Marketing Monday: Twitter

Posted on by BrizzleLass

So a few months ago I posted on Facebook that I was thinking of starting these posts, for those who missed it and don’t know my professional background but want to be sure I’m qualified, I spent 15 years working in Marketing and worked up about as high as you can go on the corporate marketing ladder. I have a Post Grad Diploma in Marketing, and while I was working I was a member of all the relevant professional bodies. In the last five or so years of my career I specialised in Digital Marketing, taking time out in an SEO agency to learn the tech side of things, I then worked self-employed as a consultant which only ended when my Bipolar decided to have a really bad turn three years ago.

So, I thought, why not share some of my marketing knowledge with you guys, it will help the bloggers and authors who read my blog and hopefully give you some ideas on how to do things on a more professional level. Now how I suggest to do things isn’t the only way, and other marketers will certainly tell you differently, but these are the ways I’ve found that work when I’ve been working on campaigns. I’m a strong believer in not paying for advertising, or to boost posts and things like that. I believe that good old fashioned hard work pays off.

So today I’m going to start with Twitter, because so many people use it and I see so many people make small mistakes which could cost them. Plus it is my favourite social media platform so why not start there!

Twitter started in 2006, I set up my first account in 2008, it was a pretty quiet place back then and people were still getting used to how to use it. Over the next few years people realised it could be used for commercial gain using hashtags and twitter chats and the platform started to BOOM! So here are some top tips for you as a new and existing user.

  • When you set up your account think about how you want to be seen, consider your brand and incorporate that into what you are calling yourself. Whether you are a blogger or an author your brand is really important and your twitter handle is a permanent reflection of that brand.
  • Your picture should also be a reflection of your brand, either a nice personal image (I will be doing a post about author images in the future) or your blog logo. Remember the image represents your brand and what you are putting out into the world, don’t let it be shoddy.
  • Be natural in your tweets, try to show your own personality, I know it’s not easy in 140 characters, but being yourself is key on Twitter. Letting people know the person behind the brand is what will unlock their interest.
  • Work out which hashtags are most appropriate to you and be sure to use them, you don’t have to use every single hashtag on the planet, just use a few which are appropriate and be consistent.
  • Tweet every day, a few times each day if possible, Twitter moves fast, 10 minutes after you tweet, what you’ve said is gone, lost in a sea of tweets. Unless somebody actually goes through your timeline on purpose to see what you have been saying it’s lost forever.
  • Use lists! Lists are a great way to pull your favourite accounts together so that you don’t miss anything. You can make them private if you want so that nobody knows you have a list for “Hot Bods” but it just means that when you are following a few thousand people you can pull out those accounts you don’t want to miss and keep track of them.
  • Share links to what you consider useful content, other books/blogs, as well as your own. People appreciate the shares and your followers will appreciate the variety. But don’t feel you have to spend all day every day doing this. We are all busy people so if you only have time to do this occasionally it’s not the end of the world and nobody is going to judge you for it.
  • You can search for people that might be interested in your blog/book and that engage in conversation with them. My reminder when you do anything like this is to get involved in conversations and ensure you are part of things. Talking at someone is probably not going to get you very far.
  • Look out for people who share your blog posts/mention your book and build on that, get in touch with that person and cultivate a relationship. You never know what can come from getting to know someone who has shared some of your content. Always remember that it’s good to talk.
  • Try to ensure you find ways to engage with your audience, whether you have 100 followers or 10,000 you want to keep them interested so try and make sure you remember your voice (going back to the beginning of this list) and you keep giving them interesting tweets to respond to.
  • Use a tool like Hootsuite to help you manage your promotional tweets. This will help you with scheduling your tweets so that the promotional tweets go out at regular intervals and you aren’t sending them out 5 minutes apart. I saw an author send out 10 promos for their book 5 mins apart recently, my timeline was flooded which was super annoying and with a tool could have been easily avoided.
  • Finally, there are lots of really good tools which will make Twitter use easier for you, YAY! A lot of them will offer to send out a Direct Message (DM) automatically when someone new follows you. No, Just Say No! These Auto-DM’s are the work of the Devil! They are annoying, intrusive and some of them require the recipient to action something before they are allowed to follow the person they want to follow. My rule of thumb is if I receive one I automatically unfollow the person it came from, and I know from numerous discussions I have had both on and offline I am not alone. So if you have these set up TURN THEM OFF and if you don’t, don’t go there!

