Last week we discussed finding the right way to follow people; what types of information to post to keep followers engaged; and encouraged you NOT to spam your followers for fear of  being unfollowed. 

This week in Part Two, we’ll learn how to follow the right people and why using patience over the long-term will give you the best results for your business.  

Following the Right People 

There are a lot of online marketers who have used Twitter to help increase exposure to their clients. Twitter marketing gurus like Guy Kawasaki, Dave Peck and Chris Brogan should be on your Twitter list. 

When choosing people to follow, look at their bio information and make sure they fit your target audience.  You will not only capture them, but you can capture their followers, too.  For some, this may mean finding larger corporate conglomerates that have followers that would have interest in your product, too. 

For example, if you sell organic products, you would probably find people interested in your type of products following Whole Foods’ Twitter account.  

You may also want to spend some time following your competition.  This allows you to see what kind of tactics they are using to increase their own Twitter following. 

Smart online marketers monitor their competition on social networks to see what they’re doing right and then doing it better. It’s also easier to see when your competition has failed and how you can avoid their missteps.  If your competition rarely posts to Twitter and never responds to negative posts, you can quickly fill the gap and create a more loyal following. 

Patience is Required When Using Twitter For Business:

 Businesses who utilize Twitter to market their brand or products should consider it a long-term strategy. Gaining access to your targeted following will not happen overnight, but if you use the proper strategies, and be consistent, it will happen.   

Above all, don’t SELL to your Twitter following like you would to the average person online.  Twitter followers will quickly see your sales pitch and unfollow you in the blink of an eye. 

Take a more gentle approach to market to your followers.  Instead of sending tweets that say, “buy now”, use a more subtle approach like, “Do you need a product that does XYZ? This one does.” 

Instead of posting that your new product has just launched, instead, post the features and benefits of your new product to your blog and post something to Twitter like: “Check out the benefits of our latest product that does XYZ”, and then end the Twitter post with the URL to your blog. 

Always reply to any direct tweets that people send you. Don’t ignore your following.  If your Twitter following gets too large for you to handle, consider outsourcing the work or having an employee take on some of the hours needed to tweet, retweet and respond.

 Twitter is an integrated, holistic approach to marketing. That means staying transparent, interacting with the Twitter community and staying interesting. The quickest way to kill off your Twitter following is to be boring. 

Jeannine Clontz, owner of Accurate Business Services, a VA practice, is an author, writer, speaker and VA Business Coach specializing in providing professional business coaching to established and start-up virtual assistants (VA’s).  For her FREE audio CD “What’s Holding Back my Business Success?” or a 2-month trial in her group coaching program visit:  http://www.VAbizcoach.com; or contact her at: coach@VAbizcoach.com.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 7:08 am and is filed under Business Coach, Business Coaching, Business Tips, Entrepreneur, growing a business, Growing your business, Marketing Plans, Marketing Support, Marketing Tips, Marketing Your Business, Social Networking, VA, VA Classes, VA Coach, VA Coaching, VA Training, Virtual Assistance, Virtual Assistant, Virtual Assistant Classes, Virtual Assistant Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.