question
I own an online holiday dinnerware store called Glitzee Glee and am interested in Twitter marketing strategies. I want to know how to get my Twitter followers to click through and visit my website. I would also like advice on viral marketing and how to get people to retweet my content.
JAMIE YAHNE
WWW.GLITZEEGLEE.COM
answer
First, consider who your followers are and what content will best engage them to increase the likelihood of replies and retweets. Your real engagement with them will create a foundation for their engagement with you.
I asked Arik Hanson (www.arikhanson.com; @arikhanson) of ACH Communications to provide his deep expertise in this area. According to Hanson, creating compelling, useful content your customers crave represents the key to getting them to click through to your website: "Don't focus so much on marketing or advertising-based content -- think about what kinds of problems/issues your customers have and create content that can help solve those issues and address those problems."
Hanson agrees that everyone wants more retweets (RT), but how to get them?
"It's all about the way you write your tweets. Lists can inspire RTs. So do compelling headlines. For example: "Why 2 million companies should shut down their Facebook pages" (a headline I wrote for a blog post earlier this year)."
Plus, he adds that simple things like actually asking for the RT often works well. "PLS RT" is a common phrase you'll see on Twitter.
This last point from Hanson is important in any communication, but especially with social media. You need to "ask for the order," as sales trainers would say. If you don't tell the audience what behavior you are encouraging, they are left to guess -- which means they are far more likely to do nothing.
