It’s possible to market a blog without Twitter, but very few successful blogs waste their time going without it. It’s a powerful network and you’re missing out on a big opportunity if you skip out.
It’s easy to understand why many bloggers still choose to opt out, however. Twitter can be incredibly overwhelming, and if you do it wrong it can easily seem like a waste of time with no traffic potential. These tips and tools should make the process much easier.
1 – The Basics
Before worrying about anything else, you need to master these basics:
Complete Your Profile – Create a fully fleshed out profile with a complete bio and a link back to your site. Include an image, preferably of your face, in order to build trust. You can build more than one profile, some for the human element, others for the more branded elements, but be sure to be honest and cross promote the accounts.
Tweet Regularly – Use a tool like Hootsuite or Buffer to schedule tweets in advance so that you are always sending out tweets. This way you can reach people at all times of the day without needing to be on Twitter all day long. Instead, you can do all of your tweets at once and increase your productivity. Don’t rely entirely on automation, however. Use it just to ensure that you’re always tweeting so that you can focus the rest of your Twitter time on something more important, which is…
Build Relationships – Once you get your promotional tweets scheduled, you can spend the rest of your time browsing Twitter for conversations. Search your topic and respond to as many tweets as you can. Follow some of the most influential people in the topic. Check out there stream to see if they are interacting with the community. If they are, they are more important to follow, and it’s more worth the effort to try to strike up a conversation with them.
2 – Take Advantage of Blogging Opportunities
Most people fail to realize that Twitter is an unstoppable resource for blogging. By this we’re not just talking about traffic, but content and link building opportunities.
Twitter is overflowing with influential people who are marketing savvy and like to promote themselves. Help yourself by helping them. Let them guest post on your blog, offer posts on theirs, ask for interviews, bounce ideas off each other, and engage in collaborative projects. You’ll build powerful relationships that keep on giving.
The best way to promote yourself is to help somebody else in a way so that it benefits them to promote you. Want a tweet from somebody with a lot of followers? Write a review of their book or product and let them know about it. Assuming you can do so in a way that doesn’t look like you are pandering, and that appeals to your readers, this is an incredible way to build traffic and subscribers.
3 – Build Trust
The very instant you plug a product or talk about a sale on your Twitter profile, people will become immediately suspicious. Your Twitter profile is not a selling platform, it is a trust building platform. Your primary goal on Twitter should be to build trust before you try to do anything else.
You accomplish this by engaging in the community and becoming a genuine part of it. Here are a few things you should see in your Twitter schedule:
Replying to @mentions – Respond to every single person who mentions you, unless they are clearly automated accounts.
Share – Share links to content that people will want to share. Sign up for Google Alerts so that you are one of the first people to share content related to your subject.
Inspiration – Post inspirational quotes or advice.
Pose questions – Ask, ask, ask. The goal should always be to get people talking.
Conclusion
All of this is powerful advice, but if there is one takeaway it is this: dive in! Experiment, get your hands dirty, get people talking, and get creative. A guide can only go so far. What you need more than anything else is to go all out and stop holding back.
About the author: Alex Duke is a passionate blogger and well-known Internet marketing consultant. He often writes about SEO and blogging, because he likes to share his knowledge with others. Also, Ben is an SEO consultant for Sadrzaj Serija.