Using Twitter To Promote Your Business

While many of those familiar with Twitter as being nothing more than a quirky instant messaging system that limits individual messages - known as 'tweets' - to no more than 140 characters, those who understand Twitter's instant search results and powerful networking capabilities are utilizing it to drive some serious traffic to their online businesses.

With just a little time and effort, anyone can begin to increase their website traffic by taking advantage of the Almighty Twitter. Here are a few suggestions for driving traffic to your website with the help of Twitter.

If you intend on using Twitter to drive traffic to your website, you first will need to have people following you on Twitter. If you are new to Twitter and only have a few followers, don't despair. It's relatively easy to acquire a lot of new followers without a lot of effort.

The easiest way is to simply begin following other tweeters. Most will do you the courtesy of following you back. But, what you really will want to do is to first make use of the Search feature on the Twitter website and try entering a few keywords that might pertain to your business or product. That way, you will narrow down the playing field to actually reaching the people you feel might be interested in what you have to offer.

For example, if you are wanting to promote your website design services, here's a little trick to make sure you find people who need your services, and not just people who are selling their own services. Instead of posting 'website design' in the search box - which maybe will get you some potential followers, but more likely will be other people promoting themselves - try typing into the search box "I need to find a website designer', or "I need website design help". THESE are the people you want to target and follow. What an easy way to find new customers!

Although this can be a bit time consuming, you'll be surprised at just how many people you can follow in a relatively short amount of time. Just make sure you give them time to follow you back. Even posting a link to your website on your Twitter bio will help to drive traffic to your site. Most tweeters will want to click on your Bio link to find out more about you before deciding if they want to follow you or not.

Another way to gain more followers is to place keywords in your tweets. These keywords will show up in Search results which again, will bring people to your Twitter page, and hopefully drive them on to your website.

For example, a couple of weeks ago, I posted this tweet on my Twitter page:

"I'd like to thank each and every one of the Network Marketing people who follow me and who send me so many interesting links"

Within half an hour, I had over 45 new followers. Now granted, network marketers are a pretty easy target - after all, they are hoping you will actually be interested in their links - but it gives you an idea of how to use certain keywords or phrases to help people find you. Whether you choose to follow them is entirely up to you. However, most of them will 'unfollow' you if you don't follow them back. But, if you're doing this technique on an ongoing basis, you'll never miss them.

Also, when you are posting tweets that promote your products or services, it is a good idea to NOT post the exact same message over and over and over again. No one on Twitter will want to click on your product/website link if they have seen that same message posted twelve times earlier that day! I am constantly amazed at the number of people on Twitter who continually repeat the same tweet over and over and over again!

You might have the greatest product or service under the sun, but if you want to get Tweeters to find out more, you might have to change things up a bit. After all, the messages you post are only 140 characters long, anyway. It's not as though you're having to continuously write lengthy product descriptions all day. Honestly, the shorter the tweet, the better. Be a little obscure with your tweets. "See our amazing website designs:" might not work too well, but "Here are some great new website designs we just added:" might get their attention. Anything with the words 'new' or 'just added' seems to get people's attention. Also, shorter tweets have a better chance at getting 'retweeted' by others who like what you're offering and want to share the info.

You also want to be careful not to spam on Twitter. Too many uses of the same word or phrase over and over again will get you flagged and possibly have your account deleted. All the more reason to mix it up when it comes to posting your tweets. It's fine to use the same link over and over again, but it's not good to include the same repetitive message in each tweet.

Another way to help save time is to use Twitter apps to help schedule your tweets. The most popular apps are Socialoomph and Twitterfeed which can program your tweets to be posted at specific intervals. Other apps are being developed almost on a daily basis that help to utilize the power of Twitter, most from a business standpoint. A simple Google search on 'new Twitter apps' will bring up the most current and most popular. I'm not kidding, these apps are being developed faster than the latest prescription drugs!

There are hundreds of other websites that can help to drive traffic to your sites, but when it comes to the power and the immediacy of the results you can get from spending a little time on Twitter, you won't find anything that's as effective.  Oh, and it's free!  Another good reason to use Twitter!