By Enzo F. Cesario

Twitter, the net’s networking success story, is intriguing and intimidating because of its message limitations: they can be 140 characters, and no more.

This is to say; each message sent on Twitter can be no larger than the previous sentence. Not an additional letter, space, period or dash can be added. These limitations have proven to be the greatest asset and the greatest challenge for people trying to use Twitter for any number of purposes.

On the advantageous side, the short messages have created an entire culture of Twitter-fluent writers. The brevity of the message stretches creative muscles, making people use every trick to get the most information into the fewest characters. On the other hand it creates a severe headache for the marketing minded, as it doesn’t leave much room to present a case. Thus the vast majority of Tweets are short little social comments or updates, and most marketing revolves around calling attention to particular links.

Of course, there are always ways around limitations, and Twitter is something that every seriously market-minded organization needs to embrace in order to see continued success on the web. In the case of short message services like Twitter, the key lies as much in the peripheral data that builds up around the message as in the content itself.

Be SEO Minded

Twitter profiles are now ranked by search engines, Google in particular. Every SEO technique you’ve learned now has a new, exciting purpose.

For example, consider the biography you’re able to construct using Twitter. This is a ripe opportunity to develop some brand recognition right away. Put the title of the brand you’re marketing in the bio, and consider including the most relevant keywords in your profile. As ever, do so in a way that respects the user’s intelligence, and gives them something worth reading. Simply stringing together a chain of keywords is not the way to go.

Include keywords in your Tweets as well, taking care not to be terribly obvious about it. The first 20-30 characters are the best place, as later words are of decreased importance in a Google ranking search.

Identify Your Audience

Each brand rises and falls on the whim of the audience, known in this case as tweeple.

There are a number of applications available to help you with the process of identifying the tweeple that you want to cultivate into an audience. Twitterholic can help you identify the movers and shakers based on their Twitter traffic and their location. If you know your field or brand well, you can use this to locate groups with similar interests and woo them to your feed. Tweepz is a similar tool, focusing on location, and Twitter itself has a ‘near this location’ feature that can be used to identify tweeple nearby your center of business.

Let’s Give Them Something to Tweet About

Yes, Twitter is an effective way to quickly distribute information. But its real power is in its ability to create conversations about something interesting.

In theory you could simply gather up a large user list of tweeple and start spamming them with links promoting your latest gig. This is a surefire way to get flagged for abuse or ignored entirely, and thus is rather counterproductive to good marketing goals.

Instead, consider using alternative methods to drum up those conversations that travel like wildfire.

For example, there is the technique of Alternate Reality Gaming. This is a phenomenon based on the idea of taking ‘real’ events and building a game out of them. Last Call Poker was an ARG that intended to drum up sales for an upcoming video game, GUN.

LCP spread out information about gatherings, online incentives, and other attractions to get people excited about the western theme of the game. Tokens such as poker chips and other goodies were given out at these events, and GUN went on to have a very successful launch. People were invited into the world of the western, and the chatter eventually included 8 million participants.

This kind of rogue advertising is tailor-made to work with Twitter. Locations and dates can easily fall within the 140 character limitation, as can short explanations. Consider creating an ARG with a short story designed to work within 140 characters, locate an audience with the assorted Twitter tools at your disposal, and plan some exciting events to promote your brand. The chance to get involved always gets people talking, and the more esoteric games can span entire continents.

There are other methods, some more appropriate to each individual brand. Perhaps a modest bicycling business isn’t suited to promote a large ARG experience. They could, however, organize a bicycling flash mob by hopping onto the local bike hobbyist twitter feed and posting a date and time. The trick is less which technique you use, and more that you do your best to make it relevant. As always, strong content and clear presentation will win out over gimmicks and sales speak.

Also, consider one last thought. The introductory statements of each section in this article are Twitter compatible, and so is this one. Good luck and happy Tweeting.

About The Author:
Enzo F. Cesario is an online branding specialist and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, articles, videos and social media in the “voice” of our client’s brand. It makes sites more findable and brands more recognizable. For the free Brandcasting Report go to http://www.BrandSplat.com/ or visit our blog at http://www.iBrandCasting.com/

Read more articles written by: Enzo F. Cesario

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By Bill Wynne

Twitter is almost a household word. Twitter and Facebook alike. The keen marketer will know that Twitter will offer him a rich source of potential traffic but how do you effectively reach those people and get them to follow you?

