bad info out there and just one bad Tweet can totally ruin your credibility with your followers. This is not something you want to happen. You can use Twitter as a consumer as well as for branding yourself, marketing, customer service, real-time searching,and even direct sales. Twitter is a valuable tool and you do not want to screw it up.

There is a lot of advice on what you should do with Twitter, but based on the increasing ways people mis-behave, there seem to be many ways to fail as well.

I decided to share some Tips on Social Marketing DON’T's on Twitter

1. Don’t describe yourself in an obscure way on your profile. Make yourself transparent. Share who you really are with your followers. Be real.
2. Don’t put up a Twitter profile without a picture of YOU. People want to see who they are dealing with.
3. Don’t have a plain and uninteresting background. Make it stand out and brand you. Your Twitter page is what will impress or repulse followers when they click on your @username.
4. Don’t auto reply to followers with a link to your website or blog. Even worse… a link to a sales page. They aren’t ready yet. Let them get to know you and trust you first. Twitter is SOCIAL marketing.
5. Don’t Tweet about some great resource and then not share a link.
6. Don’t follow over 100 people an hour. Twitter will slap you hard! You can also only follow 1,000 a day. Play by the rules.
7. Don’t post about totally stupid stuff. Nobody cares if you just went to the bathroom, watered your house plant, stubbed your toe, etc. Make it interesting. Post photos, videos, great content, RT good info and then share a couple links to some product you think is outstanding. Make sure you post something that would be interesting to you.
8. Don’t schedule your posts to show up every few minutes. People will get sick of seeing you.
9. Don’t forget to watch your language if you want business people to take you seriously. Keep it clean. Kids are on Twitter too.
10. Don’t over abbreviate so much that nobody can figure out what you’re saying. Use spell check too. Your misspelled words will tell your followers that you’re either dumb or don’t care. Present yourself in the manner that you want people to see you. What is your goal with Twitter? Make it a success.

I hope these Twitter marketing DON’Ts help you to grow your list of followers. Just be yourself and let people see the real you. You will make some great connections and find some great business partners. Just be real and Tweet on.

If you’ve recently joined Twitter, you might be wondering if it can really help you drive traffic to your small business blog or website. If you don’t have a bunch of followers, it can seem like a daunting proposition! This Twitter marketing tip will show you that once you have followers, you can drive a ton of traffic to your blog or website using Twitter.

The first thing you need to do is add as many followers as you can. Now, please remember that Twitter does have a limit on this, and you need about 2,000 people to follow you before you’re able to follow lots more people. But, once you have a good amount of followers, it is as simple as the followers seeing a link to your blog or website and going there. People are on Twitter every hour of every single day, and you are likely to get lots of clicks from them when they want to see what you have to say there.

Now, when people land on your page, they need to be intrigued so they’ll want to read more and click on your links. This will help bring people into your sales funnel, and help get them interested in you and your blog or website. Be sure that your content is extremely relevant to the niche your Twitter account is based on. That way, you’ll be getting more targeted and focused prospects who are interested in exactly what you have to say and in buying what you are promoting.

The more followers you have on Twitter, the likelier it is that you will get tons of traffic to your blog or website. That’s why there have been several automated tools developed to help you get traffic more easily. Some of these tools will auto follow and unfollow people for you, so you don’t have to sit there all day and click people to follow. Click here to view more details or HummingBird 2 – By Far the Best Marketing Tool for Twitter!

Some tools will even post Tweets for you at predetermined times. It’s a great time saver, but please realize that Twitter seems to be cracking down on these methods a bit. You have to follow the Twitter rules at all times.

There are also products and sites that will help you generate content for your Twitter posts. There is one product that helps you set up content with Google for free, and it’s completely legal to use! You can also outsource your posts for a very reasonable cost. Using highly relevant content in this way is very hands off and can generate a lot of interest in the things you have to say on Twitter. Just be sure to keep it a mixture of great content and information, personal details about you, and just a few sales messages and you’re sure to get a lot of traffic. Keep it fun and keep it simple.

At first, it can seem slow to get the followers you need to give you lot of traffic. But then it snow balls and slowly builds momentum and starts rolling faster and faster and you’ll have thousands of followers who are all visiting your content loaded small business blog or website daily. This is a easy way to lead to some great profits for you online. Hope this Twitter marketing tip helps bring traffic your way.

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This Twitter Marketing Tip is actually about a couple things. Hashtags and Twitter Parties. Since they work  together well, I think they need to be addressed together.

Many people don’t know what Twitter hashtags are or how to use them. This is a simple explanation of how to use Twitter hashtags to simplify and enjoy your Tweeting more,how to attract new followers and maybe even how to monetize with a Twitter Party.

On your Twitter homepage you will find Trending Topics on the bottom of the right side bar. You will notice that many of the topics have the hashtag or # sign in front of them.

If you click on a #topic (like #swineflu), it will bring up a search for all the Tweets about or containing that topic that have used that hashtag. All these people will be talking about that particular subject.

It’s a way of categorizing Tweets across Twitter for like minded people who are Tweeting about the same topic. It’s a way to organize them so they can easily converse with each other and see what people are talking about on that particular topic. This is also a great way to Tweet only about what you are interested in.

There are third party applications out there like TweetDeck and TweetGrid which are free and totally safe to use. They help by letting you search for everyone who is Tweeting about a certain topic. They also let you see who is replying to all your Tweets on this topic.

So, you can quickly and easily see all the people who are talking about a particular topic, reply to them and see who is replying to you. How cool is that? All on one screen.

This leads into…

How to have a Twitter Party?

