Using Twitter as Promotional Tool

Twitter is an amazing social media tool. Millions of people utilize this website every day, and it is an easy way to connect with people all over the world.

Twitter is a perfect platform for promoting everything including online stores, Ebay auctions, blogs, brands, and pretty much anything you can think of. You can reach millions of potential customers with 140 characters and a link or picture.

I have an Ebay store, and I just recently logged back onto Twitter to try to promote my auctions. One of my auctions was ending in a few minutes, and it had very few views. It only had 6 views in the almost 7 full days that it had been on Ebay. I decided to see whether Twitter was an effective tool at promoting items, so I posted a link to my item on Twitter with a brief description. Within 5 minutes, I had over 20 views on the item! The most amazing thing about this is that before this week, I had rarely used Twitter at all, and thus I have very few followers. Imagine how many views my items will get when I build up my base!

I've also tried to use Twitter to promote my Hubs. I have only attempted to promote two Hubs via Twitter thus far, and each time my number of page-views has increased. The page-views for my Hubs haven't increased as much as as the page views for my Ebay auctions, however I consider any increase in traffic to be a success.

Many people try to use Twitter as a promotional tool with little to no success. I have developed some tips on how to successfully use this tool to promote whatever business, brand or blog that you have.

1. Don't be selfish

This is the most important thing that you can do to gain followers and promote your items. My biggest pet peeve with Twitter users is that they are overly promotional. I know this sounds funny, because the entire point of this Hub is using Twitter as a promotional tool, and many people on Twitter are on there just to promote their items. However, real people do not want their Twitter feeds filled with your items. Real people want variety. They want to see interesting posts. They want people to engage with them. If you want to gain followers, you will have to do these things. Engage with other people. Post interesting things. Retweet other people's blogs, auctions, etc. If you take the time to do things like this, you will gain followers and, as a bonus, those followers will be more willing to Retweet your items. This will allow you to reach even more potential customers.

2. Use Hashtags

Twitter uses hashtags to categorize tweets. You can hashtag anything, but some categories are popular (or, as Twitter says "trending") and some may have only one post. When you hashtag, you can view all of the Tweets that are related to a particular subject. Whenever I post a link to one of my auction items, I use the following hashtags: #forsale #garagesale #yardsale. Anyone visiting any of these three fairly popular hashtags will see my post. I also use a hashtag describing what I have for sale. For example, when I was selling Sailor Moon action figures, I used the hashtags #sailormoon #anime, so that anyone who was interested in those specific things would see my posting. In this way I can target people with specific interests, people who may really want the items that I'm selling.

3. Follow Relevant Users

If you are using Twitter as a promotional tool, you should try to follow users whose business/interests are similar to yours. Since I am trying to promote Ebay auctions, many of the people that I follow are also re-sellers. I retweet their items which I find interesting, and they sometimes retweet mine. This relationship benefits both of us. I have a lot of interests and side projects though, so I have to branch out and follow artists, theater critics, bloggers, and many other types of people. This helps me reach a wide range of followers, but many of them aren't interested in most of what I Tweet, and this could be a disadvantage.

The one disadvantage that I have found is one that I mentioned in the tips: Most Twitter users are selfish. Many are using the website to promote their own things, and have no interest in being part of a community. They will post link after link to their own items and refuse to Retweet for anyone else. There are other users who will blatantly ignore any question that you ask or any request for information. It can be hard to gain followers because users tend to want followers, but not want to follow people. Its hard to get a start, and its hard to learn the ropes. However, if you follow the three tips I have posted, you will have at least some success with it.