Twitter Marketing Tutorial | Social Media Marketing Course
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| Twitter Marketing Tutorial | Social Media Marketing Course |
Twitter is so easy to use you just need to post a tweet that is 140 characters you need to do it long enough you'd have to pick the right hashtags you have to pick the right content and given enough focus and attention to detail you will get it right it's just a matter of time.
Of course this does not mean automatic success but with everything else being equal Twitter compared to other social media platforms is definitely easier to master why.
First of all, it is very friendly to automation that's right you can automate pretty much everything you do on Twitter this is why a lot of people use it to make money from the internet on autopilot.
They don't have to babysit each tweet they don't have to sit around to figure out what's going on they can pretty much set a strategy let software do it let the process run for some time double-check their work make some adjustments here and there and then let it run.
Basically they keep repeating this process until they get it right again you can run things on autopilot with that said you shouldn't expect much traffic if you just started on this platform I hate to break it to you but just like with anything else in life you can't start out at the top.
You can't expect massive success without having put in the time while the actual work involved in Twitter can be so well managed that it almost feels like everything is automated it still requires work.
I know this is going to discourage a lot of people because a lot of people are looking for get-rich-quick schemes a lot of people are looking for some sort of one-size-fits-all cookie cutter or instant success formula.
Unfortunately, Twitter doesn't work that way it can deliver success pretty much on an automated basis but you have to pay your dues to get there.
Everybody is different everybody's situation is different everybody's goals are different this is why you need to put in the time the good news is if you are able to do that you will be greatly rewarded by this platform because of certain key features of this system.
What is so great about this platform is that it has fairly easy mechanics it really does when people use Twitter for the first time they just tweet away they just think of things to say and in 140 characters they tweet away.
Sooner or later they realize that they would reach a much wider range of people if they use hashtags even later they figure out that people who tweet about certain topics all the time are more likely to send them more visitors or more interested followers if they engage with them.
In other words, Twitter is one of those platforms that you just have to figure out in broad terms to lay out an initial strategy implement that strategy and then learn from your results.
Do These First Before You Start Marketing On Twitter
Before you even seriously think of starting on Twitter do these first if you set up a website you should have been doing these already.
Just in case you were unclear on the concept or just in case you did things out of order. Here are the things that you should do before you even think of marketing on Twitter.
Pick Your Niche
It's really important to understand that if you want to be successful on the Internet you must have a laser focus on how you're going to make money a lot of people are clueless regarding this.
In fact, a lot of them think that they just need to buy a system that somebody else has built and they will make money what they're really saying to themselves is they're too lazy to think through their online business.
That's always a dangerous proposition because when you let another person do your thinking for you you're going to have to deal with the consequences you have to understand that when people build systems for others they're usually trying to cut corners.
They're trying to make the most amount of money with the least amount of effort do you think they have your best interest in mind with that attitude, of course not.
This is why it's a bad idea to let somebody else pick your business for you you have to do it yourself you have to know what you're doing you have to know who you're going to be marketing to what exactly you're going to be pushing and how you're actually going to be making money on the internet.
You can't just buy some sort of "business in a box" and expect everything to work out smoothly that happy ending that you may have been
dreaming of maybe a very distant and even impossible dream why you just didn't step up you have to do all of this yourself.
The most important is to pick a niche a niche is a subject matter category or some sort of category for whatever collection of needs you are trying to address.
What kind of problems do the products you are promoting or the website you were building address? pick that niche understand how that niche compares with other niches understand whether it fits your amount of resources and your expectations
Build a Site
You can outsource this. You can create a site that addresses your niche when you're building a website you're not just putting up a nice-looking online destination it must do something it must convert the traffic that you drive to that site into cold hard cash.
Create a Mailing List
Next, you have to create a mailing list this is crucial your mailing list is actually the payload of your website sure you may be putting up affiliate ads on your website when people click these and they land on the sales or landing page they may buy something when they do that you get a commission.
That's nice and everything but if you really want to make money over the long term create a mailing list why whatever credibility respect or trust you create with your website you maintain with your mailing list when you have an update on your website you just publish the link on your mailing list and invite people to click through and you have yourself a nice burst of traffic.
I've got some bad news to share with you the vast majority of people who visit your website will never come back again that's the harsh reality.
When you have a mailing list, you get to retain some of that traffic you only need to set an update and you get a nice little surge of traffic because people saw your email and click on your link this enables you to retain some of the value of the hard work and time you put into branding and promoting your website.
To create a mailing list you have to offer a premium it's some sort of freebie it's some sort of incentive for people to join your mailing list of course you make this case on your squeeze page you advertise the value of the freebie you're giving on a page called a squeeze page this is where people enter their email addresses to subscribe to your mailing list.
Please understand that there is a big danger here this is a warning don't go overboard in promoting the freebie because if you do that people will sign up for the free booklet the free course or the free book.
They couldn't care less about the update your mailing list will send them in fact if you push the freebie too hard they might even think that the updates you send are some form of spam because you caught them by surprise you see how this works there has to be a healthy balance between getting people pumped up to join your mailing list because they're getting something for doing it but also letting them know that they are getting a better value by being on your list just because you will be sending them information that would enable them to solve all sorts of problems in their lives that are related to your niche do you see how this works do you see the balance.
