While Twitter has become as much of a staple in our personal and business lives as Facebook, there still remains an overwhelming number of wedding professionals who are in the dark about what Twitter is, how to use it and how it can be beneficial for your business. Even more so, there are many misconceptions about what Twitter is that deters many professionals from even attempting it.
Well folks, below you will find some of the most common thoughts or remarks about Twitter and Marketing UnVEILED is going to dispel the myths and clarify the truths.
TWITTER AND FACEBOOK ARE THE SAME DAMN THING:
While Twitter and Facebook are both elements of the Social Media phenomenon, they are two completely different entities with different goals. Here's the diff' in a nutshell: Facebook is all all about reconnecting and furthering relationships with people or 'friends' whom you already know. Twitter, on the other hand, is about creating new relationships. It's about sharing ideas with like-minded individuals from around the world and engaging complete strangers (read potential consumers!) into conversations and creating a desire to "follow" you and learn more about you.
So what does that mean for your business? With Twitter, by creating new relationships you are opening yourself to new opportunities through others and are exposing yourself to a new demographic that may have not discovered you otherwise. It's essentially a circle effect. For example, if you 'follow' Joe the Photographer and start interacting with him, he, in turn, may 'follow' you. Now Jennifer the Bride who was also 'following' Joe the Photographer has noticed you interacting with him. This has peaked her curiosity and so she has checked out your Twitter profile, likes what she saw and is now 'following' YOU! Viola! Potential consumer! Not to mention a great new connection with a fabulous photographer!
ETIQUETTE STATES THAT IF SOMEONE FOLLOWS YOU ON
TWITTER YOU HAVE TO FOLLOW THEM BACK
I can count on both hands how many times this has come up for debate. Here's our take on the matter: some of the most promising and business-successful relationships were created by professionals following one another. After all, the point to Twitter is to connect and network with one another right? That said, you should be aware of who is following you and connect with them appropriately. You never know what may come out of that newly budding relationship. However, that does not mean that you have to follow every single person who follows you just out of sheer politeness. Can you imagine what your Twitter feed would be like? How many un-interesting tweets (in your opinion of course) you would have to filter through just to read up on those you're interested in? Who has that kind of time?
Consider Preston Bailey for example. At last count he has 8,938 followers but only follows 303. Does this mean that he's being rude or arrogant? No. It simply means that while he appreciates his massive following, he only has the time to follow and connect with those tweets that genuinely interest him.
THERE ARE RIGHT WAYS AND
WRONG WAYS TO USE TWITTER
There aren't too many "rules' when it comes to Twitter. After all this isn't the Church of Twitter or anything but there are some foolproof ways to LOSE followers. Here's what they are:
1. SPAMMING: Sending your followers sales pitch after sales pitch is basically the number one way of losing followers. Informing your followers of the occasional sale or promotion is fine, but making every second tweet about a sale or sales pitch is a giant boo-boo in Twittersphere.
2. USING A DEFAULT TWITTER PHOTO: If you're using Twitter as a marketing tool and your Twitter profile photo is the iconic Twitter-Bird you have a serious problem. How can you expose your brand on Twitter if you don't have a brand? And no, I don't mean putting up your personal photo. I mean your logo people. Oh and don't forget to include your web site on your Bio!
3. OVER SHARING YOUR PERSONAL LIFE OR NOT SHARING ENOUGH OF YOUR PERSONAL LIFE: This is a biggie. Yes, it's important to have a bit of personality with your tweets, meaning that if you're using Twitter for marketing it's OK to share a personal-life comment once in a while. After all, your followers want to know that you are an actual person and not a robot. Having a balance of personal and business will keep your relationships with your followers fresh and intrigue new followers to join you.
However, sharing nothing of value but your personal life or sharing what's considered 'TMI' (otherwise known as 'Too-much-information') can put you in the doghouse. Not all your professional contacts want to know about your latest conquest from last night or want to listen to you whine about personal matters...know what I mean?
