How to Build a Business Using Twitter

It's Only Work When You Aren't Having Fun

This project takes 20% setup and 80% blogging. The success of the return is equal to the amount of time you put into the project.

• The hard part is that you have just become a professional blogger and you have to tweet everyday about (almost) everything you do.
• The easy part is that you are simply documenting what you are doing. Using your home computer or a smart phone such as the Apple iPhone, you can easily document your activities on Twitter and share them with your followers.
• The fun part is that you are researching and documenting things you enjoy. You'll get to do new and and interesting things. Eat great food and explore your community. Exploring is fun and exciting

If you don't know what Twitter is, read this article.

The Reason why you are Tweeting is to obtain as many Followers as Possible

Adding followers expands your "reach."  By focusing on a small geographic region, such as your city or county, you can increase the interest in your tweets to your readers because you are posting stories that are relevant to them. When your tweets are valuable to your readers, then you can monetize your tweets to local businesses. Your tweets become ad-space. 

The more followers you have, the more money you will make. People who read Twitter are reading the people they follow. You can never have enough followers.

Do not follow businesses that are using Twitter to make money.  They will attempt to gain your followers as their followers which will diminish the value of your tweets.  Your tweets will not be anything like theirs. You aren't selling anything, you simply telling people the local places you go and the fun things you are doing.

Twitter Power 2.0: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time

The #1 Rule of Tweeting for Profit

Always be positive.  Do not ridicule friends, celebrities, nor businesses. Positive or optimistic tweets create a psychological bond with your followers as a trusted advisor. Even if you visit a business and you left unhappy, you can still tweet something positive. Example Tweet, "Leaving Baily's shoe store, heading for ice cream!"

Easy Content

1. Tweet for local charities and non-profits 
   • Let them know you are doing it by asking their permission. Ask them to recommend your Twitter-blog to their donors and peers.
     • If they don't know you are being their evangelist, they won't become yours.
   • Follow up your initial contact with charities two more times (once per month). Ask them if they have seen your tweets and if they will continue recommending followers to your tweets.
   • Tweet about these charities at least a couple times a month. Mention their current goals and seasonal drives. Be more specific about those who promote you. Add many charities to keep it from being repetitious.
2. Tweet about community events (Keep in mind these can become paying customers so don't over do it)
3. Tweet about the local sports teams. Be the home team fan. 
• Do not post negative posts about the other teams or players.
4. Tweet about local public transportation projects.
5. Tweet about the local redevelopment agency projects.
6. DON'T TWEET about local politics other than to say nice things about candidates or the benefits about the issue. 
7. Retweet other people's tweets about businesses and events in your target region
• For every 6 tweets you post try to retweet 1-2 tweets form your followers. Try to spread them out over the course of the day.
• Retweeting improves your relationship with your followers.
• Follow these people - they are creating content for you!
8. Retweet about about others vacations and travels to other places. Everyone loves travel.

Personalized Tweets

1. Tweet about your activities in your geographic region
   • Tell people about the businesses and events you visit. Tweet mini-reviews (always positive)
     • Make it a goal to visit 3 new place/restaurants/businesses a week
2. Include community events that you 'would like to attend"
3. Tweet pictures using TwitPict
4. Add tweets about your thought and musings.
5. Promote your friends' endeavors, stores, and events 
6. Tweet shout-outs to your followers
7. Tell people what books you are reading or shows you are watching.
8. Tweet about Groupon savings in your region with a short link back to your website
9. Check in with Yelp and FourSquare and post your check-ins to Twitter
10. Want to write something longer than 140 characters? Write a blog post and tweet it's url to your followers.
11. DON'T TWEET about personal drama, your crappy day, or your personal fears and trails.
12. Avoid tweet-clumping. Spread your tweets out over the course of the day. Tweet-clumps look like spam and are overlooked when people read their tweets at different times of the day.

