Twitter Weekend on Spreecast - How To Use Twitter Effectively for Brand Building - Part 3

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In the first and second part, I talked about how to create your Twitter handle user name, what to use and MOST IMPORTANTLY what NOT to use as your Twitter handle or user name.  We also discussed choosing your user name is so important and I shared some tips about how to relate your user name with what you do or your business.

Then I talked about how and what you should write on the Bio spot of your Twitter Profile and how you should make your bio precise yet of right size to also accommodate your landing page URL.

Then I talked about how to choose your profile picture and what NOT to use as your profile picture such as LUSCIOUS RED LIPS or a shot of your eyeball or crazy stuff like that.  Also, you can use your brand as a background of your profile picture.

Then I talked about why it's a great idea to put your location on your Twitter profile because it increases your Twitter profile's chances to show up in searches.

I also talked about how to be precise in the stipulated 140 characters per tweet and send your message across to your visitors.

Then I talked about automatic tweets and manual tweets and which one is better or works well for your business.

Then I talked about what it is that you should be tweeting about and how to find out if people are engaging with you on Twitter.

Finally, I talked about what is Hashtag Chat or Tweet Chat and how you can use Tweet Chat as a brand building tool.

• Today, the first thing that I am going to touch upon is followers and how that works.

The most important thing to keep in mind when it comes to followers is that is not some kind of competition where you need to have the most followers in the world.  You would rather have 200 people that are going to listen to everything that you say and subscribe to your offer or buy your stuff than 200,000 people who aren’t even going to give a care to what you say.

A great way to grow your follower list is to just engage people in whatever it is that you do.  You can engage them in your conversations, get them to know who you are, get them to become related to you and what you are doing.  You should also feel free to add people if you think they are relevant.  Remember, if someone doesn’t respond, it’s not the end of the world but if someone’s not engaging with you, then there is no need to have them on your list.  I would suggest you de-list those followers that are not engaging with you the way you would like them to engage with you.

Remember, it’s always good to have Quality rather than Quantity.  The quality of your followers and the quality of their engagement with you what matters most, NOT how many followers you have.

Also, DO NOT keep asking people to follow you.  This is something that I would advise against strongly.

• Next thing I want to talk about is Twitter list.  What are Twitter lists?

Lists are a great way to control the clutter that comes through on Twitter.  The thing with lists is that you may have a selection of industry experts and you want to just see what they are talking about and you don’t want the rest of your followers adding some bits and pieces and adding links to that.  You just want to go and clearly see exactly what the experts are following.  Let’s say you are in the area of personal development, for instance, and you might want to have people like Anthony Robbins in the list because you want to see what sort of content they are delivering through their Twitter stream.  You can do that by logging into a list or you can just add them into a list and the process of doing that is very simple – just clicking your list would fill list with those people in it – and then you are going to get in a Twitter stream like a normal Twitter stream, except that it’s only those people’s tweets that are coming through.  So, it’s a great way to concentrate on who it is that you want to concentrate on.

There are companies that do this with their customers.  They find the Tweeter names and they will put the customers into the list and their social engagement sector or whatever they call that part of the business can just look through their customers’ tweets and keep an eye on their customers’ tweets and say “Hey, thanks for…” and just respond to and add value to their customers and that way they have interaction with their customers at all times.

You can create your own list and you may make one that’s exactly your customers, maybe your mentors, maybe industry news and then add different people to each of those lists. 

You can also subscribe to other people’s lists or join them.  If the list is public, then you can go and find them and also join that list.  So, remember, you can set your list to public and that way, you can have people subscribing to your list as well which opens up another avenue of conversation.

• To wrap up the final part of the Twitter Weekend episode, I am going to touch upon a tool that I like to use and it’s search.twitter.com.

It’s a great place to search your industry.  That’s the advance Twitter search tool and it allows you to keep a watch on the competition.  You can put in tweets that are going to a certain person.  So, let’s say a competition’s Twitter handle is @MyCompetiton.  So, you can put in @MyCompetition and on the tweets that are going to that person, you can see all of their mentions and happenings and that way you can keep a watch on them.  You can find out tweets that are coming from that person and find out all the tweets about that person as well.  So, it’s a really cool way to keep an eye on what’s going on in your niche and with your competition.

