How do you target your tweets?
Are you enjoying being on Twitter?Good.
Do you spend too much time on there? Not so good.
Are you getting results for yourbusiness? Let’s hope so!
Are your targeting when on Twitter to provide the maximum payback for the time invested?
If not, you might want to read on!
If you don’t target your activity on Twitter then a large percentage of the time and energy you put into tweeting could, in all honesty, probably be spent better elsewhere.
Having said that, it does depend on what your goals for being on Twitter are. It could be that you wish to meet lots of new people and have great conversations – in which case, perfect – please continue as before.
However, if your time is stretched in every direction and you want to focus your activity ongrowing your business through networking then you could do worse than consider these 3 approaches to targeting:
1. Followers
Target those who follow you by defining who you follow. What is your market? Who is your ideal customer?
With the answers to these questions you can focus on a pool of tweeters to follow based on type of business and location – as a first step. Use Twitter search and Twellow as a starting point.
The advanced search functionality of Twitter is amazingly useful in pinpointing users both in terms of keywords in their bio and in their tweets. If you would like to have the people that follow another business also follow you (think competitors maybe), then go to the list of that business’s followers and start following them!
2. Lists
…and more lists!
Having found suitable people to follow, add them to lists so that you can quickly check their activity, ready to respond, even if you only have a couple of minutes to spare! In fact, even if you’ve run out of spare ‘space’ to follow many other people, searching them out and adding them to a list gets around this problem as you don’t need to follow them to see their tweets in this way! You have the option of making lists public or private – you may want a mixture of both!
At this point, I would like to put a little plea in to save the timeline! Although I have lists and focussed conversations, I always scroll up and down my immediate timeline for interesting stories that are unfolding, opinions I can respond to etc. This is one of the great joys ofTwitter – the unexpected and this can include opportunities as well. So, don’t discard the timeline completely!
3. Keywords
These are the holy grail of internet marketing activity and really social media networking is no different!
The difference here is to think of keywords which might either be in your prospective new client’s bio or be a word they would include in a tweet. You can then use the advancedTwitter search functionality to find conversations containing that keyword.
If you have thought correctly, your searches (which can be saved) should yield some conversations which you can then add into in a useful way, thereby raising your profile and placing your business in front of potential future clients in a helpful, non-spammy way.
These tips are very easy to implement, but could save you untold time and effort for the possibility of focussed results.
So what have you got to lose? Try them today and let us know how you get on!