To learn more about my philosophy on Twitter or for other Twitter Marketing ideas, please visit my Twitter page. If you are interested in programs to help you automate and run your Twitter accounts, visit my Twitter Hummingbird review post. Onto the topic on hand…

Twitter continues to be a very useful and powerful tool for communication. The old euphemism, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” no longer applies online. On the Internet, it is who knows you. Twitter is the tool that allows many people to find you and get to know who you are. Here are a few tips to help your business leverage Twitter.

search.twitter.com

Use search.twitter.com to find out what people are saying about you and/or your brand. Search.twitter is as close as it gets to knowing what people are thinking. People talk about all sorts of things online and on Twitter. With this search feature you can quickly get the pulse on any subject matter. After you find out what people are talking about you can start to engage in conversation with them. Add them as a friend or @reply to them with your thoughts. Twitter is the equivalent to the court of public opinion, so what they are saying is exactly how people feel. If what they are saying is inaccurate, help guide the conversation to some press releases or other info showing the falseness. *Don’t beat them over the head with the truth, simply help to show what is correct.

Use Twitter Direct Message on an individual basis

There are tons of programs and services out there that will allow you to send a messages to all of your followers at once. There are a few drawbacks to this approach most of which come from the impersonal approach of messages. People know when you are talking to them directly or if they are one of a hundred. Unless you are trying to get out an urgent message like 4 hours left of a sale, avoid using Twitter direct messages. Instead, send out a message with that person’s name and that you are there to engage in conversation with them, you are there to answer their questions, you want their business or whatever you are aiming to do but be upfront with them. Don’t switch and bait users with kind works and tons of ads.

Post Twitter updates consistently

If you are there to engage in conversation, do it. Even if you only post one or two things a day on Twitter, do it every day. You will establish a sense of time and commitment to the idea of open conversation and people will know that you are approachable and willing to participate. As your following grows, each of these posts will spark little conversations of their own, increasing the number of people who know you. The hardest part of having a business is keeping all eyes on you, the same is true online. When you stop posting and participating, so does your audience.

Sell on your site, not on Twitter

The best possible way to leverage Twitter for sales and visitors is to engage in conversation with those people. As trust and rapport build between you and others, you can safely direct them to your site or business offering them sales, promotions, discounts and so on. Do not stuff your twitter comments with affiliate links or direct people to spam sites. People will catch on quickly and stop listening to what you have to say. Nothing is wrong with promoting your own sites or services as long as you are being upfront and honest about it.

Update your Twitter background, picture and info

Nothing screams spam and fake more than a Twitter account with a stock Twitter background and thumbnail image. Take the few minutes to design a nice and consistent background and thumbnail to match your brand, this shows that you are taking Twitter seriously and are willing to invest time into it. Most spam accounts on Twitter have generic backgrounds and thumbnails and are much less likely be followed in return.

Have fun and be original

Be yourself. People can tell and they like it. I would rather 50% of people love me and 50% of people hate me, than to have 100% think I am OK. When you’re OK, you’re unremarkable. Don’t feel bad if you can’t follow everyone back and you ruffle a few feathers. It’s the same in real life as it is online. You can’t be everything to everyone.

And start changing the way you go about marketing.

My girlfriend Lindsay of That Mutt: a dog blog also operates a local dog running business. The first thing we did in marketing her new business was to hang up fliers, run a newspaper ad and all the other types of traditional marketing.

What we are doing next is a little different. We had a flier designed that is short and sweet with just the minimal info on it. The plan next is to simply walk up and down the streets around the area we live and every time we hear a dog bark, leave a flier on their doorknob.

Here we are removing the mass media shotgun effect of marketing and going straight after the people we want to work with. Sounds simple enough, right? So by taking the same $100 we would spend on newspaper advertising, we are putting that to design and printing cost. The best part is it is much more direct marketing which should lead to much better conversions.

Sure enough, we could keep throwing money at marketing the traditional way including splurging on radio, TV, print, billboards, you name it. Or we can focus on the very specific results we want. We want people with dogs who work during the day to be our clients. Now we will only go after those people.