Twitter marketing receives a lot of attention these days, yet many affiliate marketers still struggle with how to make it work as an effective affiliate marketing tool. In fact, quite a few people I’ve spoken to recently aren’t sure if Twitter is even worth the effort.
Although Twitter doesn’t make affiliate marketers money in the literal way that a newsletter series or article marketing does, it’s still a very powerful weapon in your arsenal because it gives you a way to build relationships with people.
Last week I talked about why building relationships is so essential to email marketing, and addressed those that are skeptical about any ‘relationship building’ channel because the results aren’t immediately obvious to them. This concept also applies to social media marketing and you should read the full post here if you haven’t already.
In a nutshell: People buy things from people they trust, so putting effort into establishing your credibility through online relationship building can win you loyal customers for life.
Now that we’re on the same page about why it is beneficial to build relationships using Twitter, let’s take a look at how to go about doing it.
Just to be clear, the goal of your Twitter profile is NOT:
a) To get the most followers you can. Twitter shouldn’t be used as a popularity contest. Not every follower is of equal value to you; you want to focus on the ones that are of most value.
b) To post a continuous stream of content or affiliate links at your followers until they block you.
The goal of your twitter profile is to build meaningful relationships that will in turn help you sell, and to do that you have to talk to your followers as friends.
Okay, so where do you start?
1. First up, you need a Twitter account. Go to Twitter and set one up (it’s easy!).
2. Secondly, I advise you put a call to action on your website for people to follow you on Twitter, and setup a retweet button on your blog. This is a good starting point for building your network of relevant ‘followers’ of your twitter account.
3. Thirdly, seek out and follow the Twitter profiles of key people and organizations in your niche, and any other people regularly posting great content that’s relevant.
Now, you’re ready to start tweeting. You'll receive your free daily Twitter plan via direct message (DM) that you can use as a guide to getting started simply by sharing the link below on your Twitter feed and following @Affilorama on Twitter:
Click here to share and get your FREE Daily Twitter Plan
(Note: As I have just demonstrated, a good way to increase your followers is by offering an incentive for them to follow you :))
Must-Have Tools to Streamline Your Tweets
You might be thinking that this Twitter business sounds like a time consuming, logistical nightmare - but it doesn’t need to be. There are scores of Twitter applications and services out there that can help you streamline your Twitter experience. A really useful one is SocialOomph. SocialOomph allows you to schedule your tweets to be posted ahead of time, and setup an automated DM for new followers - truly a ‘set and forget’ service.
The one thing you can’t do with SocialOomph is schedule @replies to people. And rightly so in my opinion. If you automate everything then you drastically reduce the opportunity to build effective relationships with people.
Another handy application is Echofon. You can install this on your Firefox status bar, making it easy for you to quickly read your own Twitter feed, see if you have any mentions (when people include @yourname in their tweets), post updates and @replies/mentions to people.
Now, there is also quite a bit of Twitter lingo and fancy pants tricks you can do but I don’t want to overwhelm you with all of this when you’re just starting out. Twitter has a user-friendly help center where you can find answers to anything unusual you’re wondering about. Their glossary and Twitter basics are particularly useful.
Thinking this blog post seems a bit light on the juicy details? You’ll find them in our daily twitter plan for affiliate marketers that you’ll receive via DM when you follow Affilorama on twitter and share the link below. This will tell you exactly what you should be posting on Twitter to be most effective at relationship building and why. Go on, go and get it now.
todd bowman • 14 years ago
Bill Wynne • 14 years ago
Cheers
Mitch Belfry • 14 years ago
Abad • 14 years ago
Billy Lockwood • 14 years ago
Dale B • 14 years ago
choice Gardening • 14 years ago
Twitter is great and I only started using it for my gardening website recently and already have 89 followers. So who knows how many will be on that list in 6 months, its also bringing traffic to my website which is great.
Regards Mark
Kim Ross • 14 years ago
@Namillets: Grab the url link text and replace the words after 'status=' with the status you'd like to use :)
Vance Sova • 14 years ago
This post is very helpful. When you speak of some people wondering about the worthiness of twitter I too have wondered about that and even wrote a post asking people's input. If it weren't for the few people that encouraged me to give it another try, I would have probably decided that twitter gives very little return on the time invested.
Now I know that there are people who can use twitter to a great advantage. I hope to be among them in not so distant future.
Dan • 14 years ago
Aqaba Hotel • 14 years ago
Will I receive it if I was already following Affilorama and now I only retweeted this post?
nwangum • 14 years ago
Gordon Jablonski • 14 years ago
Best Internet Income Opportunity • 14 years ago
Thanks!
JamestheJust on Elance • 14 years ago
Gotta think beyond the backlink and get back to marketing. Which gets back to the fact that we're PEOPLE and not CATTLE or Close Ratios - we're people.
Anyhow, Kim - great tips, and too true! Good stuff altogether. Two thumbs up and the big toes, too!
Kim Ross • 14 years ago
@Gordon Jablonski: You need to be logged in to Twitter to tweet the message, or if you don't have a Twitter account yet you will first need to create one :)
Adsense Money • 14 years ago
Keep up the great work! :-)
Sue Fegan • 14 years ago
If you have more than one website, more than one niche, which most people do---- How do you use one twitter account to get followers to different niches?
I can go in there and set one up for the green jetpack thing I am doing, but what do I do when I start the next one?
Will I have to get new emails for each niche to use for separate Twitter accounts?
These are the little details that throw me off--- :)
Thanks for your help
Sue
Kim Ross • 14 years ago
powerhouse • 14 years ago
Yanty bte Jadi • 14 years ago
Vee Sweeney • 14 years ago
ronald reed • 14 years ago
carolee • 14 years ago
Staffing • 14 years ago
I am aslo wondering if i will receive it if I was already following Affilorama?
Appreciate your info on twitter.
Sue Fegan • 14 years ago
What is the plug in where you say " yes to post to Twitter"
I do not know how to find other people posting relevant content so I can find them.
I do not know which 3rd party people I should be linking to as part of the daily plan. or how to find them I can do content or informational sites?
Should I do the ezine retweet thing?
I do not know what my first hello should sound like
I am in the green niche.
William King • 14 years ago
harjit singh • 14 years ago
Har.
Roy • 14 years ago
My current pet peeve: Affiliate Marketers who hide themselves with no contact info so you cannot get help if you try to use their stuff and get lost in a tangle of techie talk.
Viola • 13 years ago
I found http://www.tweepi.com to be a very useful tool in getting targeted followers and managing my twitter acccount. It's free and easy to use.
Happy tweeting ...I am a babyboomer and I have to admit I still find it funny when I tell people I "tweet" :), the word is still funny to use....
Viola
• 12 years ago
• 12 years ago
Michael
Reggie • 10 years ago