Twitter marketing candy, in my usage, refers to a group of websites that are especially rich with the sorts of odd, entertaining curiosities that Twitter followers tend to love, to share and click through to. I noticed about 2 months after I first joined Twitter that my tweets referencing terms like “funny video” or “amazing picture” seemed to be equal in popularity to my most useful tweets sharing business insights or resources.
And this isn’t just a guess. I intentionally tested this by using trackable links in my tweets and by monitoring the rate of retweets.
If you’re unfamiliar with what a retweet is, it’s essentially a repeat of what you said by one of your Twitter followers that also includes your name – Twitter’s version of quoting you verbatim. What makes this particularly useful is that everybody who follows a retweeter can click directly on that retweet to follow you, or to follow the your tweet was connected to.
Since retweeting is the most viral activity on Twitter, creating a database of links, pictures, videos and websites that you can consistently share with your followers is a tremendous advantage. Here are 4 effective tips you can use to create a powerful tidal wave of Twitter follower growth.
1. Create a resource list of ‘Twitter Candy’ websites. The first on the list should be your content website or blog. After that, you should find other websites full of greatly enlightening, deliciously odd or downright bizarre curiosities (ideally with a humorous angle) in the form of pictures and videos. Instead of making you do all the work, I’ve included a short list of 5 sites that are must-haves.
a. EnglishRussia.com
b. Trendwatching.com
c. Springwise.com
d. Oddee.com
e. 2leep.com
f. TED.com
g. YouTube.com
2. Automate your tweets so you can schedule links to very interesting content from the above list. The culture of Twitter is not just about talking about business all the time. You need to be able to mix in quite a bit of the enlightening, the entertaining and the awe-inspiring. This means scheduling your tweets in advance to include links to your own authority content and links to resources from the list above. Here are 2 services that can help you automatically deliver pre-scheduled tweets.
a. Tweetdeck.com
b. Hootsuite.com
3. Research from the Dan Zarrella indicates that the rates of retweets granted by Twitter followers rises significantly when they are regularly asked to retweet. So make sure your pre-scheduled tweets are also interspersed with requests for retweets of previous tweets.
4. Set up your Twitter system to automatically follow anyone who follows you, and then use services like TweetDeck to monitor the people whose tweets you really want to keep track off and build relationships with.
Conclusion
Doing any one of these steps will greatly increase the effectiveness of your social marketing and networking. Doing them all, will turn an interesting little micro-blogging novelty platform into a powerful engine for building viral word-of-mouth online.
Gogo Erekosima is the CEO and Lead strategist at Idea Age Consulting and invites you to the business resource portal at http://www.IdeaAgeConsulting.com. Ready to grow your business fast? Ask about our Marketing SWOT Analysis to find $10,000 to 1 million dollars in profits hiding in plain sight within your business.
Article Source: Twitter Marketing Candy For the Entrepreneurial Soul