Create an e-Book or Report or Some Sort of High-Value Giveaway
When you create a mailing list, there has to be some sort of incentive for people to sign up to your list I wish it were as easy as saying that your website is so awesome that your visitors oh it to themselves to sign up to your list.
I'm telling you that if this is your strategy, you're probably going to get very few list members why people need a push they may be impressed by your website they may like what you're doing but this may not be enough to get them off the fence.
To many people, entering an e-mail address into a field is a lot of effort you have to give them some sort of valuable incentive for them to sign up for your list.
Generally, I would use some of my popular blog posts, or I would come up with a distilled version or a cheat sheet version usually this works other times I would use some sort of massive compilation of resources that are an answer to people's problems.
Whatever the case may be the value of the incentive must be obvious they don't have to be Sherlock Holmes to figure out the value of what you're giving away.
Again, to reiterate the value must not be so big and steals so much of the spotlight that people forget that they're signing up for a mailing list it must share equal billing with the list you have to promote the freebie in such a way that it is still clear to the person registering to your mailing list that are signing up for a mailing list.
Find Top-Notch Content in Your Niche
Once you've set up a website and a mailing list the next step on your journey to marketing your website and mailing list on Twitter is content it's easy to get tempted and think that you're some sort of niche genius you get all excited about a hot idea or a hot blogpost topic so you write a blog article you put in the time effort and energy to do that but what happens.
Nine times out of ten, that content doesn't work for whatever reason people do not seek it out you don't get traffic with it you're not alone when this happens the idea of build it and they will come is a dead end.
Thankfully, there's a shortcut focus on content in your niche that already works look at the social media accounts of influential people or companies in your niche look at the content they're sharing pay attention to how many social signals they get do they get a lot of retweets likes favorites do they get shared a lot on Facebook using this objective social signal information select their best content and reverse-engineer it.
Reverse Engineering Top-Shelf Niche Content
Now that you have a clear understanding of what's hot and what's not in your niche the next step is to reverse engineer your competitors best content how do you do this first of all you just focus on their topic if they're talking about a certain personality in your niche then talk about that person because obviously the fact that they're getting all this attention for your niche audience means people are truly interested in that personality.
However, don't stop there come up with something new maybe interview that person directly or maybe take some sort of controversial angle maybe you can give more complete information but whatever the case may be come up with content that is obviously superior this is what's going to make your tweets more popular this is what will speed your branding efforts up.
I'm sorry but if you're just going to offer the same content that everybody in your niche is already offering there's really no reason the people you're reaching out to should follow you think about it if they think that you're giving them the same stuff as other sites why go to you it can easily have gone to those other sites.
Draw their attention based on familiar themes keep their attention by doing something a bit different it doesn't have to be much you don't have to be a hero you don't have to go overboard but it has to be different enough.
Unfortunately, this is one of those things that you will have to figure out firsthand you would have to do it through trial and error you have to learn through trial and error.
Set Up Consistent Social Media Accounts
Now that you have followed the steps above, you can now start setting up your social media accounts for starters you should focus on YouTube, Google+, Facebook groups, Facebook pages, Twitter and maybe Pinterest, start with these later on you can branch out to other social media platforms like Korra, Instagram and others.
Your social media accounts must be consistent with each other your headers must have the same design your biography and other text must have similar elements the key here is to project consistency consistency indicates professionalism you're not just some random person working out of your mom's garage putting up one random website after the other.
It can also help you solidify your brand if you make a good impression on Facebook groups and people click through to your Twitter account and they see similar messaging they can see that you are consistent constant and offer different types of content this would help them become more comfortable with your brand this would help them view your brand is more credible.
Commit to Specialized Content on Your Social Media Account
Here's the big danger with having many social media accounts it's very easy to see that a lot of companies put up a presence on many different platforms that's great in everything because you have many ways of getting new traffic the problem is they post the same content across the board.
This is a problem when people approach your brand on Twitter they're looking for content that is slightly different from the content they would expect on Facebook groups your Facebook fan page and definitely your YouTube channel.
You have to be aware of these different expectations and give them what they're looking for oftentimes this is as simple as the form of content you offer obviously when you're on YouTube it would suck if you just offer blank videos of somebody reading your articles.
That's not going to work at least bother to use slideshows with the article preferably you should have some sort of video spokesperson who speaks directly to the people during the video each platforms content must maximize the format requirements of that specific platform.
Get Ready to Go Manual or Full Auto
At this stage, you have set up your Twitter account it is brand consistent you already have lined up the best content you have researched from your competitors this content has a lot of likes shares comments and other signs of engagement this is third-party content produced by others when people click the link they go to somebody else's website they do not go to your site.
Why in the world would you share this stuff what's the point of driving traffic to somebody else's website well it really boils down
to credibility if you make it your job to get all the very best content involving your niche and sharing it from one central place you become credible and authoritative so much faster than if you just publish your own content.
