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Lesson 11 - How to drive traffic with social networks - How to use Twitter

If you have a product or service related business and you are not using the social networks you are at a huge disadvantage. Driving traffic with social networks is a viral way to market yourself. In today's lesson we are going to cover how to drive traffic with Twitter. However, these are not the only social networks to use to drive traffic with. There are others such as LinkedIn, Myspace, Newsvine, Facebook, Squidoo and Blogger just to name a few.  My recommendation is to choose between 2-4 social networks. Anymore than that can be a night mare to manage. What is so awesome about this lesson is that it can be applied to all the social networks I just listed. Lets get started!

Driving Traffic using Twitter

The first thing you are going to want to do is setup a Twitter account. If you already have a twitter account and are already familiar with how to use it, then scroll down and learn how to use twitter. If not continue on! Now the first thing Twitter is going to ask you for is your first name. Pretty straight forward. However, the next field asks for your username. Important: use the name of your company if you can or like others you can use your name. Depending on your niche, I would recommend using your main keyword as your username. The twitter domain plus your username will be the link to your profile.

Example: http://twitter.com/TheTurnGroup <---- this is our profile for our company.
Example: http://twitter.com/RodneyLiber <---- this is my personal profile.

Once you have chosen your username and password be sure to right it down someplace. Once you are setup and verified you will have the chance to login and setup your profile.

Twitter Setup - Now that you have setup your twitter account its time to get ready to post. Before we do that there are a couple of things that need to be done first. Go to the setting page (view sample here) and start setting up your profile. Once you have your settings all complete (on that same page) don't forget to add your company logo under the "Picture" tab and if you want you can choose a nice background for your site under the "Design" tab on the settings page. I would recommend you upload a pic or company logo, but changing your design is not necessary. Continue on configuring your settings using all the tabs available on that page until you are completely setup and satisfied.

How to post or "tweet" on Twitter - Posting or sometimes called tweeting is very simple. Inside your twitter account you will click on your "home" link found at the top of the page (view sample here). You only get to tweet 140 characters. That includes the length of your link you are posting. So learn how to create short but enticing posts to drive people to click on your link. Also, if you have a long link that takes up space you can use a Tiny URL company to get a shorter link to replace the long one that you have. This shortens your link and allows for a bit longer description in your post. View an even better description here of what posting a (tweet) will look like. And that's its! This is all you do on Twitter is post your little tweets letting everyone that follows you know what you are doing or selling.

How to Drive Traffic using Twitter - To start driving traffic with Twitter and getting other twitter followers its time to start posting little "tweets". However, before you post your first tweet I want you to read an article I wrote called "Creating Value for Social Marketing". This will clearly explain how to bring value to your social following using twitter. To summarize, here are a few tips about using twitter that you need to know:

• First, if you are a business do not post personal items about yourself. Know one cares! Always post something of value to your followers.
  
• Make sure that when someone starts following you, that you start following them. Its just common courtesy. Even if they are only following you so that you will follow them that is ok.
  
• Occasionally send little thank you notes to all your followers (using your posts) to say thanks for all of them following you.
  
• Letting your current client base know that they need to follow you on twitter because sometimes you will only be offering specials and discount to your twitter followers.
  
• Make sure that you link from your websites or blogs to your twitter account. This will entice others to start following you which in turn starts building your followers (who I like to call your target audience).

and finally,

How does using twitter bring value to my business?

Let's say you have an online store, a brick and mortar store or you are a services based business. Not everyone (lets face it, most everyone) will not be going to your website everyday checking or looking for specials, offers or discounts. However, those people that wont be going to your website everyday will be using their social networks. So the value is simple. Using the social networks by enticing people to signup to follow you puts YOU in their face on a daily basis. Most everyone uses some type of social networking service and if you can get them to follow you on your social networks, when they are not looking at your website, they are seeing your posts show up within their social network accounts. You have a better chance of getting repeat and new business by taking advantage of all the social networks that you can by staying in their face constantly.

Now that you have a twitter account. Sign in to your twitter account and then click on our twitter link (http://twitter.com/TheTurnGroup) and start following us so that you can learn about new things as we send out posts.