I hope you found this useful, let me know your thoughts, ideas etc, is there an area of your marketing you want help with, let me know and I will try and make sure it’s worked into one of the future posts.

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33 thoughts on “Marketing Monday: Twitter”

  2. This is all such good, basic sense, Claire – but yes, it’s amazing how many people don’t even bother to find out how a site works but just plunge in with the promotion. Yesterday I had a link to a children’s book from a woman. I asked her why she’d sent me it, and she said ‘because I want to sell my book’. But, aside from the fact that it’s spamming, she didn’t even bother to look at my bio before sending me it (I have no kids and have minimal interest in them).

    Best of all, I like your point about it moving fast. So many (writers in particular) think that all you need to do is pin a post to the top of their page and change it once every four months. They don’t understand how the site works; not that many people actually visit your page….!

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    1. Yes, I’ve tried to keep this really basic so didn’t even go into the whole pinned post debacle! But you are right, contacting people to promote books is another forthcoming post I’m prepping…in short the tagline will be know your audience! Anybody can do marketing it just takes some time to learn the basics. Of course in an ideal world authors would have a budget to pay someone to do it for them but the world is far from ideal!

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  3. Great stuff, Claire. When I set up my Twitter account I wasn’t blogging and I’ve been wondering whether I should change my handle or if it would just be confusing. I guess I could change the picture, which might be easier.

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    1. Yours is pretty established now so changing the handle is probably not necessary, you could change the picture, I tend to rotate my pictures pretty regularly, the key is for them to be recognisable to you.

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    1. I think again you are now so well established that everyone knows you so it’s not a problem. Sometimes that happens, you set it up for one thing, then shift focus, I’ve done it then had to decide if I change everything, often it’s easier not to!

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    1. Oh I know! I have been on a few social media conferences and the stats on attention span and how quickly updates are lost on Twitter are mind-blowing! I will try and dig my notes out although they will be a few years out of date so pretty much useless by now! 😂😂😂

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  8. Great post! Super helpful! I’m new to twitter. I think I started back in January / and I still don’t understand it like at all! Hashtags are obviously the key but finding the right one and fitting it into the character allotment is never easy! 😂 I’ll get there

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    1. Yeah it takes some getting used to, and it keeps changing, I still get it wrong sometimes! I usually start typing what I want to say, then I look at it and see how I can say it with less words, then I will add the hashtags if I want them.

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      1. That’s exactly what it is- lazy marketing. I come across so much of the automation stuff and while at times it makes total sense, other times it just makes the one using it appear like they couldn’t be arsed with the personalized approach! That’s not how you build a brand. Besides, being on the receiving end of automated sales/marketing cycle, some of those automated emails are just so annoying… I can see how sometimes a little nudge and patient persistence gets a sale over the line but 75% of the cases, people are just fishing and those automated setups only alienate them… I guess, there’s no rule to this… as buyers and consumers we’re all different but it’s not a one size fist all kind of thing…

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      2. Yeah, most of the time though marketing is persistence and patience. It’s about getting to know people and being in their face without being annoying. A lot of people also confuse marketing and sales and assume any marketing they do should automatically equate to sales but marketing is about awareness and brand building and while sales should happen eventually they shouldn’t be the main aim of what is being done! The times I’ve had to try explaining that to a CEO! 😂😂

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  10. Fabulous post Claire!! I had no idea you had a marketing background!! I think with all the social platforms out there and it’s being so hard to be seen and heard having your know-how must help tons. Can’t wait to read more about your marketing strategies.

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  11. I love this idea. And it’s so helpful. I am pretty good with a few social media tools, but I haven’t figured out how I want to use Twitter yet, especially with 1 account… managing ThisIsMyTruthNow, me as an individual and me as an author… some day I will focus on it. For now, if I ever screw up, let me know! 🙂

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    1. Notice to be Twitter police received! I run both my blogs, and writing, and personal through one acct. I decided the tone for them all would be very personal and regardless what I was talking about people should know it’s me getting people to sites is easy as you link in post. Problems come up if you use a different voice on one of your platforms as you have to introduce that to your social aswell.

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