First of all, it's going to take a lot of time to reverse engineer the very best content and come up with your own version it can also become very expensive time after all is money even if you're not paying a professional writer from places like uzuki org who charge very reasonable rates coming up with original content can still be a very expensive proposition for you.
Why? it will take a lot of your own time to come up with that content you probably have better things to do you probably have other things you could be doing that would currently pay you more money.
Third-party content is a lifesaver this is called curation you take the best content that everybody else has to offer
and then you share it through your social media accounts here's the secret though you share that content to draw people based on their interests for example if I find top-notch content on content marketing and I have a Twitter account that sells content marketing services it would make a lot of sense for me to put all that high-quality and highly popular material in my Twitter feed but from time to time I would share my own original content.
My original content would build credibility for me based on what I raised in the content I control the conversation using those posts after I get enough of a natural following I would then share more and more of my own content and then share posts that only feature my squeeze page signup link.
By doing this, I kill two birds with one stone I share curated content to build credibility among a niche audience these are people searching for certain specific content using very targeted hashtags.
I pair very targeted niche hashtags with all my content I rotate them then I send out this content slowly but surely I get people who are truly interested in my niche.
Once I've established quite a bit of a following, I then share my own reverse-engineered content this builds even more credibility and this can also lead to my website getting backlinks from bloggers who are monitoring my niche.
Finally, once I've got enough flow going, I would then start rotating my squeeze page link through my tweets more often instead of showing my squeeze page tweets once every two days or once a week I can start showing it every few hours however it only makes sense to do this once you have established a decent number of followers and there's a high enough overall engagement level with your tweets this is the general strategy you can do this either manually or on full auto.
What is Fully Automated Tweeting?
Fully automated tweeting is exactly what it sounds like the content that you are going to be tweeting is fed through a social media content publishing tool like HootSuite or social oomph.
You just set up a schedule and the links and the tweet text that you put are going to be published to your account you don't have to babysit your Twitter account as it publishes tweet after tweet you also automatically plug in the hashtag that you want to target for each tweet.
Fully automated tweeting can also mean using certain tools like follow liker that actually mimics liking other people's accounts usually when people have their posts liked they feel good it feels good to feel like you matter it feels good to be appreciated a certain percentage of these would actually click the account to the person liking and see what their page is like if they like what they see they end up following.
Fully automated tweeting also includes this you basically automate publishing but you also automate engagement there are many tools currently available on the market here's a bit of warning twitter is cracking down on BOTS like behavior.
While few people will have problems with automating publishing, most people would view automating liking or automated favoriting or listing with more suspicion I'm just giving you a heads up because these bots may sooner or later be banned by Twitter.
What is Purely Manual Tweeting?
You can go the other extreme the other extreme of course is to do everything purely by hand not only do you find the very best content by hand you filter them manually you post everything manually you also engage manually the great thing about this is that you have maximum control.
The bad thing about this is you need to have iron discipline to pull this off what if the vast majority of your actual link clickers live in a different time zone this is going to be a problem you're going to have to get up early or stay up late to tweet within the hours your actual followers are most active this can get downright inconvenient.
Also, engaging tons of niche accounts on Twitter can burn up a lot of time you also have to process a lot of information in a short period of time unless you have an IQ over 150 it's just going to be a little heavy because that's a lot of content to read through and analyze.
Go for a Hybrid Solution
There's a lot to recommend a purely manual tweeting approach you get a lot of control you get a laser-like focus on account selection you get to truly fine-tune your message however it takes too much time and effort.
Thankfully, there is a halfway solution this hybrid solution is pretty straightforward you can use tools to post on your Twitter feed but engagement is done manually that's pretty much how it boils down.
You still have to find niche-related content that's already gone viral there's no getting around this you still have to do this.
Thankfully, there is a cheaper way to do this you can of course do this yourself like I said time is money you might also feel like you're going nuts because you have to read so much material.
The shortcut is to use a service like Cog no plus dot com they have virtual assistants from places like India and the Philippines that you only need pay $18 per day these bright ambitious educated people would then find the viral content that you're looking for that meets your cray.
They then send you an XLS file, you verify then you pay them it's only $18 for 8 hours worth of work you can't beat that with a baseball bat you really can't.
However way you choose to do it, you need to get this content you then look for influencer leaders on Twitter that cater to your niche again you can do this yourself or you can hire a virtual assistant to do it for you.
The secret is to make sure that they're almost always talking about your niche once you are sure about that you can then look at their content and pay attention to their hashtags copy these you're going to pair these with your tweets.
Use an Automated Tool to Publish
Whether you're doing things manually or automatically, use an automated tool to publish the good news here is that you're not taking blank shots in the dark when you publish pair this content whether it's original or third-party with hashtags related to your niche.
The Difference
The big difference is what happens next when you're using an automated system you wait for an organic following and then you mix in your squeeze page links and your content links you then use some sort of tool to mimic engagement.
For a manual approach, you do the same you wait for an organic following to increase and then you mix in your own stuff the big difference is you invest one hour per day doing manual outreach to influencers in your niche you should already be doing this because these are the people you got your hashtags from remember.
The extra step that you need to take is just to engage with them tell them that you like their content manually like their stuff click the heart icon or retweet do whatever you can to get on their radar.