1. Make sure you take the time to compose a Twitter bio that will portray the message that you want others to know about you. What do you want them to know about you that are pertinent to your online business or other wards? Your bio will inspire people to follow you or not. Take the time to make it count.
2. Have you made any tweets before following people and hoping they will follow you back? In addition to a bio that informs people about yourself you want to post tweets that will inspire people with trust and confidence in you. Your tweets should be about your business. Provide links to your blog, website or content that you penned to let people know who you are.
3. Build rapport. Many people make the mistake to just sell to the people that follow you on Twitter. You want to create a relationship. If you write or find articles that will benefit your followers tweet them. If you find something that you think your followers will like then tweet them. Links to YouTube videos or other helpful resources are good.
4. Your Tweets need to grab the readers attention like a headline or subject line. Show that you can grab people’s interest. Since you have a limited number of characters you can use you should shorten your links. We will discus programs that will help with your Twitter account in another tip.
5. “Share the Love” Re-tweet other people’s tweets and some will return the favor, which will expose you to other people who may then decide to follow you. When people do re-tweet your tweets then you should thank them. It only takes a minute to click a button and say thank you.
6. Reply to people’s tweets, give them a compliment or thank them for sharing. These people may also decide to send you @ messages, which will also make their followers aware of you. Remember that you are part of a community and you can build valuable relationships.
7. Follow all of Twitter’s rules about following and un-following. Don’t become too aggressive or your account will be suspended. Try to keep to a 1 to 1.5 ratio.
8. Don’t be known as a spammer. If it is your intention to use Twitter to market to people it is recommended that you only have one marketing Tweet in every 10 Tweets. If all you do is try to sell people something, they will stop following you. Doing nothing but marketing tweets could get you labeled as a spammer, which could result in being banned. Remember Twitter is about being social first and marketing, if you do any marketing, second.
9. If you are using Twitter to market then look into software to do your Twitter work for you. There is one free website that can really help you use Twitter with more efficiency, Hootsuite.com. This service will submit your Tweets to a variety of sites for you. You will also be able to schedule your tweets so you can take your time to set up a day’s worth or more of tweets.
10. There are a number of paid software programs that will find targeted followers for you based on keyword or associations. It will manage the following and unfollowing of the people so you won’t have to go through hundreds and thousands of emails clicking on the follow link. You can schedule tweets and much more. Review a number of these programs, automate Twitter and save your time.

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Get to know Twitter better by downloading a FREE Twitter Video Bill uses Twitter to build his online empire. Find Twitter Tools online in addition to the Video. This article courtesy of SiteProNews.com

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What is the practical use of Twitter in business? Even if you accept it does have a business case, how do you use it? And what if you use it - how do you capitalise on it? These are regular questions business people ask about Twitter. Essentially business owners and executives are wondering what the point of Twitter is for business and if they see the point they want to know how on earth you use it and make money from it.

One rather brilliant example of how to use Twitter came during a talk I gave recently at a breakfast meeting of the Thames Valley Chamber of Commerce. Indeed, one person in the room gave a complete masterclass in how to use Twitter to significant effect. Nigel Morgan, a public relations expert who runs Morgan PR, sent several "tweets" while I was talking. Indeed he started his Tweeting before I began to speak.

The day before my talk Nigel sent a message on Twitter (a "Tweet") which read:

Off to see @grahamjones in Henley tomorrow morning talking about Twitter at a Hotel du Vin, should be a good breakfast!

There are four key elements to this message.

1. It demonstrates what Nigel is doing, informing his clients who follow him on Twitter that he is keeping up-to-date on the latest information on a key topic. It shows he is continuing to learn and thereby shows his clients and prospects he is developing his business knowledge and expertise. That helps build trust.
2. The message also shows his location during the next morning. This helps his clients and prospects know that "tomorrow morning" probably will not be a good time to call, as he will be out. It also shows that if they wish to set up a meeting with him, he'll easily be able to see them in Henley.
3. This Tweet also uses the "@grahamjones" tag. This is my Twitter name and it connects Nigel's Tweet to my account. This means his followers can see me, my Tweets and can, if they wish, follow me as well.
4. Finally the message above sent by Nigel uses a business name "Hotel du Vin". If they are "on the ball" they will know he has used their name and they will be able to connect with Nigel for a bit of customer relationship building.

One sentence of a mere 119 characters (Nigel had space to say more if he wanted) which is packed with information. Who said the Twitter message length of a maximum of 140 characters was limiting?