I will talk more about creating QUALITY Twitter followers, Twitter Lists and also the advanced search option on Twitter that is search.twitter.com on my podcast at http://socialmediatips.podbean.com/ in the coming episodes.  These are some awesome tools that you can use when it comes to creating awareness for your brand.

And that brings us to the end of the Twitter Weekend episode.  Please let me know if this episode has been helpful to you and any other comments or suggestions you have in the comments section of this Spreecast.

You Can Engage With Me on Twitter @RajQuic

If you find this post helpful and/or if you have your own inputs, please feel free to share in the comments section.

Rajat Dutta

Quic Social Media Tips

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Twitter Weekend on Spreecast - How To Use Twitter Effectively for Brand Building - Part 2

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In the first part, I talked about how to create your Twitter handle user name, what to use and MOST IMPORTANTLY what NOT to use as your Twitter handle or user name.  We also discussed choosing your user name is so important and I shared some tips about how to relate your user name with what you do or your business.

Then I talked about how and what you should write on the Bio spot of your Twitter Profile and how you should make your bio precise yet of right size to also accommodate your landing page URL.

Then I talked about how to choose your profile picture and what NOT to use as your profile picture such as LUSCIOUS RED LIPS or a shot of your eyeball or crazy stuff like that.  Also, you can use your brand as a background of your profile picture.

Then I talked about why it's a great idea to put your location on your Twitter profile because it increases your Twitter profile's chances to show up in searches.

• Today, the first thing that I am going to touch upon is Tweets and how to be precise in the stipulated 140 characters per tweet and send your message across to your visitors.

A tweet can only consist of 140 characters and yet it has to be precise, to the point and EFFECTIVELY DIRECTS your visitors to actions that you want them to take.

Now, if you want to stick your landing page or a website in your tweets, oftentimes you will find that if you type the full URL the total character count goes beyond 140 characters.  So, to accommodate your website or landing page in a tweet, you can use URL shorteners like Tiny URLs or Bit.ly.  You can do a search of URL shorteners on Google and you will find a whole host of them.

Also, there are some URL shorteners or shortening services that also gives you analytics on the URLs that you shorten, analytics like how many people visited the URL or how many clicked through the pages and that sort of thing.  I recommend you use those URL shortening services to their fullest extent.

• Next thing I want to talk about is automatic tweets and manual tweets and which one is better or works well for your business.

There is a number of Tweet schedulers and automatic tweet applications that are available that actually schedule your tweets and send them out at regular intervals.  My recommendation goes against such services.  DO NOT DO THAT…  Always MANUALLY send out your tweets.  Now, the reason behind NOT recommending automatic tweeting services is because if it’s too robotic, people tend to catch on and they WILL NOT interact with someone who or a Twitter handle that acts like a bot sending out pre-programmed messages.  So, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS send out your important tweets or important information in manual tweets.

• Now, what is it that you should Tweet about?

There is a whole host of different stuff that you can tweet about but the idea is that you want to add value to your followers.  If you have got devoted followers, you have an obligation to serve value to them and for that to happen you need to serve up topics or information that would be beneficial to them or their business or their brand.  Remember, people will only follow you if they see the value you share.  So, always serve up value.  DO NOT tweet spam content or useless info.

What really work well always when it comes to providing value is little bite-sized tips of what you can help your clientele with and also questions to get them engaged.  You can also add photos and videos and really mix it up and keep your followers interested in your tweets.  Twitter didn’t allow pictures and videos to start with but now you can stick pictures or even put links to your YouTube video that will play in side Tweeter and I strongly recommend you use that.

Another very important aspect of tweeting is re-tweeting.  Go ahead and re-tweet stuff that YOU find interesting and also allow other to re-tweet your tweets if they find it interesting and ACTIVELY encourage re-tweeting of your content among your followers.