One-to-one or person-to-person engagement is crucial you have to get on their radar again you can try to automate but it can be ham-fisted also it may be so obvious or clunky worse yet Twitter might be cracking down on engagement automation so this option may not remain open for long.
Manual Twitter Marketing
Assuming that you have decided to go the manual route here's what you need to do you have to budget your time if you think you only have one hour to spare make sure you give it at least one hour this means stick to one hour exactly or go a bit over but you need to make sure you put in the time.
Find Niche Leaders
First, you need to find people's Twitter accounts who talk about your niche enter the keywords related to your niche into Twitter to find those accounts how do you know these keywords where do you find these keywords here are the steps.
Create a Google AdWords account don't get scared this is free create a free account.
Use the Google Adwords Keyword planner tool enter websites that you know our competitors of yours and alternatively enter well-known websites that you know are in your niche you should get a nice listing of keywords using this technique.
Once you find these keywords, look up those keywords to find even more related keywords make sure that these keywords get a decent amount of traffic read these keywords and be convinced that they are actually related to your niche.
Once you have a nice clean list of keywords, plug this into Twitter to find accounts there's a shortcut to this.
You can use CognoPlus' $18 per day Virtual Assistants to do this for you for only $18 you get a person's full 8-hour day of labor this person can use google adwords for you find the right keywords filter the keywords go through twitter find the accounts get the hashtags and follow those accounts.
Follow Real Niche-Specific Accounts
Once you've done the above steps, you should be able to identify the accounts of people in your niche on twitter this is where you need to make a judgment call.
You need to look at enough of their tweets to see if this person truly cares about your niche is this person really a niche expert or does this person tweet about your niche from time to time these are two totally different things follow real niche leaders.
What are the benefits of manual Twitter marketing?
When you identify and engage with niche leaders on Twitter, you get the following benefit first of all you get niche specific hashtags second you get a chance to get on the radar with people who are really experts or authorities in your niche.
These people can open a lot of digital doors for your business they can retweet your actual content this can lead to niche specific audience members visiting your website they can interview and possum link to your website you can interview them and establish some sort of professional friendship.
You can get invited to conventions or symposiums or workshops these can be tremendous networking opportunities there are just so many ways you can benefit when you reach out to people who are already established authorities in your niche.
Don't be anti-social don't think that you can be successful just with your own efforts it doesn't work that way because there is a network of really credible people on Twitter already who have the influence that you're looking for why not just piggyback on their influence why reinvent the wheel.
Manual Tweeting: Pros and Cons
Manual tweeting, as we have defined, involves automated publishing of content that you have manually selected this is content that you have curated the publication is automated but your engagement is manual you're going to find niche related accounts you're going to engage with them manually you're going to tweet leave comments so on and so forth. Here is how the advantages and disadvantages break down.
Pros
The first advantage is to get a higher level of engagement you actually get to say to these people what you think you get to interact with what they have to say maybe they're critical about your idea so you explain your position to them you give them a counter-argument you ask for examples or you rebut what they have to say.
When you do this, you're not engaging in a pissing contest let me be clear this is nothing to be emotional about instead you use this as an opportunity to prove to them that you know what you're doing.
True experts will accept the fact that not everybody will agree with them when these experts are satisfied that you argued your position well even though you don't agree with them they respect you they also respect you when you give them information that they may not know.
This can lead to instant expert status you only need to do this a couple of times with the right people and believe me they become your cheerleader.
Another advantage is you get access to a pre-qualified niche audience when an authority leader interacts with you on Twitter they're actually publishing their conversation with you on their feet this is a big opportunity don't blow it.
When they respect you enough to keep responding and you give them one top notch answer after another they might even retweet a tweet of yours this is a bonanza why.
These people are already experts on Twitter in a specific niche field this means that they have attracted people who consider them áfourá tees when they engage with your content to the point that their followers see your brand and your content you get access to that audience
Psychologically, people would see if the person that I respect and admire so much respects this other person who I don't know enough to engage with them respectfully, I should pay attention if this keeps up and the person who they follow keeps repeating your stuff or keeps engaging with you it's only a matter of time until some of their audience members would jump over and follow you as well.
Please understand this is not a zero-sum game it's not like they would unfollow the one expert to follow another expert instead they're already following one expert and they would just follow another expert they would be following an additional expert you're increasing the social influence by instead of fighting over somebody else's influence they're not losing out.
Another advantage to manual tweeting is the speed at which you get backlinks I cannot emphasize this enough if you want to boost your website's SEO and you want to get more search engine traffic you will need backlinks.
You can get this much faster when you do manual engagement the people you're engaging with are in a better position to see that you know what you're talking about you get to earn their trust and their respect faster once this happens they are more likely to interview you or share content that you posted on your website whatever the case may be this produces a backlink.
This backlink really is a measurement of respect for your authority or an acknowledgement of your credibility it acts as a vote of confidence the more you reach out to a lot of authorities the more high quality backlinks you get this can boost the overall ranking of your website.
Finally, you may be invited to speak at conventions, workshops or seminars people might ask you to submit an original article that they would be publishing somewhere else.
