Twitter for Entrepreneurs

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Every day I see Tweets on my Twitter account telling me that I can become wealthy by clicking on a link. If only it were that easy! Most of these messages are from people who are not making any money (or very little) on Twitter and are trying to sell products by means of affiliate marketing.

Does this mean that you can’t use Twitter to do business?

Twitter is still relatively new and like all new things it will take time to settle down and for users to really get a good understanding of what Twitter can and can’t do.

One of the things that Twitter is very good at is enabling you to build a relationship with your followers. This can be by posting small snippets of information about you and your business with links to interesting posts on your blog or other websites. When I post links I often track them using http://bit.ly and I can see how many people click on the link. One of my websites http://www.wiltshireway.co.uk contains a business directory for businesses in the county of Wiltshire, England. I can usually guarantee that 20 or 30 clicks will take place when I tweet a link within a few minutes of the tweet being sent.

However you can’t keep tweeting a link every few seconds as people lose interest and therefore it is best to be selective about the things you tweet and don’t try to directly sell your services too often. Find interesting news items or re-tweet others tweets that are interesting. The idea is to create a following of people that like what you do.

My main business is that as a  Mortgage Broker here in the UK (http://www.rolandmillward.co.uk) and I find that using the advanced features of Twitter Search I can find people who are tweeting about mortgages, buying a house and so on. (http://search.twitter.com). For example recently I gained a lead because a man asked a question about home mortgages on Twitter. I found his tweet in advanced search and sent him the answer. This has resulted in a note being made to contact him when his mortgage deal needs to be changed and he would like me to help him.

I find too that you can build good business contacts using Twitter as a networking tool. This is probably far easier than trying to sell someone something. I am at the start of a Joint Venture primarily because we met using Twitter. Coincidentally I have been asked to write this article by being contacted through Twitter!

I believe that being successful with Twitter is only part of your overall business strategy and that quite some effort and patience is required to build a good rapport with your followers so that you will eventually be able to do business with them. Always keep in mind that this is social media and the emphasis needs to be on the word social. Socialize and you will begin to reap the rewards of your tweeting.