How do YOU use Twitter?

Today I’m featuring a guest blog post. I know a lot of people are asking what is the best way to use twitter for business… I have asked myself the same this many times, that is why when I read this article I knew I had to feature it on my blog.

Enjoy reading it!

How do YOU use Twitter?
By: “Karen & Frank”

Some friends from over at Ryze inquired as to how we use Twitter and were requesting some feedback about Twitter and Facebook. It’s good to see the interest that simply asking about Twitter generates, and here are our replies to the questions that were asked.

1- What specifically do you write about on Twitter or Facebook?We have found that everyone is looking to sell their product or service on Twitter and Facebook. When you do so, most of the “Social Networkers” ignore your posts because most of them just aren’t interested in them, much like they would probably not be interested in what you had for lunch today.

We have found that when you initiate a topic and then talk TO the social networkers, you tend to get a better response and they will be more apt to start a conversation, albeit a short one, but at least it is a start and then they are more likely to click on your link to find out more about you.

We have a post on our blog, if you will allow us to provide a link here, about our experience with Twitter. Here is where you can read more: Do You Twitter?. Let us know what you think.

2- Do you join and participate in the various forums and groups there?
There are a few in Twitter but the popular ones seem to be dominated by celebs most of whom really don’t seem to care who you are or what you have to say. So we take the stand that we are going to treat each person on Twitter as if they were a customer coming into our store, and we always treat our customers as friends, ergo the “Social Networking”.

We also believe that Quality is more important that Quantity when it comes to Followers. Whereas that may not bring a BUNCH of traffic our way, we hope that it will at least develop relationships that will eventually work out to more incoming traffic. Kind of like an online “Word of Mouth” marketing. (I may have to put this in one of our blog posts, this is good stuff!)

We are investigating groups and forums in Facebook to see if they are (1) of interest and (2) interested in us. We generally see what our friends are joining and then check those out.

3- How much time do you spend on them?
TOO MUCH it seems!!! At least when we aren’t busy with the store or in our personal lives. But we are of the mindset that nothing comes easy and sometimes you have to put in the time in order to reap the benefits.

It seems that because a few made millions on the internet, too many people think it is easy money and try to do the same (kind of like the Gold Rush of old), but I am willing to bet that most of us found out differently.

4- How many unique hits to your website are you getting from your activities on Twitter and Facebook?
Not as many as we had hoped and we have come to the conclusion that it is because, like we said above, these are SOCIAL networks and are not really business oriented.

Now that doesn’t mean we aren’t cultivating some relationships, however time-consuming those may be, but we look at it like this: You wouldn’t want to go to a Free barbecue only to have everyone you meet handing you a business card and then constantly try to get you to see what they have to sell. That’s like a Huckster (or even a Billy Mays “Hawker”). We feel that you need to get to know the people first and then you can find out who is interested in what you have and THEN show them where they can go to see more IFF they are interested (IFF = If and Only If – remember, Frank is an Engineer).

We hope that this has shed some light on your questions and we apologize for taking so long to post a reply (and posting such a long reply), but things did get a little bit busy there for a while, thank goodness, since we started Tweeting and Facebooking. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the new business actually came FROM Twitter and FaceBook, but we like to think that those relationships that we are cultivating may have directed some business our way. And the Google page positioning hasn’t hurt since we started Twitter and Facebook either.

We would like to thank, Adam + April, for asking these questions and allowing us to acknowledge them in our blog post.

BTW, Blogging seems to be helping too.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and Have a Great Day!

Karen & Frank
OurKnickKnacks – Gifts, Decor and More!
Join us on Twitter at twitter.com/OurKnickknacks
And on FaceBook at FaceBook – OurKnickknacks

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About Mariangie - She lives in Puerto Rico where she works full time as an Agronomist, owns a home based business since 2004 and is the proud mother of 2 bright kids (and 2 cute cats).

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