How to make twitter work for your business: Entrepreneur Aha Moments
Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 7:56AM 
Be You Mousepad from Inspiration Lounge Store
"The power of twitter is in your sharing, not your selling."
Let's put twitter anxiety to rest. If you base your self-worth on the number of twitter followers your peers have, the lizard brain will hold you back from what you really need to be doing. Rockin' your business and brand. Seth's recent post, viral growth trumps lots of faux followers, proves there is nothing to fear except for a lack of good ideas. In a test, with 100 twitter followers, he proved that a really great idea had a better chance of exposure through viral marketing than a bad idea with 200k twitter followers or 10k followers. Enough said.
Here's how to make twitter work for your business:
Pitch and follow the media outlets on your target list.
Pitching your stories to media outlets via twitter can be an effective way to get through the backdoor. While twitter is hot and key people, brands are engaged and using it, take advantage of this accessibility you never had before. At a local station in Austin, the producer's twitter bio says don't be afraid to pitch me new stories.
Connect with hard-to-reach people.
I've tweeted with Guy Kawasaki (who tweeted MyInspirationLounge is cool), Kathy Ireland and I love that Ellen DeGeneres is following me on Twitter! I tweet with freelance writers and local media outlets. For my latest feature on The Women's Conference, I DM'd them requesting the best email address to send my top tips to for their consideration. Within minutes, I had a response. This doesn't happen on email.
Share your expertise and help spread knowledge of others.
Being seen as an expert is key to building a successful business. Twitter is perfect for sharing your useful tips, wisdom and building your brand. I'm a big believer in karma so love to help others and give back. Since twitter is a strong community of real people doing great things, help spread the knowledge of others regardless if they are small or big. Ya never know.
Follow inspiring people to help you stay motivated and learn new things.
Be intentional about who you follow on twitter because the popular saying, "You are who you hang out with", applies to twitter too. Here's two great lists on ForbesWoman: 20 Inspiring Women On Twitter and 14 Power Women on Twitter. There are lots of inspiring women and men not on the list, like me, so here's a few more I would add to it: @misty_gibbs, @manishathakor, @zen_habits, @chrisguillebeau, @bethschoenfeldt, @webtherapist, @intentdotcom, @operationnice @mariashriver @anncurry
Ahhh...twitter anxiety now put to rest!
P.S. Leave a comment with your twitter name so we can follow you!
Entrepreneur Aha! Moments is a weekly column where entrepreneurs share their truths and power tips to inspire others into action.
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Reader Comments (6)
Great advice for any newbie tweeters Misty.
My recipe for successful tweeting - Have fun. Make friends. Tweet value. Like-minded people sharing knowledge is what makes twitter fun.
Hi Ryan! Yes, keeping it fun is very important! I wanted to take a moment to point out how we can use it from a business perspective without having a million followers. Sometimes, we get consumed with # of followers and not realizing its true potential for connecting with hard-to-reach people. Happy Friday!
I'm still getting used to Tweeting! I use it to update my Facebook status with my latest blog posts but learning more and more about it every day! One question about it. I just have my name angielay as my user name. Should I use that or my website name? Thanks!
Hi Angie!
I am sure there's different thoughts on this - but here's mine. When I first used twitter, my name was doingwhatilove - which is very true. But then I went to a fire starter session with Danielle from whitehottruth.com and she recommended using our name. She had just made the switch over to her name from her website name. Here's her post on it - http://tinyurl.com/ycoceq7
Yes, we need to promote our business and websites but the brand and mojo behind the business is you - and that will never change. To help promote your business on twitter, your twitter background will be key. Hope this helps! Misty
Wow,nice post.I really enjoy to visit your post.Than you for your nice post.All the best for your next post.Keep posting.
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