But this message was a whole 24 hours before I started to speak. During my talk Nigel was a prolific Tweeter. A couple of people in the room sent a single message about my talk (thankfully both positive...!), but Nigel sent 17 Tweets during my 20 minute presentation. In fact, when you follow his Tweets you'll be able to get an excellent overview of my complete talk.

What did all this activity achieve for Nigel - and for me? Firstly, it brought my talk much greater attention. Several of Nigel's Tweets about my talk were "re-tweeted" by some of Nigel's followers. The result is that my talk - instead of being to 40 people at a business breakfast - was brought to the attention of a total of more than 8,000 people. In other words, Nigel's Tweeting activity brought me lots more attention and the result was that my normal daily increase in followers was doubled. Twice as many people decided to follow me in the hour after Nigel's Tweets as would happen on a single day. Clearly, getting other people to Tweet about what you are doing has value in bringing you more attention, publicity and followers (people who wish to remain connected with you).

The Tweeting activity which Nigel was doing also brought publicity for someone who was not even in the room. One person, who read one of Nigel's Tweets was personal branding expert, Lesley Everett. She replied to one of Nigel's Tweets saying:

@Nigel_Morgan Make sure Graham mentions how important Twitter is for your personal brand and say Hi!

During the interactive part of my talk, Nigel mentioned this Tweet. I was then able to provide a comment and give publicity to Lesley's expertise and business. Remember, the power of word of mouth. Furthermore, this connected Nigel and Lesley who is now writing a guest post on Nigel's website on the value of personal branding in public relations. That will bring extra traffic to Nigel's site and provide a useful link to Lesley's website too. One Tweet and several benefits:

• Publicity for Lesley Everett and her expertise on personal branding
• Further benefits for two websites
• A new business connection between Nigel and Lesley which could yield even more benefits
• Plus...my talk on Twitter was publicised to Lesley's followers on Twitter as well.

So, in a single 20-minute session with Twitter what actual benefits have been received?

1. My expertise was made known to 8,000 people, instead of the 40 I was talking with
2. My Twitter account received a significant boost in followers, enhancing my future business promotion
3. Nigel's business development and learning was made known to all of his customers, building trust and credibility amongst them
4. A new business relationship was created between Nigel and Lesley, enabling both to gain web benefits through new sharing of content

Oh...and one other thing....someone contacted me after seeing all the Tweets and has asked me to provide consultancy work with them - for money...!

If you were in any doubt as to the value of Twitter, perhaps this example shows the ways in which it can easily bring benefits to your company. Of course, when you want to know exactly how Twitter can help your business call me and we can discuss how my strategy consultancy will boost your company via Twitter.

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TweetDeck is the undisputed “king” of the various Twitter client programs that are currently available. But there are several reasons why it needs replacing. The program has outlived its usefulness and when compared with HootSuite it simply does not stack up.

TweetDeck is low on features
Take a look at TweetDeck and it has plenty of useful features, far more than you can find on Twitter itself. There is little doubt that TweetDeck is helpful and makes Tweeting so much easier. However, it lacks some features which mean that you either need additional software or you need to do things in a rather cumbersome way. With HootSuite, the feature set is much deeper and broader, providing you with a host of additional capabilities that TweetDeck users simply dream about.

Here are five reasons why you should give up TweetDeck.

1. TweetDeck cannot tell you how good you are at Tweeting
With TweetDeck you can send Tweets to your heart’s content; but you’ll never be able to find out whether or not they were valuable. Yes, you can see the Re-Tweets, but do you know how many people clicked on any links, or which countries they came from? Furthermore, do you know who referred them to your Tweets in the first place? Such information is useful as it helps you ensure your Tweeting is going in the right direction. Luckily, HootSuite gives you all of this statistical data – and more – for every one of your Tweets.

2. TweetDeck cannot help you with your blog
With TweetDeck you are limited to posting short items to Twitter, Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn. But what if you want to use the same material and publish it on a blog? You have to leave TweetDeck and go to another program. With HootSuite, however, you can also add your WordPress account details, allowing you to exchange information between all your social media accounts with ease. Plus, HootSuite allows you to add your Ping.fm account, meaning you can write something on HootSuite and send it to dozens of different services. You can’t do that with TweetDeck. Neither can you add Facebook pages with TweetDeck (only Facebook profiles). In other words, HootSuite wins in terms of connectivity.