Now, I see it every day that people tweet about what THEY have to offer again and again and again.  Remember, too much promotion of your offers and deals make people tune you out.  DO NOT do that.  There is a healthy optimum ratio for tweeting interesting and valuable stuff and tweeting your offers or deals or whatever you name it.  I would suggest you go with the 10:1 ratio which means for every 10 tweets that you send out that has value for your followers, you can go ahead and send a tweet about your offer or your deal or that sort of stuff.

Also, leave ample space in your tweets so that people who are re-tweeting your tweets can add their own personal touch and yet remain within the 140-character limit.  For example, if you tweet about a great video or a blog post and you want your followers to re-tweet that, leave some space so that your followers can add their person touch like “Here is a great video that I saw” or “here is a great blog post that I read” and that sort of thing.  You DO NOT need to fill all 140 characters.  So, leave some space for people who want to re-tweet your tweets if they find them interesting.

• How to find out if people are engaging with you on Twitter?

If you go to your Twitter page, in the top left corner there is a ‘@ Connect’ button.  Clicking that button will show you people that are engaging with you with replies and re-tweets and following you and that sort of thing.

Another VERY IMPORTANT part of engaging on Twitter is using the @ symbol.  Using the @ symbol will direct the tweet to a definite person but everybody on that person’s follower list will see that Tweet.  So, for example, if you send a Tweet like “@RajQuic Awesome first part of Twitter Weekend”, what happens is the tweet is directed towards me BUT EVERYBODY on my follower list will be able to see that tweet.  So, you are potentially reaching NOT JUST one Twitter profile but more than 800 profiles at the same time.  Isn’t that awesome!

Feel Free To Engage With Me on Twitter @RajQuic

• What is Hashtag Chat or Tweet Chat and how can you use Tweet Chat as a brand building tool?

A hashtag chat is also called a Twitter party and what it is, is a collective use of a specific hashtag within a specified time with the sole ambition of promoting an event or forwarding an agenda.

A Twitter party or a hashtag chat doesn't happen just once, it happens over time, rather over an extended period of time.  A hashtag used as group goes a long way in spreading the message faster to a much wider audience.

Twitter party or hashtag chat or Tweet chat doesn't have a short-term goal in mind.  For example, the hashtag #SocialMediaNinjaMastermind is an ongoing chat for discussing social media ninja tips and tricks among people who are following this hashtag and also over time spread it to a larger audience.

You can start following a Tweet chat by simply visiting TweetChat.com and then searching the hashtag that you wanna follow and once you find the hashtag, just click on the link and you will be in that hashtag room.  For example, if you want to follow #SocialMediaNinjaMastermind, just search for "SocialMediaNinjaMastermind" in the search box and click the link which will take you to the room that you want to follow.

You can also follow other hashtags related to your niche and see the number of people that are sharing information real time via Twitter and the awesome thing about this is that you can start communicating one-on-one with industry heavyweights by just clicking their user name in the same hashtag room.  Isn't that awesome!  It's like going to a party of Fortune 500 CEOs and getting to interact with them first hand.

Also, remember that a hashtag chat or a Tweeter chat can become overwhelming and you can get lost in the pile of information if you pick a huge chat or a niche that's too general.  So, select the niche that you are interested in most at that time and then get into that chat.

I will talk more about Tweet Chat on my Podcast at in the coming episodes since it's a huge topic in itself and an awesome tool to use when it comes to creating awareness for your brand.

That’s all for this part.  In the third and final part I am going to shed some light on the overall functionality of Twitter as a business development tool.

You Can Engage With Me on Twitter @RajQuic

If you find this post helpful and/or if you have your own inputs, please feel free to share in the comments section.

Rajat Dutta

Quic Social Media Tips

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Twitter Weekend on Spreecast - How To Use Twitter Effectively for Brand Building - Part 1

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As promised, I am here with the first part of the 3-part Twitter Weekend Spreecast - How To Use Twitter Effectively for Brand Building.