4. POSTING EVERY FIVE MINUTES: OK, so you may think you have a lot of great, important things to say, but posting every five minutes -- especially if it's nothing relevant -- just becomes annoying and is the second quickest way to be dropped like a bad habit. You're merely cluttering up your followers' Twitter feed. Don't give them a reason to do some spring cleaning.
5. USING 'TWITTER-BOTS':
YOU SHOULD IMMEDIATELY BLOCK OR UNFOLLOW ANYONE WHO POSTS A NEGATIVE COMMENT/ARGUES WITH YOU/ETC.OK, so you tweet about a particular subject and out of the woodwork comes Mr. Negative who strongly (and publicly I might add) disagrees with you. What do you do? Do you immediately block them? Do you unfollow them?
No. You engage them into a discussion. Defend your point and see what Mr. Negative has to say in return. He will likely follow your lead and defend his position and so on and so forth. Why is this important? Because you've now created a lively discussion into which your followers (not to mention his!) can tune in. You've created content. You're listening. Your sharing. Your interacting. Welcome to Twitter!
Now, there may come a point where the conversation is dragging on with no end in sight. At that point you should drop the conversation but not the follower. When should you drop or block a follower? When their responses or tweets become rude, disrespectful or just plain nasty or if you truly feel they are damaging your reputation for no reason other than spite.
CONTENT IS ONE OF THE BEST WAYS TO DRAW A FOLLOWING
I have mentioned countless times that it's not the number of people who follow you, it's who is following you that truly matters. After all, does it really matter that you have 40,000 followers if only ten of them can actually impact your business?
Now that having been said, how do you attract those you want to follow you? Aside from directly connecting with your potential followers, you also have to ENGAGE them. And how do you engage them? With content that interests them, inspires them and encourages them to interact with you. Posting that you had spaghetti for dinner doesn't exactly scream "come follow me!". On the other hand, posting "just had the most amazing spaghetti at www.lapastahouse.com and they have gorgeous wedding facilities too!" has just provided relatable content to those who you want to follow you -- brides, grooms and fellow professionals. Posting thought-provoking or debate-provoking questions or comments invites potential followers into conversation, giving appropriate shout-outs to vendors encourages interaction and posting links with your posts gives meat to your posts. The point to twitter is to share, listen, interact and engage. Best way to do that? Have content!
TWITTER HAS NO ROI.
If you are investing a lot of time in Twitter and you are gaining nothing in return (otherwise known as 'return-on-investment' or ROI) then you are doing something wrong and should examine how you are using Twitter to market your business.
Now ROI can take many forms. Your return on investment can be anything from direct bookings to established business connections that may connect you to consumers in the future to Brides who follow you and while they don't become your client they retweet your info to future Brides they know.
If you're lacking any form of ROI try examining how you're Tweeting for your business. Are you starting conversations? Are you communicating with your existing consumers? Are you using viral tactics to spread your message?
And of course, if you feel that you are gaining absolutely nothing in return for your well-planned Twitter-efforts and it is truly becoming a "waste of your time" then it may be time for you to leave the Twitter-sphere. There are many forms of Social Media out there and no one has ever said that you have to be everywhere. If Twitter just isn't working for you and is becoming a source of stress rather than marketing, move on to something that will provide you with some form of ROI.
TWITTER IS TIME CONSUMING.
The main rebuttal I get from reluctant Twitter-marketers is that Twitter takes too much time. One client I have said quote "I barely have time to update my Facebook, how am I supposed to find the time to continuously post what I'm doing, where I'm going, etc, etc, etc on Twitter???" This misconception goes hand-in-hand with a couple of my posts above. You don't have to tweet a lot to be noticed. If you can only tweet once a day or hell, once a week, that's perfectly fine! Just make sure that the one tweet you do post is worth reading.
There are also numerous software programs out there from Uber-Twitter to Hootsuite and more that can make your Twitter existence easier to manage whether it be by tweeting on-the-go via your mobile device or scheduling your tweets in advance. Find what method and frequency works for you and roll with it.
Well there you have it folks! Now that your most common concerns about Twitter have been clarified or dispelled, you're running out of reasons why you're not on Twitter. Try it out, tweet a bit and see where your wings take you!
No comments:
Post a Comment