To Get the Most Out of Twitter Be a Maverick

Don’t just follow the herd. Twitter is evolving. Maximize its potential around your agency’s new business objectives.

Twitter itself created the conditions that has allowed users to innovate. No one in the beginning envisioned that:

  • People would want to follow strangers
  • Celebrities would use Twitter to provide updates to fans of their activities
  • Businesses would use Twitter to to promote discounts, launch new products and services
  • Twitter would be used in so many different ways by broadcasters, educators, politicians, doctors, lawyers, ministers and so many others you can’t keep up with them all

Guy Kawasaki, an early adopter and leader in social media, recently wrote,

“Three years ago Twitter was a nice little pond that people shared with their close friends … The whole point back then was establishing warm-and-fuzzy relationships with people you cared about by answering the question, “What are you doing?”

Fast forward to today. While there is still kumbaya going on via Twitter, many people are now using Twitter as a twool. They’re not trying to have a one-to-one conversation. At best, they want a one-to-many conversation if not out-and-out broadcasting in the advertising and marketing sense.”

There are not many who use Twitter the way that I do. Other than sending personal Direct Messages, I do not send many personal Tweets to others. My point-of-view is  that most of my 10,000+ followers do not care about a specific conversation that I’m having with @jaybaer, @edwardboches, @sheconomy or other Twitter users. What my Twitter followers have come to expect from me is helpful resources for ad agency new business.

For my own Twitter formula …  80 to 90 percent of my Tweets are made up of resourceful articles and posts. My Tweets usually include just the article/post titles and URL links.

Many of these articles/posts come from my online reading, using Google Reader. When I find a good post that I want to share, I click on bit.ly (a tool to shorten, share and track your links) in my browser bar, configure the information about the post and publish it to my Twitter account. If I’m finding lots of good material, I may post them through Social Oomph (Tweetlater) to be able to spread the posts over a period of time.

I also add posts from my blog. I have written over 400+ posts, the vast majority written as a resource for agency new business. Most of these are not time sensitive and continue to be a helpful resource for my readers. I know that because of the traffic each generates to my blog.

I have a number of reasons for repurposing blog content in this way:

  • Readers do not ready my blog chronologically. People are so busy they don’t have time. I usually write and post at least once a day, Monday through Friday, but the majority of my readers are not reading my content on a daily basis.
  • Even my most ardent readers will read posts through many different channels such as RSS Feed, email newsletter, SEO, Twitter and from mirroring blog post content through my Facebook and LinkedIn accounts.
  • Even with a large number of followers, an article that I post at 11 am on a Thursday is going to be missed by 99% of my readers.
  • I use post titles that are crystal clear regarding the content that will be found. This may be dull and bland for copywriters but it is much appreciated by my readership. They can find relevant material through my post titles through search and as these posts appear through Twitter.
  • I provide links to similar articles that would possibly be of interest to my readers and try to spare them having to search for them on their own.
  • There are often posts that I discover, that I know would be of interest to my readers, and I will “bridge-the-gap” specifying how this post/article relates to them. Materials, tools, that isn’t specific to my audience, but I make it specific to them, how it is a resource for ad agency new business.

If you aren’t generating traffic, its a sign of a lack of appeal. Metrics keeps everything on track and focused. I check my blog analytics multiple times a day along with other metrics tools from bit.ly, socialtoo and Twittergrader.

Here are 20 additional Twitter articles, specifically for ad agencies that can help you take advantage of Twitter’s growth for new business:

  1. How to take advantage of Twitter’s growth for ad agency new business
  2. How to Generate Traffic to Your Ad Agency’s Blog with Repeat Tweets
  3. Twitter 101 for Ad Agency New Business
  4. Ad Agencies: Useful In-Depth Data on How Twitter is Being Used
  5. Study: Fortune 100 companies using Twitter more than any other social media platform
  6. A Simple Twitter Formula for Ad Agency New Business
  7. Ad Agencies: 5 Ways to Find Prospects on Twitter
  8. 5 Ways I Use Twitter to Help Ad Agency New Business
  9. Edward Boches, CCO for the Mullen Agency: What Twitter Can Do For You
  10. Ad Agency CEOs Should Use Twitter
  11. Twitter Traffic Explosion Being Led By 45-54 Year Olds
  12. 3 Ways Twitter Can Make You A Better Writer
  13. Tweetlater A Great Ad Agency New Business Tool
  14. Ad Agencies: Top 10 Articles for Twitter Search
  15. A Twitter Business Model Contest is Won by an Ad Agency
  16. Socially Benefitting from My Twitter Habits
  17. Today’s Top 10 Twitter Post for Ad Agency New Business
  18. List of C Suite Executives Using Twitter
  19. Top 5 Twitter Tools for Ad Agency New Business
  20. Promoting Your Ad Agency Using Twitter?

I’d also like to recommend an enlightening Wired Magazine article: Mob Rule! How Users Took Over Twitter

photo credit: djking via photopin cc

Filed Under: Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , , ,
About Michael Gass

Consultant | Trainer | Author | Speaker

Since 2007, he has been pioneering the use of social media, inbound and content marketing strategies specifically for agency new business.

He is the founder of Fuel Lines Business Development, LLC, a firm which provides business development training and consulting services to advertising, digital, media and PR agencies.

Comments

  1. Cathy Toll says
    October 22, 2009 at 9:16 pm

    Thank you, Michael, for this helpful perspective. I have been using my tweets more and more to point to blogs/sites/articles, and your piece helps me to feel confident that this is a good direction to go.

  2. Michael Gass says
    October 23, 2009 at 8:47 am

    Cathy,

    I’ve been doing this for over two years and it definitely works. Posts that were written over a year ago that are still relevant still have life and generate traffic. You’ll need to keep track of your analytics to find your balance in repurposing posts to your audience.

  3. Tom Snyder says
    April 1, 2010 at 10:24 am

    I’ve never worried about personal tweets. Actually they’re a part of how I build my personal and corporate brand on Twitter. The way Twitter handles @ replies makes it so the only people who see those are the ones who are following both me and the person I’m replying to. And those people probably are interested in the interaction between a couple of their trusted tweeps.

    I don’t have time to write as frequently as you. So I tweet links to helpful articles, like yours, in my tweets. While people tell me they appreciate those (30,000 click thrus can’t be wrong), we know that it’s been my personal replies that have generated all the new revenue we’ve gotten from Twitter.

  4. Michael Gass says
    April 1, 2010 at 8:57 pm

    Thanks for your insight Tom.