A Twitter Party is a virtual party that is a fast paced and fun way to connect and discuss a topic of choice. Most Twitter parties have an expert panelist or moderator to keep the party on topic.

A group of users or a moderator will organize a Twitter Party at a certain time to Tweet about and discuse a certain topic. They will advertize it on their blogs, websites, send out emails and then Tweet about it on Twitter all day long. Then people can go to Twitter at the pre chosen time and put in a chosen #hashtag.

You then just set TweetGrid or TweetDeck so the #hashtag is on the left column. Your own Tweets and replys should appear on the right column and  the moderator or whoever is hosting the Twitter party should be in the center. How easy is that?

Twitter Party attendees encourage each other to reach goals. They get together for fun, friends and support. Sometimes there are prizes given for the one who Tweets the most, etc.

Twitter Parties can be held for pet lovers to chat about their dogs, Autism parents to get support and answers for their children, or even Twitter users to get new ideas on how to monetize Twitter. Any subject is OK and the sky’s the limit.

Twitter Parties can also be held at a pre determined public location, like a bar or restaurant or a seminar. Twittering can be a lead into a very important person to person chat. Everyone who shows up and or Tweets can then be eligible to win a prize or gift. This is really just a new spin on the old Tupperware and Amway parties. You can have them from the privacy of your home or in a group or even out in public. Any subject is fair game and the contacts you can make and the relationships you can build are priceless.

I hope this Twitter Marketing Tip has given you some ideas for new ways to use Twitter in your business and personal life. Who do you know? Tweet ‘em.

The absolute #1 best Twitter marketing tip I can give someone who wants to build or expand their online or offline business with Twitter is to be persistent. Persistence pays off on Twitter just as it does with blogging and other social sites. If people don’t see and hear you they will lose interest fast, just ask a movie star. Just post regularly, a few times a day. Follow as many people as you can and engage in discussions often. Respond to what other people have to say. Post about whatever interests you, because it WILL interest someone. You will attract people like yourself and those will be the people who are easiest and best to work with most times. Sometimes post what interests you even if you don’t think anyone else will find it interesting. Experiment and have fun with this.

There is no right and wrong way to use Twitter!

This isn’t sales, where we’ve had thousands of years of experience to build on. Twitter was only invented a couple years ago. Sometimes you try something on Twitter and people will react negatively, but those people are full of baloney. Don’t worry about the negative people out their, just keep following your path. Find out what works for you, and go with it. The only way to be wrong on Twitter is to be annoying and self serving.

Britney Spears has a social media director to update her social media accounts, with input from Britney herself, of course, and her assistant, her publicist, and the rest of her huge entourage. At first I thought it was crazy and wrong. The essence of Twitter is that you update it yourself, even if you’re a celebrity, and be transparent. Let people see exactly who you are. Hiring someone to use Twitter for you seemed wrong, kind of like hiring someone to go play poker for you. But, her approach seems to work for her and her fans on Twitter love it. Now other stars are jumping on the band wagon with Twitter. They realize what a great marketing medium it is. It lets your personality shine through and builds relationships/fans.

If you just keep Twittering, and participating in the conversation, you’ll find a voice that works for you. Remember, there are people out there who will bond with you. You just have to help them find you. You have to keep yourself in the Twitter arena as much as possible so they see you.

I invest time every day on Twitter. I try to talk to people one-on-one, not just broadcast. The one-on-one conversations are the ones people will remember and they’ll want to know more about you if they resonate with you and your personality. And I always try to be either entertaining or informative, or both, even when I’m just Twittering about what I had for lunch. They have to have a reason to want to come back and read more of your Tweets.

The #2 Twitter marketing tip I have is to not worry about who you follow or who is following you. The good ones who are interested in you and what you have to say will stick. The others will fade away and drop off to find what works for them, and that’s a good thing. Only certain people will be the ones you want to work and play with anyhow. It’s a natural law. Accumulating big numbers of followers is a worthwhile pursuit in that large numbers impress people. Up front this is good, because more people will stop to take a look at what you’re all about. People follow leaders. This just adds up to expose you to more people. It puts you out in a viral way. Don’t forget the important things though, in your passion to get 100,000 followers. The real value that you get from Twitter, or any social media site, comes from the personal and professional connections you make. And you make those connections one at a time!

It’s kind of like face-to-face networking. The best connections I’ve ever made at conferences and seminars aren’t at the big networking events with hundreds of people in attendance. My best friends and business deals were made by going out to a bar for a drink or having lunch with a few people I met in a hallway or even in the bathroom. But, the huge gathering of people is what exposed me to them. Think of Twitter as your way to find lots of people to sort through, to find the good ones that will enrich your life.

One thing I try not to do is ask my followers to RT (retweet) my personal Tweets. It just seems a bit needy and desperate. Same thing for starting a contest to encourage people to follow you. I want people to follow me for the right reasons. Those are the ones who will stick around for the long term and build good rapport with you.

I take a bit of a different approach to building traffic on Twitter. I look for ways to help other people. I rarely ask people to retweet my posts, but I often retweet other people’s posts or a product review when I find them useful or entertaining. That’s sharing something that has value and showing followers what your interests are. It also helps the person you retweet get some traffic and they will notice and maybe even reciprocate. And, while I often post links on Twitter, it’s the same thing, I usually post links to other people’s works, when I find them interesting or helpful. If I give people good and entertaining info, they will find me and check out what I’m doing online. There’s no need to beat my own drum.

I’ve taken to using this philosophy in almost all my efforts at promotion, marketing and life now. Just look for ways to help other people, and you’ll succeed yourself.

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