Best of all you may get introduced to a big player in your industry you might get a job offer you might get some sort of consulting opportunity honestly the range of opportunities available to you is endless.
You just need to get out there the best way to do this online is manual tweeting because you are in full control of your engagement you craft the public persona you project and this enables you to be more aware of opportunities as they flash into existence.
Disadvantages
The big cons against manual tweeting should be obvious it takes a lot of time that's all I need to say it should be self-explanatory.
Second, its content intensive while content curation can help you tremendously it can only go sofar you cannot become a global expert on a particular niche on Twitter and be respected by all other subject matter experts if all you do is share their stuff that's just not going to happen.
Ultimately, they're gonna ask you, "What about your stuff? what do you have to say? What does your original research indicate?" you don't want to come up with a 0 when asked those hard questions
Finally, there is no assurance that you will get some sort of Alliance I hate to say it but certain niches really don't get much coverage on Twitter you might be able to interact with a high level of niche authorities on Twitter but that doesn't necessarily mean that they operate blogs that can then link to you still unbalanced manual tweeting on Twitter delivers more benefits than its costs.
Manual Twitter Follower Generation
How do you generate followers organically on Twitter using a manual technique? it's as basic as finding niche specific accounts and finding their followers follow these niche specific accounts but pay attention to their followers follow followers who you know are truly interested in your niche.
This requires research you actually have to look at their tweets or look the stuff that they're retweeting once you see a pattern and it is niche related follow these follower accounts I know this is simple but it's also effective.
How to Find the Right Niche Influencer Leaders on Twitter
At this point, it should be fairly clear that you need to follow the right people on Twitter otherwise the tips I've shared with you will not work if you're just going to follow random people on Twitter you don't know who you're influencing in fact you don't even know if you're influencing them at all.
You have to understand that on Twitter some people generally follow a general rule if you follow me I follow you know we're in this does it say they're actually interested in what you have to say and it's a big problem if you attract the wrong following you're not gonna get many results from Twitter marketing in fact the results you get would be the same as if you did not do Twitter marketing at all that's a waste of time.
You need to find real people you also need to find real influential people this isn't bad enough you need to find real influential people in your niche how do you do this here's my step by step guide.
Pay Attention to Their Biography
look at their bio is it OnPoint does it indicate the persona of a person who is truly interested in your niche this is crucial if there are no niche related keywords there or it's not obvious that this person is part of your target demographic and it's not some sort of passionate or credible enough authority in your niche then this is probably the wrong person you may be barking up the wrong tree.
Look at Their Follower to Following Ratio
This ratio is simple look at the number of people this person follows and look at the number of people following this person if this person's followers greatly outnumber the accounts this person is following chances are this is a real account.
It is not some bot that is fully automated instead this person actually has influence because for how many people he or she is following he is followed by hundreds if not thousands of more people.
This is very important if it turns out that the number of people following this person is pretty much the same as the number of persons he is following is probably not a good idea to follow that person this person is probably just using some sort of software to take advantage of the fact that when you follow people they follow you back some of them follow you back.
Pay Attention to Their Level of Engagement
Look at this stuff that they talk about Hey attention to their tweets what do they constantly retweet what do they tweet about are they talking about the same stuff most of the time the Zura count get a lot of retweets and posts retweets and engagements do they get a lot of favorites is there a lot of engagement with the content they share.
Even if this person is totally focused on your niche but it turns out that their tweets don't get much engagement they may not be all that influential becoming credible with them and getting access to their market may not work out for you their audience may not work out for you because they're not really authorities.
Pay Attention to the Specificity of Their Posts
Look at their posts here's a rule of thumb if 80% or more of their posts have something to do with your niche follow them follow them if all the other points I raised above apply.
But if it turns out that this person's bio is on point it has more followers than the accounts that he or she is following it has a high engagement level but this person focuses on generalized content this person may be a dud in other words this person is some sort of Twitter celebrity this person is only an authority because of their personality and not much else they're not an authority because they focus on a niche.
They're not an authority because they are truly passionate about a niche people only follow them because they think their personality is interesting so what you get is some sort of individual celebrity market that's not what you're looking for you're looking for a niche audience.
Follow and Engage
So, what do you do when you find a niche specific and truly authoritative account on Twitter? first of all they have to meet all the criteria listed in video 5 assuming they pass with flying colors you follow them don't stop there this is just the beginning.
Once you follow them, you engage now a lot of people have all sorts of misconceptions regarding what engagement means some people think that if they just click the heart button that they are engaging they think that if they retweet that they are engaging no it goes beyond that.
You actually have to engage in a one-to-one conversation with the person tweeting you click the reply button I'm not talking about the direct message button I'm talking about the reply button here's where it gets a little tricky can't just use a stock answer like hey good post or you're a genius I admire you I love you.
No. That doesn't work those are worthless why and true authorities get those all the time they're credible they know what they're talking about so they get a lot of hate good post you're a smart guy you're a genius so what they get those all the time you're not gonna stand out remember the whole point of engagement is to get on their radar you want them to notice you.
