Success On Twitter Is All About You
We knew it would happen. It always happens. Not long after Twitter’s popularity hit the stratosphere, the spammers began swarming. Now direct messages boxes are packed with Mafia invitations, follower lists have been infiltrated by pornbots, and I had to put up with dozens of impostors trading on my name before my verified account was able to show who’s really me.
Whenever something gets big and successful on the Internet, you can bet that there will soon be people looking to make a quick and unscrupulous buck out of it.
But I have to admit, on Twitter it looks sillier than ever.
Twitter isn’t the kind of service that will deliver a regular monthly check. It’s not a website supported by AdSense or an ebook that’s being distributed on affiliate sites. I’m making some nice incremental income from SponsoredTweets, which lets me choose the companies I advertise, but that’s not why I’m on Twitter.
The real value of Twitter lies in its ability to build communities, to create trust and cement relationships. It’s about laying the groundwork for the most important ingredient in a successful business: the goodwill that people feel towards you.
When people know you, like you and trust you, they do business with you. Twitter gives you a tool to build those relationships with thousands of people without ever leaving your keyboard.
There are lots of different ingredients that go into those relationships. I’ve described all of the most common types of tweets that you might want to include in a timeline, and in Twitter Power, I suggested strategies that can help you drum up interest in product launches and websites. But there is an underlying principle that always forms the bedrock of any successful Twitter presence.
You have to be honest, and you have to be you.
The people that you meet on Twitter want to be friends with you. From that friendship will blossom a business opportunity, but it can’t happen if your followers think that you’re not being completely straight with them. So tweet freely. Talk about yourself, say what’s on your mind and reveal who you are. Don’t try to push your products or your business on Twitter but let the relationships you create generate enough curiosity for people to want to find out about you for themselves.
When success on Twitter means doing nothing more complex than being yourself, it’s really hard to see why spammers would want to do it the hard way.
Hello Joel,
I have written some real posts about Twitter that admittedly were a bit harsh to the service. This I think was prompted by the issues you pointed out in the first paragraph.
However, with what I just read in this post of yours, I think I’m going to give Twitter a second look. You are right when you say it’s great for building relationships and fruitful business. But I think the process to achieve such ends should also not be underestimated.
Twitter can be great if like you said, users get to be themselves and tweet as naturally as possible. This way, we will get to know each other more personally and the communication will only get better. Good post Joel.
Twitter…Scmitter…Freeteer…who cares!
I don’t use Twitter. It’s a waste of my time.
Time which I have precious little of these days as I am busy building an Adsense empire (God willing).
Social media web traffic traditionally does not click on Adsense ads much. They want to socialize. They are not searching to buy products as might be the case with someone finding my Adsense sites through a search engine.
So Twitter traffic is meaningless to me.
Don’t get me wrong. It’s great to build relationships with people over the internet but frankly I would rather do that through email, participation in forums that are about common interests, and perhaps even Facebook. But Twitter?
I can’t even express myself properly in the space of 140 characters! Build a relationship? What kind of relationship can one build when one is limited to only 140 characters?
I mean that’s like saying I can’t say more than 20 words at a time with 7 letters in each one in a real life conversation! Could a relationship be built on that? No way!
Building a relationship with Twitter is a nice marketing catch phrase but it’s one of the worst ways of building a relationship that I know of over the Internet when there are so many other better alternatives that let one build a meaningful relationship without the 140 character limit!
If people want to waste their time tweeting each other about when they pick their nose and what they are doing this very minute….let them. I have better and more productive things to do than follow the masses into yet another social media fad.
I wonder if I should tweet about how I am presently commenting on your post? LOL.
Of course if I had done that I wouldn’t have been able to fully express myself! LOL
Carlos
As far as I can tell, reaping business success on Twitter is a process that doesn’t happen quickly. A year after signing up on Twitter, I’ve made a few good contacts, done a little business, but I won’t be paying off my house anytime soon. That said, I’ll stick with it because if nothing else, Twitter “breaks” news before anyone else (Michael Jackson’s death) and had real time updates on the Iranian protests making other news outlets stale.
For me twitter its simple markerting technique,for good result we need to find a niche before run th marketing technique
Yes Joel, nice blog. That part of just being yourself is important. I think that it’s totally where the intensions come in, when you enter with the intention to sell it will become difficult to have succes on twitter.
I’ve become increasingly disenamored with my Twitter experience because of all of the garbage that I have to wade through to get to the real conversations. I am looking forward to whatever new technology lies around the corner that can do it better.. Perhaps Google Wave?
I wholeheartedly agree with you Joel! Infact that is the reason why i don’t use twitter as much anymore, now that twitter has rolled out the lists feature im starting to get back on more, i don’t allow DM msges, its 99%spam!
I highly recommend the lists feature!
regards
Lam N
http://www.richwealthsecrets.com
Great post. Twitter is a great tool, it has done well for my website. But the spam is getting annoying.
What does one do to pervent spam on twitter? They are a pain just in my email. Any suggestions would be appreciated. I just got my website name last week. That is as far as I have gone so far!
Gail
I find Twitter an interesting animal, and I have an account, but I honestly don’t see a lot of value in it yet. I’d much rather spend my time networking on Facebook and on LinkedIn. I can reach more people with more information, and learn more about them as well. And I find it hard to express what I want to share in 120 characters or less! Also, there are a lot of bogus messages that I receive, with folks trying to sell me something, or sell me their service. So yes I use Twitter, but no I won’t rely on it to help me build solid relationships with others. Thanks for the post Joel.
I’ve had several accounts for about 6 months. Every day or so, someone follows me. I have twooted but nobody responds. I don’t know if it even works.
I have not used twitter much lately but I used to quite enjoy it, but mostly for working on relationships formed in a forum already.
As for the individual who cannot express themselves in 140 characters!!!
“I love you” takes 10 characters and is the most wonderful thing anyone can say. 140 characters can say a heck of a lot if you clear about what you want to say.
Thanks Joel! It is good to be reminded of the relational approach to twitter. And you are right. Relationships are important for business opportunities.
Hi Joel,
BTW…loved your presentation at the millionaires bootcamp in London (kerrchingg). Anyway, like the article…am building a steady following at the moment, building relationships through constant content with blogs etc. My twittwr name is twentykayweekly, feel free to add me.
Nice post. I use Twitter to stay in touch with friends and families.
Hi joel !
i’m still learning your lesson coz i’m newbie in ‘here’
Joel, thanks for the great information. I also appreciate you modeling ‘how to be’ yourself online, but not in a spammy or trying to sell yourself way. Kudos!
Hi Joel,
I agree with you…Its all about building relationships on Twitter..
Thanks,
Jorge
Really like your ideas about being yourself en building human relations. But i’ve getting a few followers every month that i don’t know, i think it’s good idea to do something on the spammers on twitter.