If you’re in internet marketing and you want half a chance to succeed on Twitter, pay attention. I don’t know who you’ve been listening to telling you how to make it on Twitter, but if they’re telling you to do these five things, then they don’t understand social media, and you shouldn’t listen to them.
- Follow thousands of people when no one follows you back (except auto-follows). Nothing screams “spammer” like this one. Take it easy, cowboy. Add people at a normal pace. It’ll ensure you get more “organic” or “manual” follow-backs, which is what you want when you’re marketing on Twitter: you want reach.
- Auto-Followback/auto-direct message immediately upon being followed. Nothing tells people you don’t care quite like this move does. Eliminate it immediately from your TweetLater settings (better yet, don’t use TweetLater). You are not so fabulous that you simply must automate this. You want to be seen as a “real” person on Twitter, not as a spammer. Manually follow people back. Do not auto-anything. People especially do not care about your “free gift”. That’s not why people use Twitter. You’re missing the point.
- URL-stuffing in your Twitter bio and in your profile page background image. Everybody has a website. Put your URL where it’s supposed to go just like everyone else does (are you starting to pick up on a pattern, here? I hope so). If you’re worth anybody’s time, they will click through to your site, and from there they can access your other properties and social media profiles. If you’re not providing value on Twitter, nobody is going to make use of your URL-fest.
- Bio pitching. The bio on twitter is so that people can learn a little bit about you. Give them that. Don’t pitch them in the bio. That drives people away. If nobody knows you yet, nobody cares what you’re pitching. Social media is about the social, not the selling. And speaking of…
- Selling in tweets. Yes, I know: ironic, isn’t it? Isn’t that what you’re there for? The answer is a resounding NO. That’s not why you’re on Twitter. You’re on Twitter to network and build relationships by providing value, which leads to sales indirectly. You can let people know a product is available (I certainly do it myself) but only if you’re providing value in between, and the ratio of selling to value has to be extremely skewed towards value, not selling.
If I could distill these five points down to one main message it would be this: act like a normal person as much as you possibly can. Providing value to your followers instead of sales pitches is the best marketing you can engage in on Twitter (or in any social media environment).
Joel Comm was soundly bashed by commenters on this ProBlogger post about affiliate marketing on Twitter, and it was basically because what he did removed the warm, personal, human element. The most successful internet marketers on Twitter are, for the most part, not doing any of the these five things. Learn from them.
If you’re not following me on Twitter yet, you’ll find me here: http://twitter.com/remarkablogger
PS – My Growing blog traffic teleseminar is at 3pm Eastern today. You can still sign up if you want. Head on over to the blog and see the home page blurb about it.