Regular Tweets

It is also important to tweet regularly. The plain honest truth is that people only read Twitter when they tweet, themselves. They look to see if their tweet went through and then read the tweets above or below their tweet. With this in mind, aim to eventually tweet once an hour. Tweeting six times a day, throughout the day, is a good starting point. Focus on the hours people may read the internet such as before work, after arriving at work, before or during lunch, just before they leave work for the day, and sometime after dinner.

How to gain Followers on Twitter

Gain followers by adding followers. When you follow someone they will usually visit your Twitter page to see if it is interesting. Tweeting about business and events near them will interest them and they will follow you back. Hopefully, they will also retweet your tweets. It's a good idea to add to your tweets "Retweet this."Retweets of your tweets also increases your followers. This is why your tweets must not be spam such as "buy this product."

1. Add every person, business and entity you come across that is in your target region.
   • Search for people in the region. Follow the ones that have large amount of followers.
   • Try to add 100 individuals a week but never more than 25 in one day for the first three months
2. Follow individuals and business that are in your region. 
3. Add local government entities that promote events and business in your target region
4. Add every business in the region you come across, without limit
   • Retreat the some of the posts form these business

Twitter Marketing:
An Hour a Day

Manage, Track and Analyze your Tweets

The biggest secret of tweeting for business  is that you do not have to tweet as things happen. You can recap an event,  you can tweet about your future plans — you can even schedule your tweets in advance.

• Use a web service such as Hootsuite to tweet, schedule tweets for the future and to track your followers, retweets and tweets. Use Hootsuite's built in URL-shortener for best results.
• Use a web service such as AddThis to track the tweets you make straight from other  websites and blogs

Redundancy gives your Tweets a Longer Shelf Life

• Build a website. (Use WordPress - it's module architecture makes it easy to add all the suggested features.)
• Display your recent tweets.
• Post pictures of the places and venues you visit.
• Use Yelp and FourSquare to promote your visits (creates other channels into your site, additional content). 
• Yelp and FourSquare can be re-posted to Twitter and Facebook.
• Try to become the Duke or Mayor of an establishment for higher visibility.
• Build a Facebook group or page that re-posts your tweets and check-ins. Some people don't use Twitter, but they most likely use Facebook.
• Put Google Adsense ads on  your site.
• Localize the ads shown on your site using the tools Google provide.
• Become a GroupOn affiliate and post their dynamically updating widget on your site.

How a Twitter Business Pays Off

1. Google Adsense payments.
2. Groupon affiliate sales.
3. Solicit businesses to pay for tweets and special attention on your website. 

Use your list of Twitter, Yelp, FourSquare and Facebook followers to demonstrate your reach

HowStuffWorks.com advises "If you want to sell ad space, your task is to convince potential advertisers that placing a banner ad on your site is a good investment. You do this with traffic numbers, information about your visitors (called demographic data) and with specific content that relates to their product or service."

If you are the Duke or Mayor of an establishment, this might impress the business. These achievements are highly visible.

1. Your contract for tweets can comprise of quota of tweets per month - but be careful not to spam.  
   1. Never promote (tweet) a paying business more than twice a day. 
   2. Spread the tweets out. Don't clump them all into 5 minutes.
   3. Promote the business at different times of the day (Example 6am, 9am, 12pm, 3pm, 5pm, 8pm)
      1. There is no point in tweeting for your local region between 10pm and 5am. Everyone is asleep and will miss the tweet.
   4. For each day and paying business you promote you should tweet at least 6 different things
      1. i.e. if you have two paying businesses and you tweet everyday for them, each day should have 12-14 tweets
2. You can sell ad space on your website simply by putting a graphic on your homepage. Make a contract with the business to post their banner for month and quantify that length with the number of visitors your site has per month.
   1. Add value to the contract by using the Page function of WordPress to make a company profile for the business that has paid you to tweet for them. On this page you can put your own testimonial of the business, a picture and links to the business' website.
3. Use a spreadsheet such as one available, free, from Google Docs or Microsoft Excel to keep track of your tweets and ad placements
4. Use Intuit Quickbooks to keep track of the money you collect. Intuit also helps you receive credit card payments and prepare for taxes.

© 2011 Spilled Ink. All rights reserved.