• Pointers for Day 1 of the 3-day Twitter Weekend

First up, Twitter is NOT a waste of time.  It is in fact a very valuable tool to create awareness for your brand.

Twitter is actually an amazing resource for a quick market research to look for new clients and also to engage with your existing clients.

Twitter is a great place for you to find what’s happening in your industry, what’s happening in your niche, who are the people, what are your customers doing, what are your competitors doing and that sort of thing.

Twitter is about making new connection to sharing information and riding the information curve.

• So, let’s start at the beginning – how do you set up your profile on Twitter?  How to create your Twitter handle user name?

Create a user name that’s relevant to your business or what you do or your name.  That is more helpful people to find your business on Twitter.  For example, BBC has twitter handles @BBCNews and @BBCWorld and @BBCBreaking.  The name BBC is reflected on the twitter handle.  Similarly, I have created a mix of my name and my agency name.  As you know, my name is Rajat and my Agency name is QuicCONSULT.  So, my Twitter handle or user name is @RajQuic.

Also, Twitter username actually shows up in the URL of your Twitter account.  For example, my Twitter URL is Twitter.com/RajQuic.  So, it is imperative that you choose a user name that works with you and your industry.

One more thing – and THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT – is that when you search your name on Google, there is maximum possibility and sometimes 100% possibility that your Twitter URL will show up on the first page of that Google search and since your Twitter URL shows up on the first page of Google, people actually know what you do and what your business is.

• How and what should you write on the Bio spot of your Twitter Profile page?

Remember, you only get 160 characters to write your bio on your Twitter profile page.  So, make sure within that 160 character spot you let people know exactly what it is that you do.

For example, in my bio section you will find these words – “Content Consultant | Internet Marketer | Blogger | Voice Over | Father to an angel...”  It clearly says I am an internet marketer, a blogger and a voice over and of course the angel is my little girl Evelyn…

Also, stick your URL on your bio section.  Make sure it’s not a shortened URL from one of those URL shorteners because this looks suspicious and visitors to your Twitter profile are LESS LIKELY to click on a suspicious link.  So, stick the URL of your website or your landing page or your blog IN FULL.  So, make sure the part of your bio other than the URL is short enough so that both the bio and the URL can accommodate at least 160 characters.  If you don’t have a website, then it could be a Facebook account, it could be your YouTube account, it could be your LinkedIn profile.  Send them somewhere so that they can get more information as they can’t get enough of you from Twitter.

• Now, about the profile picture – What should be your profile picture?

Use a NORMAL picture.  DO NOT use an eye shot or luscious lips or all those ridiculous stock photos that you can download for free.  Use YOUR OWN photo that can be presented to a recruitment agent or a hiring manager at a corporation.

Also, if you represent your brand or you are looking to build an image of your brand, you can use tailored background as well.  You can stick your logo and some information on to the background of your profile picture as well.

• Another important pointer on your profile is your location – It’s a great idea to put your location.

If I am a social media marketer and I want to put myself on Twitter, I enter Phuket, Thailand.  This gives me a better chance to show up on search results when people in my location search for a social media coach or a marketer.

I might also put down Bangkok and Chiang Mai as places that I serve and what then happens is if someone types in “social media coach, Bangkok”, my name will come up or if they type in “social media marketer, Chiang Mai”, my name will come up.  So, that gives me a better chance of getting my name exposed as many times as I can.  You can do that too.

That’s all for today.  Since this is a 3-day Twitter Weekend, tomorrow and the day after I am going to shed some light on other important aspects of Twitter such as the tweets, what you write on tweets, what to retweet, how to set up your reTweets and many more interesting stuff like that.

You can follow me on Twitter and I am @RajQuic

If you find this post helpful and/or if you have your own inputs, please feel free to share in the comments section.

Rajat Dutta

Quic Social Media Tips

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Twitter Weekend on Spreecast - How To Use Twitter Effectively for Brand Building

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This weekend, starting Friday, I am coming up with Twitter for Business Spreecasts where we will discuss and mastermind tips and tricks and ways around Twitter and how to create brand awareness for your business on Twitter.

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