I think one of the biggest mistakes than people new to using social media for marketing is not target their messages directly to their market.
Field of Dreams Was a Good Movie But a Terrible Business Model
“If you build it, they will come.”
That’s a memorable line, for sure, and it will definitely work if you get the ghosts of great baseball players to show up and play a couple of games for you, but in the real world of internet marketing, it isn’t a strategy. It’s the absence of a strategy.
So you need to get the message out, but you need to make sure the right people are going to see it and simply hoping that people are searching for your keywords is baby stuff. So let’s get serious.
Turn Up the Volume!
I’m sure you know the way to target Tweets is with hash tags # and “at” symbols @ – so you need to use those tools to make sure your message is being heard in the right places. And if those tools aren’t being used in your market, then this is the perfect opportunity to grab a serious market leadership position and start using them.
Tip #1: Hashtags.org
Hastags.org is a good place to start because you can see what people are saying and also which other has tags and @ symbols they’re using. But one of the insanely great features is that you can see when traffic for that tag has spiked and you can see which events or messages are generating the most excitement in your niche!
Need I add that you should work to emulate those messages so that you become the one generating the most excitement in your niche. And here’s the really cool thing… even if you are not the source of the exciting event or message, it is almost just as good to be the one who is the most instrumental in getting the message out to others about someone else’s exciting event or message!
Power Retweeting for Fun and Profit
When you see a tweet that has an important message or points people to an important or exciting web page, don’t just retweet it. Do a blog post about it and then tweet your blog post and aim it at the original tweeter, like this:
@deanrichards1 Your #SEO tweet inspired me to write this blog post: http:short.url
#SEO here’s my take on Authorship http:short.url
Converse!
Tip #2: Talk to people.
The main thing where people blow it with Twitter is that they don’t use it how it was originally designed to be used… as a way to have conversations.
Start talking directly to the people in your niche and I don’t mean market to them, I mean talk to them like a real person, not some faceless, nameless, “business.”
If this scares you a little, I understand. Lots of people want to do this whole marketing thing in a faceless way, but reaching out to people is really easy and super effective. Let me show you how truly easy it really is to start conversations in your market… just be nice.
@deanrichards1 Thanks for the heads up on Power Retweets!
@deanrichards1 Your tweet about your mom inspired me to call mine! Thanks!
@deanrichards1 I’m a huge fan of purple widgets too! Do you know where I can find more about them?
This “do you know where I can find more” idea is very powerful. You can use it to not only find who is generating the best content in your niche, you can use it find the pathways of interaction in your niche. “Do you know of any purple widget forums?”
By talking to the people in your niche directly, you can easily find who the real leaders of the niche are and you can study what they’re doing and how they’re doing it and look for ways to improve on that for yourself.
It’s just human nature. We want to help each other. People will be flattered that you’re asking them for help and the more you return the favor by giving help, the more you build your market leadership position.
Be cool to your niche and they will be cool to you.
Reddit – Good old Reddit. It’s nice to know it is still happening. Again, this is another service you should actually use. You need to post from Reddit and not just to Reddit. Just like Delicious, there’s a Reddit extension for Chrome that makes posting easy.
