If you haven’t discovered the power of Twitter for driving traffic to your websites and blogs, maybe now is the time to take the plunge. And even if you are a Twittering Fool (that’s a compliment), there may a trick or two here for you, too.
For this blog post, I want to keep it simple. There are four tools that I use anytime the Twitter bug strikes me. Now, I’m not one of those Twitter Fools that spends the entire day Tweeting my little heart out, but I do use Twitter for three important things:
A: I visit Twitter to get breaking news about any subject or event happening on the planet. Sometimes it takes a little nosing around to separate fact from fiction, but for the most part Twitter is a powerful source for real time news.
B: I visit Twitter when I need answers or advice about business topics or just about anything else. It’s a fantastic networking site filled with a gazillion interesting people. For me its pretty simple: Facebook is for friends and people I know personally, while Twitter is comprised of millions strangers . I personally know very few people that I follow or that follow me on Twitter.
C: I visit Twitter to share interesting content that I stumble upon and to promote my blogs and webpages. Twitter is the quintessential site for sharing information via links.
If you want to make Twitter an effective tool, you really just need three things: Qualified followers, interesting content and the ability to deliver content easily.
Gathering Followers: The best way to get people to follow you is to first follow them. You can accomplish this by adding people one at a time or by using tools to manage followers.
Twitter Tool #1: Twitter Adder: http://tweetadder.com
I use this tool to follow people based on specific keywords listed on their profiles. Better yet, I can unfollow people who don’t follow me back. It saves me a ton of time and I can build strong Twitter bases for myself and my clients relatively quickly.
Content is King: Face it, except for your mother, the only reason that people will click on your tweets or subscribe to your blog is because of content. You need to either provide news, entertainment or information that is relevant.
If you have been writing content and saving it up or have a roomful of writers slaving away on your behalf, you’re set; but if you are like everyone else, you you must seek interesting content to share.
Retweeting great tweets of other people is a good start, but the best way find content is to subscribe to blogs, news feeds, and Google Alerts that are relevant to your business or blog. When you find great content, compose a tweet and share the link.
Twitter Tool #2: Feedly: http://www.feedly.com
Feedly is web application that turns Google Reader into a web magazine. Content from your RSS feeds, alerts and Twitter streams are presented beautifully in a graphical layout. Navigation is a breeze. Kick back and let that killer content come streaming in.
Twitter Tool #3: Tiny URL: http://tinyurl.com
Tiny URL takes big long URLS and makes them…well, tiny. If you use Twitter, you’ll need a tool like this to save space. On Twitter, 160 characters is all ya get.
Delivering the goods: Let’s wrap this up with a tool that will help you manage all of your social networking accounts in one place.
Twitter Tool #4: The TweetDeck: http://www.tweetdeck.com
TweetDeck is a real-time browser that lets you read content from a variety of social networks including Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google Buzz and others. You can send a post from one or all at once. It’s a great tool if are managing several Twitter accounts. Perfect addition to your desktop and smart phone.
Note: I receive no compensation for any of the tools I mentioned. I just like them.
It’s your turn, fool. What Twitter tools do you love? Post a comment and let us know or become a guest blogger on the Ink Spot!
Think Black Ink! Follow our Tweets!
Visit Black Ink!
CBU38EFBFUBA
.
