Increase Website Sales with Twitter Marketing

Cool New Facebook Tool

Agora Pulse called barometer.agorapulse.com runs an analysis against your Facebook page and other pages within your network. After you accept the permission requirements, it processes and comes back with a list of very interesting statistics. The fans reached, engagement, viral reach, organic reach and click through rates and compares these to other pages that are within the same network. It's a free tool and helpful to get a quick barometer of your Facebook page. It allows you to get a quick overview and comparison report of your competitors versus your company's Facebook page.

Websites and Twitter as a Marketing Strategy

Twitter is a great learning tool. It is a great place to keep up with the news and these are legitimate business purposes. The biggest advantage of Twitter to your website is networking. If your website benefits from personal networking, then you can for sure benefit from Twitter marketing. You can build relationships for your brand through Twitter. "Small talk" like answering questions, thanking people, or answering back that is limited to under 140 characters is a great way to build your brand.

How do you build a following on your Website or Blog?

It takes a lot of effort to pull people to your website, blog or Facebook page. But on Twitter, on the other hand, you can find them, rather then them finding you.

So how do you find relevant, business contacts that can benefit your company and your website? Build your audience and learn from these people and connect from them. Just a comment here-and-there. Re-tweet, meaning re-sharing someone else's content, is like saying "thank you" or "good job". It shows that you appreciate their content and after you re-tweet anthers' content, you are on their radar screen. If you do a good job with surrounding yourself with a relevant and targeted audience, they will be providing great content for you which, in-turn, provides you with great content that you can re-tweet or comment on. Re-sharing someone else's content is a powerful tool on Twitter because you are creating value for your audience. After you re-tweet someone a couple of times and you make an authentic attempt to connect with them in a genuine way, you build your audience and your network. Twitter is likened to "networking on steroids".

There are a lot of settings on Twitter that can help you to learn which people to connect with. Recommended followers is a Twitter tool that helps you to find people to connect with.

Twitter Widgets are an important tool to update on your Twitter account because when you re-tweet someone's content, if that person does not follow you, it will say "would you like to follow…" This helps to build your fan base and the people that follow you.

What is the strategy to follow people back?

When you see that someone is not following you and they are re-tweeting your content, it is an honor. So in that case, try and follow that person back. There are no rules, but the strategy to follow is to keep it real and be genuine.

Twitter Tools

HootSuite - once you get above 200 or so people that you are following, Twitter can become an "unmanageable" wall of noise. You can segment your Twitter followers into lists. This way you have your followers organized and they are easier to manage. HootSuite is a powerful platform. There is a free version and a pro version.

ManageFlitter - this Twitter tool helps you to identify the spammers who are following you. It will help you to find people who are inactive too.

Website Customer Service

TweetBot is an app that you can get on your smart phone and Mac that allows you to filter your stream in a way that is unique. So for example, if you have two Twitter accounts, you can use one for customer service and one for broadcasting your articles. With TweetBot you can set it up so your filters do not show re-tweets or any tweet that uses an app. So, all that is left is the "real stuff" from "real people". It helps you to use Twitter as a Customer Service tool for your website and business.

Large Brands, Websites, and Twitter

Some of the big brands have "war rooms" with screens around the room where they are able to follow and monitor their social activity all around the world. Some of these tools are very sophisticated and expensive. It is becoming a very important aspect for companies to address because one of the most popular activities is "complaining". Twitter is becoming the new 1-800 number, so if you are not there to answer on the other end, it can damage your online reputation. 50% of social media users expect a reply to their complaint within one hour or less. Their expectation is that a response should be provided 24 hours a day. Some businesses, however, have a call center that is open 9-5, Monday through Friday. So how do companies become "in-tune" with how and when people are using Twitter? How do companies adjust and adapt to these new conditions so that if customers are angry and complain, there is a response? A response is important to maintain a brand's reputation. This is part of becoming a social organization. Companies need to analyze the cost versus the benefit of 24 hour a day Twitter responses. It's a decision only that company can make after careful analysis.