This is all but impossible if you're doing the exact same thing everybody else is doing everybody thinks that they're a genius already yet another guy piping up and saying the same thing is not going to register.
How Do You Truly Engage?
Here's what I do. I ask questions I know that sounds basic right but you have to ask the right question you have to ask a question that indicates to the person loud and clear that you've read their post maybe you click through the link that they shared maybe you analyze. their tweet whatever the case may be your question must communicate this.
Your question must get them to think or analyze or look at things with a new perspective when you do that you get respect why you're pushing them you're challenging them you're not just asking a throwaway question that they already know the answer to you're not asking something that they've answered 100 times before.
You're basically letting them earn a chance to prove why people think they're experts most mature adults respect this they're not scared by this they're not threatened by this in any way even if you do come across somebody who has a thin skin or views this as an attack you still gain Authority and credibility because other experts are following that person when they see that engagement they quickly see that you actually have a working brain.
Imagine that you're not just a blind follower you're not just another face in the crowd this makes you stand out even if the expert that you are asking questions to reacts in a negative way it's on them it's not on you because you're just asking a question.
Of course, you have to ask in a respectful way you cannot use loaded questions like when did you stop beating your wife or how is it the first time you got hooked on drugs you see where I'm coming from don't ask those types of questions.
Discuss Controversial Points
Another way to get on people's radars is to focus on controversy now please don't mistake this for being a troll I'm not saying that you're going to create artificial controversies I'm not talking about stoking divisive issues I'm not talking about any of that you see in any kind of subject there will always be two sides.
This applies to niche subjects as well there's always the conventional wisdom and then there is everything else what if there are techniques or approaches or strategies that would get better results for some reason or other these are just not talked about for some reason or other these are kept under the rug.
When you discuss these or raise these with experts this highlights that you yourself are an expert after all if you fully explain these or fully describe these accurately you are basically lecturing in an underhanded way people who are reading your tweets.
You're letting them know of something that they may not have heard about you are hinting at a body of knowledge that either they're trying to run away from or they may have an unclear understanding of.
The fact that you tease this information communicates to them in a clear way that you are some sort of expert let's put it this way you stand out from the crowd and you're not just this random person saying hey good post or you're a genius or what do you think about this topic which has been raised millions of times before.
Whatever You Do Focus on Real Engagement
This is the bottom line real engagement means real person-to-person contact this means picking somebody's brain this means sharing information on a real profound personal level this may not be always comfortable it definitely is not always convenient but it's absolutely necessary you have to reach out you have to engage.
You have to communicate you have to get the point across this doesn't mean that you have to always be 100% in agreement however it means that you do have to always be 100% respectful.
I know this is hard to do if the person you are engaging would feel threatened or get soft on you in the worst way it's very tempting to fight back it's very tempting to push back fight fire with fire right.
Well here's the thing if they act in a very unprofessional way and you keep your cool wins your brand wins people start seeing you as an authority people start seeing you as an alternative this is how you get on the radar either things work smoothly and they agree with you and will love to help you or things don't work out.
When things don't work out, you can still win how through your professionalism you just have to control your emotions twitter is notorious for flame wars troll attacks and all sorts of hassles but if you're able to keep your head together and focus on what you're trying to accomplish things will work out for the best.
What Happens When You Reach High Engagement Levels
A lot of people who are getting on twitter measure the success based on three things one according to one school, you measure your success based on how much raw traffic you can pull from Twitter ultimately this is the right answer because at the end of the day you need traffic to get conversions there's no way around this fact.
You can talk a big game about branding you can talk a good game about becoming an authority this is all well and good but until and unless they translate to real traffic you're not going to make money you have to get real visitors to make money on the internet but using this metric as your sole metric is going to be a problem.
Why normally you have to build a very high level of engagement and high level of authority for you to get a sizeable volume of direct traffic from Twitter the good news is that the traffic that you do tend to get would be qualified traffic these are people who are not curiosity seekers these are people who have nothing else better to do than to click random links.
These are usually people who are interested in whatever it is you are saying and by extension whatever it is you are promoting another way to measure success on Twitter is the number of retweets you get again this is good because it ultimately leads to traffic however in itself it doesn't really lead to much.
The same applies to people clicking the heart button thatthey like your stuff they favorite your stuff that is all good it definitely is a great boost to the ego but until it translates the traffic it's really not worth much here's my answer the obvious answer of course is traffic.
But before we get the traffic focus on engagement level try to get your engagement levels this means people are paying attention this means people view you as an actual credible and authoritative expert this means influence if you have high engagement levels a lot of things open up for you these are tremendous opportunities that can take your business to the next level first you can pitch influential Twitter accounts for guest posts.
If you get a lot of engagement from their accounts and then they're constantly retweeting you and constantly clicking the heart icon and it means that they become your fans this is an indication that there is an actual organic community that grew up around your content this is a good thing but just by itself it doesn't really mean much.
You have to convert it you have to transform it into a usable form in one of the most useful forms of this usual payouts of this level of influence with influencers are to pitch them for guest posts now of course this means that they have to have a blog that's credible and has great SEO value in their niche but assuming that's true pitch them for guest posts.
