Twitter – Creating Your Tweet Plan

Create Your Tweet Plan

Twitter is the flavour of the year and a lot of you will be starting to use Twitter for the first time, and using it correctly to not only build your following but to get your followers to go where you want them to and to get buy in from them is not easy,even though there’s lot of people using the micro blogging service, you still need to have a plan to get the most out of the site. For those of you who have been using Twitter for awhile, this article will also help you get more response for all your efforts.

To be successful using Twitter you need to offer value to those following you, and you need to create what I call the “Trusted Adviser” role for yourself, once you have created this role and others see your expertise on a subject, they will follow you to get information and advice, but first you need to work very hard to create this persona.

Creating your Tweet plan and then following the strategy you have set up for yourself, will help you keep your plan on track. Just posting tweets about your product or listing is not engaging your followers nor is it creating value, it is just plain boring.

Setting out to become a trusted adviser means you need to listen,respond and broadcast and build your community, that’s what your followers are, your community, and you need to offer value in what you do to get engagement from them.

Creating your topic list is a good place to start, define your area of expertise and start to build that trust.

Some of the topics you could include if you are just starting out would be:

1. Your Expertise

2. What are your passions

3. Stats in your market – Good for those in real estate

4. Share your interests

5. Tweet what you are doing

6. Updates on your listings – real estate again

7. Share links and helpful information

So now you’ve worked on your list of topics, it’s time to create your tweet plan:

1. Make a list of topics

2. Identify your resources – sites to turn to, to get information

3. Schedule drips – spread your tweets out throughout the day

4. Be spontaneous

5. Follow other twitters of like minded interests and retweet information

Once you have your tweet plan worked out, you then need to set up your Twitter profile:

1. Create your Twitter background and personalise your profile

2. Complete your profile – serious followers always check out your profile before a follow.

3. Use monitoring and measuring tools to check your tweets – Use URL shorteners such as Bit.ly/Cli.gs/Hootsuite

4. Add video to your tweets by using Bubbletweet.com

5. Use Tweetlater.com to add an auto welcome  message for new followers

I hope that you find the above information helpful, particularly if you are just starting out with Twitter, and by using the tools I’ve suggested, it will give you the basics to start building your following and help you create the trusted adviser role.

Some helpful Twitter tools you can use to start building your Tweet plan:

1. Tweetdeck.com

2. Topify.com – Uses email notification for new followers

3. Hootsuite.com

4. Tweetlater.com

5. Tweetmeme.com – Search and retweet the hottest stories on Twitter.

Twitter Usage In The US Continues To Grow

Social Media and Twitter - Microblogging on the rise

New studies from the US have confirmed what we all know is happening with Twitter, and that is, it is continuing to generate strong growth in the numbers of people who are using the social media site each month. Each month, there are 18 million adults who access Twitter, that is a growth of over 200% based on their numbers for the same period last year, and the number of users on Twitter will continue to grow in 2010 by another 44.4%, with around 26 million users.

Back in April, most research companies were predicting the number of users to Twitter at around 12 million, but the massive increase in usage has been due to the micro blogging sites strong growth. In June this year, Neilsen On Line reported Twitters unique browser numbers at 21 million, a growth of 2000% on June 2008.

This figure may be on the conservative side as well, given that a lot of Twitter users access the site via text messages, mobile applications and the many desk top application available.

Whilst these number appear to be good news for Twitter, there is another issue that is affecting the site, and that is the large numbers of registered users who never use the site, in fact half of Twitter it seems has never uttered a Tweet.

There could be a more strategic reason for this as well, I know of a number of consultants who register the user names of competitors to stop them from using their company name or brand. They never intend to use the name just block it forever.

If you or your company are thinking about using Twitter or integrating it into your Social Media Strategy or are not getting the response you would like, why not enroll in one of our corporate training courses, the courses are hands on workshops that show you how to uses social media online and get maximum buy in from your customers.