Klout Scores and Active Twitter Identity

What is Klout?

Klout is an online tool that is designed to help people or companies discover and be recognized for how they influence the world. Klout is very Twitter centric.

Klout, Cred, Pure Index, Opinions and other similar tools are becoming very popular for businesses to whom Twitter marketing is important and profitable. These tools help to determine if you are someone that can create content that can move through the web. In other words, are you someone that can create buzz? These tools also try to assign "what is your topic of influence". These tools are trying to determine if you are a social media member that creates content that results in a "reaction". These tools are very complex.

This is very important because jobs, PR, Marketing, Sales, Service, even HR depend on the ability to move content on the web. It doesn't determine how influential you are in the real world, but it is a relative indicator like a "credit score". It is an indicator and millions of companies use that indicator very profitably. Twitter is very important and the main component in Klout.

Simplifying the Twitter Experience: "The Twit Cleaner"

Massively Unfollow: Is it a good idea?

Some tools clear out "junk followers" and these are Twitter people that haven't been on Twitter for months, those that use spam bots, those that do not follow anyone or those that are constantly re-tweeting the same content. Reciprocity following concept that has been around for a long time means that if someone follows you, you should follow them back. So this tool can help to simplify the Twitter experience and manage the concept and tradition of reciprocity following on Twitter.

Business, Websites, and Sales

Business opportunities, partnerships and business relationships come from very unlikely places and you really never know how these things are going to happen. So a good strategy is to be "inclusive". How to you manage this? The answer is "lists". Focus on lists and focus on the people that are trying to build a relationship with you. Unleash Twitter as a global networking tool and to do this, be as inclusive as possible. With massive followers, you need to organize them in lists. The amount of spam and direct messages you receive will go down if you manage your Twitter account effectively.

If you start to get popular on Twitter, how are you going to handle the spam? For any start up in the digital space, you need to think about spam and how you are going to manage your growth?

Twitter monitoring is becoming a integral part of growing a company or start-up. Twitter is evolving and brands need to pay attention to these changes.

What is your favorite way to use Twitter to market an event or new website?

People are sick of being sold to. People are sick of being marketed to. But if you patiently build an engaged audience that is interested in you, you will not have any problem promoting an event because your followers are naturally attracted to you. But if you go on Twitter and sell, sell, sell, or market only -- eventually people will turn off your stream and tune you out.

Build a relevant, targeted audience. Over time, build those relationships so when it is time to have an event, or start a new website, business or service, you will be supported by your followers.

Creative Twitter Strategies—Build Traction to your Website

Certain business are creating entertaining personas. They are not real people. For example, a Taco Company created a "wise guy taco" that had funny comments posted on Twitter. Another high-fashion brand in New York created a persona of a shopper and people can follow her shopping experiences in New York. Although these are fake, it was interesting and people follow the "story" which funnels interest to that company's website.

It is like entertainment. It is a nuance. We are trying to compete is an increasing information dense world. How do we cut through? How do we attract attention? Maybe being funny and making fun of ourselves will help to attract attention to your Twitter account, which we all know is a resource that can be used to funnel visitors to your website or blog, which results in more sales.

Website Hosting

Choose a website host that is "Twitter friendly". If you follow these strategies, Twitter can generate traffic to your website. And a Twitter-friendly web hosting firm will provide the right amount of bandwidth and utilize a data center with over 15 bandwidth providers. This is very important because if your Twitter account generates buzz, the traffic to your website will grow exponentially and you want a partner in your web hosting firm that can handle the traffic. Be sure to choose a web hosting provider that has at least 15 in-bound, Tier-1 bandwidth providers. Many web hosting firms only have only one or two, which can result in delays loading your website, and that is not good.

When deciding to create a strategy for your website or blog, consider these tips to remain competitive, grow and build a network of followers to your website.