Don't be shy it doesn't hurt to ask if they say no the first time continue to engage with them be a buddy challenge them test them earn their respect some more and then pitch them again keep pitching until you get that guest post because sometimes you have to knock many times before the door opens that's just the way things are.
Keep pitching because for every single guest post you get, you may get a nice boost in Google search results you probably don't need me to explain to you why that's a good thing.
Ask for Interviews
There are many influential people on Twitter that are either top dogs and organizations in your niche or they know people either way when you get interviewed for a variety of reasons you have arrived in your niche let's put it this way they're not gonna interview worthless people they're not going to interview people who have no credibility.
Why? Well, they respect their own credibility they want to protect whatever status they have one of the worst ways to do that is to interview people with no credibility they want to build up so the fact that they're interviewing you signals to whoever respects them that you are worthy of respect it signals the people that you are credible that you are worth following.
It tells people in so many ways what you have to say counts for something this is a big deal how come you can leverage this interview that you've got as proof of your expert status you can then contact influential publications in your niche to get backlinks you can contact the networking groups symposiums and conventions to get speaking opportunities.
You can always point to the fact that you got interviewed by these highly credible places another advantage you can get when you put in the time to manually engage with truly influential people involves blogging round tables blogging round tables are basically group interviews.
The person holding the roundtable would come up with a general topic for example they're talking about general SEO trends in 2018 and then hit up a large number of people for their interviews knowing full well only a small fraction would respond
If you get invited to turn in your feedback, you get a nice link imagine if the blogger roundtable was being held on the premier website in your niche again it doesn't take a genius to figure out the dynamite SEO potential of this opportunity
Build a High Influence Retweet Circle
This final benefit escapes a lot of marketers in fact even Twitter marketers may be completely blind to this this is one of the biggest benefits of manual engagement with influential people on Twitter can ever deliver when you get these people to think that you are credible and that you are an expert in your own right.
Eventually, you can count on some of them to automatically retweet your stuff this is a big deal well when you share your own content or better yet when you share your squeeze page direct link you want truly interested people to click through.
You want people who understand what your content is about to click through and possibly convert in other words you want highly qualified traffic if your brand becomes so trusted and so credible in your niche among other Twitter users you cultivate such a following.
You only need to produce content and automatically you know they would retweet you you can almost bet that a certain percentage of your followers would retweet this can then lead to your content being seen by more of their followers which can lead to highly qualified direct traffic don't neglect this benefit.
Unfortunately, a lot of people do because this benefit grows very slowly it also starts at a very low level but of all the benefits this is probably the most potent unfortunately it also takes the most time effort and attention to detail however if you properly cultivate this the direct traffic benefits and conversions you would get from being a part of a retweet circle will outweigh and will pay for all your costs you can take this to the bank.
Always Optimize Your Content
It's really important to make sure that you identify your best performing content this is not easy to do with Twitter you basically have to pay attention to your website statistics and figure out which content update gets the most love from your followers once you have identified your best performing content don't stop there.
Don't just think that you're just going to have to come up with the exact same content that's not going to cut it also don't think that you only need to give your system a few days for you to identify your winning content.
Here's the system that I use regardless of whether you are completely automating your system or you're manually doing engagements you need to do the following as far as content optimization goes on Twitter
Step 1: Start with randomly-selected content.
Now please understand that this content must be topped content look at the reverse engineering section that I mentioned earlier in this training you should know how to spot objectively good content.
Once you're able to do that create a massive list of all that type of content and then randomly select this content and publish it on your Twitter feed again you can use HootSuite or socialoomph or some other content scheduling software let this piece of content run until a few weeks pass.
Step 2 : Review your results.
If you give the system enough time to tweet and keep republishing stuff that you have tweeted before certain patterns should emerge with enough time you will get rid of false positives.
These are content types or themes that you think are winners it turns out that they're statistical flukes their success statistically speaking is just coincidental with a few weeks however a running time you should get a clear understanding of which of your content are real winners.
Step 3: Focus on what works
At this stage you should have a clear understanding of what truly works these tweets are no joke if you tweak this type of content you can rest assured you will get quite a bit of engagement and click-through from your Twitter feed you need to create more of this type of content.
If you don't have the time or resources to do that, you should find other third party content that is just like you're winning content focus on what works scale it up pair it with your squeeze page tweets pair it with your content that leads to ads or other conversion devices on your website whatever the case may be you need to focus on what works and scale up once you've identified reliably productive content.
Again, this takes time this is not something that you identify overnight you have to let the patterns play out you need to let the statistical flow of your traffic even out over a long enough period of time if you do this right you will be able to shift your Twitter feed towards content that has a predictable level of engagement this paves the way for the success of your Twitter campaign.
Cross-feed your Content among platforms
If you notice that you have winning content on Twitter, don't just leave it at Twitter there's a good chance that people and other platforms would appreciate that same content take that content and share it on Pinterest or Instagram if you are sharing third-party videos and they do really well on Twitter share them on your YouTube channel.
Whatever the case may be, cross feed or cross-pollinate your content among different social media platforms there's a lot to choose from there's Pinterest Instagram YouTube Facebook reddit and Quora among many others mix and match.
