Thanks to Guest Blogger, Lynn Serafinn.
Welcome to Part 2 of this 2-part series on Twitter mistakes you can avoid. In Part 1 we covered mistakes #1 and 2, which are:
1. Not taking time to build your Twitter tribe.
2. Not understanding the mechanics of an online marketing campaign.
As promised, here are mistakes #3 through 5 . . .
MISTAKE 3: Not knowing how to recognize and leverage your “inner circle.”
Many people come to Twitter with a polarized vision: they evaluate everyone as either a potential customer (or not) or as a competitor.
As a result, you may find yourself “chasing” potential customers and avoid the perceived competition. What this vision prevents you from seeing is the vast sea of potential marketing partners that are probably within one of these two camps.
Your so-called “competitors” are frequently your best collaborators, primarily because you might share a common vision, a common business ethic AND a common audience.
Many (if not nearly all) of my best marketing partners are either online marketing consultants, people who work with authors, or authors themselves. These people are my “inner circle”.
The two biggest mistakes I could ever make would be to:
a) Avoid them.
b) Try to “sell” to them.
These people are like gold dust to me and my business, and they should be to you too. Stop looking at people on Twitter as if they were in only two camps (to be sold to or avoided).
Find your inner circle. Build partnerships. Help others to grow and they will help you grow too.
MISTAKE 4: Not having enough diversity in your Tweets.
Most people tend to write far too few Tweets for their promotions.
Typically, I’ll see half a dozen Tweets with little punch and no diversity. You might be surprised (or shocked) to know that when I run a promotion, I typically compose hundreds of Tweets for my partners to use. I recommend putting this kind of care into composing Tweets for any of your marketing campaigns for these 5 reasons:
- It increases the diversity of keywords, making them appear in more Twitter searches.
- Too much repetition can cause your Tweets to be filtered from Twitter search results.
- The diversity will appeal to different target audiences.
- Having a wide selection of diverse Tweets encourages your marketing partners to Tweet more frequently.
- It keeps your readers from getting bored or irritable due to being bombarded with the same thing over and over.
Creating compelling and diverse Tweets is a vital part of your promotions. If you can’t imagine WHAT you could possibly say to fill a hundred or more Tweets, I recommend reading PART 6: Creating Effective Content in my book Tweep-e-licious for ideas and guidelines.
MISTAKE 5: Not understanding what motivates your followers.
In Tip 59 in my book Tweep-e-licious, I talk about what I call the “Yeah…So What?” Test (YSW Test for short).
The YSW Test is when you write a Tweet (or blog post or whatever) and ask yourself, “Yeah…So What?” before you send it to your audience. If nearly all your Tweets are about you and your company, they’ll fail this test. People will say to themselves, “Yeah, So what?” and not bother to click on your link.
Supporting this idea is Tip 55: Give People What THEY Want, Not What YOU Want to Give Them.
To write compelling Tweets, you have to understand the motivations of your followers. What are they looking for? Advice? Tips? Answers? To what? When you can answer these questions, you can see what would motivate them to click on your link AND stay connected with you.
While some people are motivated by regular information, others may seek community. And, others may be motivated by “freebies” or bargains. All of these are legitimate doorways to connection, and your Tweets should be diverse enough to appeal to all these different motivators.
Closing Thoughts
For any of these strategies to work at all, your Tweets must fulfil the most important criterion of all—RELEVANCE. If your content is not relevant to your audience, it doesn’t matter what else you do.
Perform due diligence in defining what kinds of people would find your work most relevant to THEIR needs, and then deliver diverse, compelling, relevant content that fulfils a variety of motivations.
Combine this activity with the conscious cultivation of your partnerships and other online relationships, and with time you will see the richness of the Twitterverse emerge.
Have you made any of these mistakes in the past? Or have you seen a Twitter mistake others are making that you’d like to share? Please post your thoughts in the comment section below. I’d love to hear from you. Thanks!
Read even more at http://www.writedirection.com/top-5-marketing-mistakes-twitter-part-1?preview=true&preview_id=3970&preview_nonce=36ef0ff772
About guest blogger Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC: Lynn is a certified award-winning coach, teacher, marketer, social media expert, radio host, speaker and author. She was recently named one of the Top 100 marketing authors on Twitter by Social Media Magazine and was selected as a finalist for the prestigious Brit Writers Awards.
The ideas in this article were adapted from Lynn’s book Tweep-e-licious! 158 Twitter Tips & Strategies for Writers, Social Entrepreneurs & Changemakers Who Want to Market Their Business Ethically. Nearly 300 pages long, this is a substantive, practical manual of ethical marketing strategies for Twitter, from bare-bones basics to advanced user skills. When you buy the book, you’ll also get a “secret URL” where you can download a free 90-minute Twitter audio class plus a Twitter Resource Pack with links to over 100 useful Twitter resources. (NOTE: This is not an affiliate link.)
