What your audience can’t see can hurt you.
Here’s some proof – I had a recent conversation with a long time client who had been discussing social media marketing with me, and was curious how he could invest more into Twitter to gain a larger following. We discussed a few tidbits of information and common tactics before I looked through their current marketing strategy, including the website – I was a little amazed that nothing I saw indicated that they even had a company Twitter account.
It boils down to simplicity at this point - If you’re inadvertently hiding your social networking profiles, personal or business, then the market isn’t going to be able to locate you easily – if at all.
With that said, you don’t need to just showcase the network profile links on your company site and hope for the best. There are a number of places you can leverage to get more traffic, and that includes offline marketing. Just look at the billboard Ashton Kutcher put up. You just need to get creative with your offline marketing. If you can put words on something, then you can put your twitter ID there as well.
Make it visible on your website: Aim for optimal placement cialis on your site or blog – preferably somewhere above the fold. Upper navigation, the sidebar or as a simple signature in your posts are optimal choices because the eyes of your visitors are naturally in those places.
Encourage sharing: There are a number of tools you can utilize to encourage sharing that point back to you and utilize your own Twitter ID. Start with the TweetMeMe button for your content, as well as the Facebook “like” button integration. Sharing plugins like Sociable or Sexy Bookmarks can help bring traffic back to you where you can generate new interests for your social networks.
Bribe people: You can use additional methods to bribe users into following you by letting them know that your social network consists of VIP’s. Those VIP’s get special info, value, discounts, special offers, limited products, pre-launch info, etc. Give them a reason to want to follow you.
Use directories: You can submit your Twitter identity to Twitter directories to push more eyeballs toward your social networking profile. Utilize lists like WeFollow to get targeted followers whom are interested in what you post about.
It takes time to gain traction using Twitter, and unless you can pull of a sweet viral trick (like the recent Old Spice Guy vids) it’ll take continual networking and engagement to get people on your side following you.
Placing strategic links, sharing insightful content and engaging your current audience will help you to continually grow that following base – not with just warm bodies, but with targeted traffic that brings you results.You now can