Pick your very best content try along different platforms and identify what works once you identify that a particular type of content that you tweet also does well on another platform publish more of that stuff scale it up.
Leverage the Power of Questions
One of the best ways to publish content in Twitter is to ask questions it's really that simple you ask a question and then you post a link and then some hashtags the great thing about this question based tweeting is you get to engage the reader you focus on a specific point that they may be interested in.
If they are, you're more likely to get the click this is definitely more engaging because you start with a specific need that they have you're not just wasting people's time by saying hey this might be interesting who cares there's tons of interesting stuff on Twitter people simply do not have the time to consume all that information.
One of the best descriptions I have read about Twitter is that it's like drinking from a fire hydrant there's just so much information to process in a very short period of time this is why most people who consume a lot of social media content don't bother to read they really don't they don't have that luxury instead they scan by tweeting in the form of questions followed up by a link in some hashtags.
You take advantage of this fact people only need to see the right question and then you have yourself a click it fits how people think about and process information on Twitter interestingly enough a lot of marketing professionals are saying that this also creates some sort of SEO signal this is a big deal because it can give you a search engine optimization benefit now please understand that this benefit is very marginal.
In fact, spokespeople for Google have spoken up on this issue for the most part they said this type of social signal isn't really factored in by Google however a lot of professional search engine optimization consultants say that there is an indirect or circumstantial benefit.
Whatever the truth may be, we could all agree that if there is a signal that is being factored in by Google, it's going to be a very weak factor still it is a factor so you raise the question based format.
Use Your Questions for Quora
Not only do you get to engage your Twitter followers more directly by using questions you can recycle this resource by posting it on Quora you're killing two birds with one stone you are posing a question on Twitter.
And then it's copying and pasting that question and posting it on Quora and then posting an answer or you can look for a similar question that already exists on Quora and answer with basically the link that you are promoting through Twitter you save on time you definitely save on effort.
Twitter Marketing Best Practices
The first nine videos of this training step you through the process of Twitter marketing whether you're going the fully automated route or you're doing things by hand you have to use certain best practices otherwise it's too easy for your twitter marketing campaign to simply fall apart the vast majority of people who try their hand at twitter marketing simply do not succeed.
It's not because these people are dumb it's not because these people are hopeless in terms of execution they just did not have a plan they also did not follow certain best practices that would have increased their chances of success here] are just some best practices that I've learned marketing successfully on Twitter for several years.
Element by Element Optimization
When you're optimizing content on Twitter, it's a good idea to focus on one element at a time what is an element well it's just part of a tweet it could be the question it could be the link it could be the hashtag when you're optimizing for the highest amount of engagement and click-through you have to change your tweet section by section.
You can't just change them dramatically overnight because even if you do get some sort of improvement, you don't know which part accounts for that improvement you're completely in the dark on the other hand if you optimize element by element you can clearly identify which part you changed and reasonably conclude that this accounts for the improvement.
Once you're no longer getting a nice improvement or you peaked with a particular element then you switch to the next element with Twitter this is pretty straightforward you play around with many different question variations until you get one that gets clicked a lot.
Next, you swap out different hashtags until you get something that gets clicked a lot it seems pretty simple but it's something that takes place over an extended period of time it's not something that happens overnight you just have to pay attention to the trend that traffic statistics so you can make the necessary adjustments.
Tweet Timing Optimization
Depending on your time zone, it may well turn out that a lot of your most active followers prefer early morning or late at night.
Pay attention to your statistics maybe you're using Google Analytics maybe you're using StatCounter it really doesn't matter pay attention to the time of the clicks coming in you see a pattern if you do use your tweet scheduling software to mirror the most active times or the most popular time frame of your content this is the time range where most people click on your links on Twitter.
Make your decisions Based on Statistics
A lot of brilliant online marketers fail in the Twitter marketing game because they go with their gut they tell me I just know it feels right alternatively they tell me that their gut is telling them something nine times out of ten these people fail again they're not dumb they're not stupid instead they base their decision on feelings.
Unfortunately, in this game, feelings can only take you so far in fact hunches often lead to dead ends if you're going to be making a decision involving your content your conversion pages your mailing lists or whatnot pay attention to statistics make sure you can justify whatever changes you make with hard numbers.
Conclusion
Twitter marketing success is not as hard as you think seriously there are lots of people who are in their teens who make millions of dollars every year on Twitter there are lots of companies located all over the world that find clients from Twitter.
There are many home-based entrepreneurs such as yourself or digital marketers who make quite a comfortable living promoting online stores on Twitter what accounts for these individuals success it is actually quite simple they chose to be systematic and methodical you have to have a system you can't just do things by the seat of your pants.
You can't just do things based on gut feeling you have to have a way of proceeding because such systems teach you what to look for how to respond when you find certain facts and how to optimize your system.
You have to be methodical this means that you cannot put the cart before the horse you have to follow the proper sequence you have to look at the right signals these two factors system and meticulousness flow together it takes quite a bit of time to master this but eventually you will get it if you put in the time you have to pay your dues nobody will do it for you I wish you nothing but the greatest Twitter marketing success.