That’s not me talking. I do do Twitter. I love Twitter. But if I had a quarter for every time I’ve heard an entrepreneur say “I don’t do Twitter” I would be, well, richer!
I’ve been using Twitter for a long time. And when I first started, it did take me a while to wrap my head around it. But once I “got it,” I was completely blown away by the platform. Recently of my colleagues and a dedicated Twitter pro, Aaron Lee, included me on his big list of the best people to follow on Twitter. So I’ve decided to go on a crusade to get more people to try it.
Why do so many people ignore Twitter?
Twitter is set up differently and behaves differently than most other social networks. And because of that, it feels uncomfortable to people who are used to the more familiar Facebook and LinkedIn newsfeeds. At first glance, Twitter can look like an intimidating scrawl of text and links without any organization. And, I think that Twitter’s founders didn’t do a great job of establishing the platform from the beginning.
But, if you want to carve out a niche for yourself in your field there’s nothing like Twitter. Ignore it and you are missing a powerful platform for building your visibility, your credibility and your business. And, it’s fun!
Why you should try Twitter
• It’s a brilliant way to invite visitors to your website. On Twitter, you can post links to your valuable, helpful content (especially your blogs) over and over again.
• Learn more about anything. Twitter is the great sharing space. Twitter users are very generous with their knowledge. Follow the smartest people in your industry and you’ll see what they are writing, what they are reading and what they are thinking about.
• Find great content to share with your community. Choose any topic and you will find links to articles and blogs that are posted by the top thought leaders in the field.
• It’s in real time. Twitter moves fast. If you want to know what the buzz is around any topic, you’ll find it first on Twitter. In fact, many huge news stories broke first on Twitter because an average person posted it.
• It’s all public. That means that you can reach out to anyone you want. There are no barriers because nearly everything on Twitter is unrestricted by privacy settings. In fact, almost no one has a private account (there’s no reason to). I follow many thought leaders in the Internet marketing category. When one of them posts something that is helpful, I thank them. This has enabled me to be invited to guest post on some very prestigious blogs and I’ve connected to some of my most respected mentors.
• Become a thought leader in your field. Get noticed by colleagues, potential partners, and your clients.
There are tons of free and low cost tools that make Twitter easy. I use Hootsuite to organize the people I follow into lists based upon topic; Tweepi to find great people to follow; Tweriod to analyze the best times to post; Tweetchat when I’m involved in a twitter chat (a bunch of people getting together to discuss a specific topic), and more. And I’ve recently added Edgar, which is a new tool that is a dream for pre-scheduling and organizing content. (Links to these tools are below).
Now that’s a lot of reasons to like Twitter. I want you to consider it again, or for the first time. First, just watch. Then join in. Here’s a really easy tutorial to get you started from Sprout Social.
Links to my fave Twitter tools:
Hootsuite
Tweepi
Tweriod
Tweetchat
Edgar
The 125 Best People to Follow On Twitter for Social Media Geeks
And…please join me on Twitter at @bevisible.
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