Three Written-in-Stone Tenets of Twitter Promotion

Twitter can be an absolute waste of your time, or it can be a powerful part of your online marketing toolbox. It just depends how strategically you use it. The following list explains three concrete tenets that must be obeyed if you are going to successfully use Twitter to promote your business.

The first written in stone, concrete tenet is to always add value. Posting nothing but advertisements for your products or services does not add value to the information your followers are consuming. Post comments that are truly interesting or informative. Some examples of things to talk about include your personal opinion about things happening in your industry, links to articles or other web site content related to your industry, messages aimed at people you follow, etc. Can you sell stuff, too? Sure you can. You just need to be smooth about it.

Concrete tenet number two: Follow those in your sphere. Yes, you do want to have lots of followers. But if most of your followers are potential sources of business or somehow related to your industry, then you will be talking to a more receptive audience. You have a much better chance at hooking up with someone who can help your business if the people on your list are already connected somehow to your industry.

The final of these three critical tenets is to be systematic. I used to be sooooo bad about only posting to my Twitter account once a week (or even less). If you manage your Twitter account like that, you're just wasting your time. Post several times per day, every day. Fortunately, there are tools you can use to apply some automation to your account, and that make it much easier to create new tweets. If you make intelligent use of the right technology, running a systematic Twitter account is much easier.

Twitter marketing is a brand new concept, and there are some very smart people coming up with inventive ways to use it as a promotional channel. Following the three tenets described above will move you quickly toward becoming a Twitter master, rather than letting it waste your time.

Want to really learn how to use Twitter like a master? Check out TwitterForBusiness.BlogSpot.com, the all Twitter blog written by the author of Scientific Search Engine Marketing and The Law Firm Internet Marketing Book. The blog author's favorite strategy for maximizing Twitter as a marketing tool, by the way, is Tweet Later, which you can try out for free (no credit card required) at www.TryTweetLater.com.