To some, Twitter is a fantastic tool for helping them to stay in touch with family and friends, and to make new friends. For others, Twitter represents a low-to-no-cost, wide reaching advertising venue. It’s no wonder that everybody from the average Joe and Jane to mega-corporations like Starbucks and Google are utilizing this micro-blogging platform for brand and revenue enhancement. While you probably do not have the reach, or the visibility, of the likes of Google and Starbucks, that doesn’t mean that you aren’t able to glean a pretty penny or two by investing in your own Twitter account. Requisites – tools and resources you need Really, it’s not difficult to turn your social capital into cash, and here are the three things you need in order to make money using Twitter: The last two are simple — you probably already have these items in place. However, it’s point one that can make the difference between success and failure when you’re looking to turn your social networking stock into real, spendable cash. Probably the easiest way to learn the right way to approach marketing through Twitter is to identify the wrong way of going about promoting your products and services. Quite simply — you need to understand that your Twitter account is not to be used as a digital billboard. Sure, some individuals may get away with it — they post tweet after tweet of links to products and services, or they’re just a non-stop self-promoter. However, for every blatant advertiser making money on Twitter, there are hundreds, if not thousands, who aren’t making one thin dime. Social networking is not the same as traditional “in-your-face” marketing tactics — networking is about relationships. If you want to earn money with your Twitter account — don’t turn your tweets into a billboard for your favorite program — to be successful, you should use it as a platform to leverage your social relationships to turn them into profit. Step 2: Representing a product or service that your followers need One of the major pitfalls of marketing is choosing to promote a product or service that your audience doesn’t really need, or isn’t, as a whole, willing to pay for. This marketing tidbit is as true when you’re marketing with Twitter as when you’re promoting a product or service from your own website or blog. Established internet marketers tend to know this already, but when you’re looking to monetize your website, your blog, or your Twitter account — whatever it is that you’re promoting needs to fulfill a need for your audience. Taking this even further, needs are different amongst different groups, even within the same market. As a real-world example, let’s say that your Twitter account, and its focus, favors online business owners. Online business owners need SEO (search engine optimization) and marketing — at least the large majority does. However, within this group of online business owners who need SEO and marketing, there are three main sub-groups: Now, there are likely more groups along these lines, but the point is this — if your Twitter followers are predominantly large business owners, you’re probably not going to fare well promoting a do-it-yourself SEO guide. Likewise, if your followers are predominantly comprised of ‘newbie’ online business owners, you’re probably not going to land many sales by promoting high-end SEO and marketing services. Bottom line — pick a product or service that matches your followers, and one that fulfills a need that is pertinent to them. Step 3: Choose quality over quantity It’s not difficult to obtain thousands of followers on Twitter — if you have some time on your hands, or you use a script — you could probably gain a few hundred to a few thousand Twitter followers in a single afternoon. Furthermore, if you add your Twitter account’s URL to any of the popular ‘follow me and I’ll follow you’ type websites — you can increase your follower count substantially. However, with social networking — it’s not about the numbers — it’s about your relationship with your network. Today’s internet users are quite familiar with online advertising, and quite frankly, many people go out of their way to minimize the number of ads that they are forced to view on a daily basis. Internet users install pop-up blockers, use software such as AdBlock Plus to prevent ads from displaying, they filter their emails, and they ignore the Tweets of those who choose to use their Twitter account as a billboard for their favorite product or service. In other words, just because you have thousands of followers on Twitter, this does not mean that you can turn those followers into buyers, or even website visitors for that matter. Instead of working to boost your follower count, work on interacting with your current followers. If they have questions, answer them; if they ask for help, offer it in a non-promotional way. Relationships are key in social networking — numbers won’t help you make sales, but relationships will. Step 4: Highlight your products or services In direct marketing, it’s common knowledge that you need to ask for the sale if you want to get paid. However, when you are looking to use Twitter to market your products or services, you probably shouldn’t go out and ask for a sale — at least directly. Instead, you should take a more subtle approach whereby you leverage your ‘klout’, so to speak, with your followers. First, it’s probably a good idea to utilize the ‘more info URL’ setting on your account settings page. This link is displayed above your bio on the right-hand side of your dedicated Twitter page. Plenty of people have made sales just because they included a link to their website from their Twitter account, and you can, too. Second, when you want to promote something via Twitter — don’t try and make a ‘hard sell’ pitch in 140-characters or less. Some people get away with it whereas others do not. Based on personal experience, just mentioning a product or service, with a benefit-driven or helpful slant, works better than pushing hype. Keeping to our example of online business owners and SEO services, here is an example of a good tweet vs. a bad tweet: If you want to experience more success when marketing via Twitter, highlighting products or services tends to work much better than trying to sell products and services. The key to success with Twitter marketing: be a real person Successfully marketing products and services using Twitter is not difficult — at all. However, if you want to experience some of the moneymaking benefits that are available through Twitter marketing, you need to understand what Twitter truly is — a social network, and not a digital billboard to promote your products and services. -Eric RiceTwitter Marketing, Some Fresh Air
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