3. TweetDeck needs you to use your own equipment
TweetDeck is a brilliant client program because it is virtually identical on Windows, on a Mac, on a Linux machine or on an iPhone. Plus you can sync these various devices allowing you to have the same look and feel no matter which machine you use. But try using TweetDeck in an Internet Cafe. Try using TweetDeck at your friends house and neither of you have an iPhone. HootSuite can be accessed anywhere you have a web browser. Whether you are on your own laptop or a public computer, such as in an Internet Cafe, or using your mate’s Blackberry, HootSuite is the same, every time.

4. TweetDeck is too wide for easy use
With TweetDeck you are limited to a single row of columns. Sure you can handily separate your Twitter lists and put in a column for a regular search. But unless you have a big screen and you like scrolling left to right, TweetDeck is cumbersome. Not so with HootSuite which allows multiple tabs and columns. You can set up tabs for searches, separately to tabs for accounts, or have Facebook tabs only, or one tab for each Twitter account – allowing the easy update of multiple Twitter accounts, Facebook accounts, LinkedIn or Ping.fm – all at the same time.

5. TweetDeck cannot automate Tweets
With TweetDeck you have to be there. You write a Tweet and send it. But what if you want to send a series of Tweets and you don’t want them all to arrive consecutively. You need a “timer”; yes, there are applications online that do that, but with HootSuite it’s all in one place. You can timetable Tweets easily. Plus you can add RSS feeds so that your latest blog post gets automatically Tweeted for instance. Try doing that with TweetDeck.

So, with HootSuite you can:

• Tweet from anywhere because it is a web application (there is also an iPhone app)
• Automate your Tweets using RSS feeds
• Timetable Tweets for future submission
• Send Tweets to dozens of services by linking with Ping.fm
• See how good your Tweeting activity really is by analysing statistics
• Conveniently see everything with multiple tabs and columns

TweetDeck is undoubtedly a good application. But HootSuite is so much better.

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By Phyllis Zimbler Miller

If you are active on Twitter and want to promote your business, it’s important to know how to use Twitter for business marketing to consumers. Twitter isn’t an open invitation to spew sales messages at consumers; rather it’s an opportunity to create relationships with consumers.

Your Twitter profile needs to be human

It’s no good to use Twitter for business marketing to consumers if you are hiding behind the “corporate veil.” In other words, your Twitter username can be in your business name, but even if you are representing a large corporation, your actual name should also be on the profile along with your photo. People relate to people, not business logos.

A real person tweeting for a company is able to establish relationships with consumers that an anonymous corporate/company Twitter user cannot. Add bits and pieces of your personal interests to help create relationships.

You need to provide information before you provide sales pitches

If, for example, you are a footwear company using Twitter to attract new customers, it’s not enough to constantly tweet about new shoe styles your company is offering. You need to also provide useful information.

You might tweet links to research reports on the effects of going barefoot most of the time. Or you might tweet a link to a blog discussing cultural differences in what is acceptable footwear for “business” dress.

If you want people to trust your company enough to buy its footwear, you need to demonstrate you are trustworthy by helping consumers to know more about your field of footwear. You want to be known as a source of good information besides good footwear.

You can offer special deals to your Twitter followers

Although the majority of your tweets should NOT be sales pitches, it’s certainly acceptable to offer special deals for your Twitter followers as part of your Twitter marketing campaign. You can do this by providing a promotional code to be used on your site. And Twitter’s 140 characters makes Twitter ideal for getting your offer across in brief messages.

Also consider doing a fundraising campaign on Twitter – your company name is thus linked with a good cause. For example, anyone using the promo code will have 10% of his/her purchase go to a specific nonprofit organization.

Encourage questions from your Twitter followers

Use Twitter for business marketing by getting immediate feedback on issues of importance to your company. For example, if you introduce a new style in limited quantities, solicit opinions. Yes, some of the opinions may be negative. But it is better to know these opinions now while your footwear is in limited production than to find out this information after you’ve produced millions of pairs of this new style.

And make sure you monitor all mentions of your company on Twitter. You want to jump on positive comments – and thank people for those comments – as well as jump on negative comments. It’s much easier to put out a small fire than a large blaze.

In conclusion, how you use Twitter for business marketing to consumers is limited only by your imagination. If you share information first and then gently pitch your products, you should be able to reap the benefit of new customers who are loyal to your products thanks to having a strong connection with a real person from the company.

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Phyllis Zimbler Miller (@ZimblerMiller on Twitter) has an M.B.A. from The Wharton School and is an Internet business consultant. If you liked this article, you’ll love her free report on “How to Become a Twitter Marketing Expert” – grab your report now from www.millermosaicllc.com/free-twitter-report
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