A Twitter Blog Marketing Guest Post by Jill Bruyere

Twitter is an excellent way of connecting with other people who share your interests or who might be interested in what you have to say. This somewhat new and FREE service is a popular trend for social networking.  As a new blogger, I have found Twitter to be a useful marketing resource to get more traffic to my blog and build relationships with my readership.

Step by Step set up of twitter

1) Set up your twitter account

-Go to twitter.com and set up your free account.  It is easy to do and can be done in a matter of just a few minutes.

-Customize your background with a photo or graphics related to your blog/product.  You can do this personally from the “settings” tab or you can do what I did and pay for a custom twitter background for $75 from www.mytweetspace.com

2) Add followers

Search for people on Twitter related to your interests and start following them.  For example, my blog site is for runners, so I searched “runners” and clicked to follow people who came up under that search term.  The time consuming part is going through and clicking on each profile to add as a follower, but there really is no other solution to quickly add followers.

Also, when you search for people under your keyword, look at their profile and see how many people are following them.  If they only have 20 or less people, then it may not be worthwhile to follow them.  However, some have followers in the tens of thousands and you definitely want to follow them.  Furthermore, you can click on their “followers” list and start adding all those people as well.

I try to add 50 followers a day. Again, it can be time consuming but it’s a great way to connect with people for marketing purposes.  And, if you post good stuff they will follow you back and you will start to build a great twitter following.

3) Start Tweeting messages

What is unique is that your messages are limited just to 140 characters so you have to keep your messages brief and to the point.  It can be a challenge to get the point across in the allotted space, but it also leaves room for a lot of creativity.  Its part of the fun to have to come up with ways to say what you have to say in the small space.  Try to tweet at least twice per day and make yourself human.  In other words, don’t tweet only to promote your products.  You can show more of your personality to your followers and truly communicate with them on a different level. This can get them more interested in you and your writings which will build more traffic over time.
I tweet three times per day and break it up into three parts.  One tweet is a motivational quote, another tweet is about my workout, and a third tweet might be about my recent blog topic with a link to read the entire article.  I’m in the fitness business related to running so I try to tweet my daily run.  You can see how this is related to my blog and product, but I don’t promote what I’m selling.  However, I am marketing myself as the expert in the running industry.

Another great tweeting idea is to tweet your “top 10” list over a span of ten days.  On day 1 tweet your first tip, day two the second tip, etc.

Again, these tips are related to your blog and/or product.

4) Reply to one of your followers tweet at least once per day

When you have a list of followers you will be able to see what they tweet.  Twitter allows you to reply to someone else’s tweet.  This is great research in finding out about your target market.  You can discover their interests, ask them about their needs and automatically get ideas for your blog posts.
This may sound overwhelming and it can be at first.  But, it is an excellent and FREE way of marketing and driving traffic to your site.  In a short ten minutes per day you can make beneficial use of Twitter. With a simple post you can have lots of readers come to your blog or site.

Jill is a fitness professional living in Seattle, WA. She is 32 years old and absolutely loves her job as a personal trainer, marathon fitness coach, and motivational speaker.  You can check out her sites here: www.runwithjill.com and www.breakyourpr.com