About five minutes ago, I received an email notifying me that my friend is now following me on Twitter. And like the machine that I am, my opportunity alarm started ringing.
Let’s face it, many of us are competitive. The game of Twitter is to have more people following you than you are following. When my friend added me, I was really excited. Like jump-up-and-down excited. I know it’s a stupid game, but most of us play it. The people who aren’t have some story as to why they don’t. They prefer complaining that no one adds them rather than playing the Twitter game. Consider that every time someone follows you, they’re assisting you at winning the game you’re out to play.
You may already be playing the game with a personal Twitter account, but you could be applying your ability to share your thoughts about the last episode of Glee in more lucrative ways.
Now I know many of you young, budding entrepreneurs love your e-businesses. For $6.99 anyone can get a dot-com and start making money. The problem then becomes how to promote it.
Start a Twitter account using your company website and business name. Why? When you add people to Twitter, Twitter emails most of these random people that they have a new follower. Your site is the name it says. That’s instant exposure.
Part two is to add everyone and anyone on Twitter. Search for keywords related to your business and press click, click, click, click. Then when you get tired, get a friend to start adding someone. Notice that your company will start to build a Twitter following as well. Then check your website stats. The masses haven’t started doing this yet, so from what I’ve seen, people will check out your site.
How much did it cost? Besides a cup of coffee and a little carpal tunnel… nothing.
From there, tweet about everything and anything: special offers, promotions, offers, coupon codes, what your company is up to. Give followers incentive to keep up with your account. With Twitter, any publicity is free and good publicity.
A great Twitter tool for businesses is Hootsuite. Hootsuite lets you track clicks on links in your Twitter feed. This provides you with insights on who’s clicking on what and when. Hootsuite also allows you to easily publish a message to multiple Twitter accounts and assign editors (your friends — uh I mean employees) to post messages on your behalf. You can even schedule when messages will go out.
This, my friends, is the world of free marketing. Your homework for this week: Be a tweet, not a twit. If you have any questions about running your own business or have feedback for Evan, send an email to ekosiner@ryerson.ca
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