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A Bag Full of Twitter Tricks

As I was working in Twitter today I thought about the different ways I use it and how my techniques might help others.

Most of these ideas are about competitive research.

With a little creativity you can probably come up with even more advanced ways to make social media useful.

Twitter Tricks #1- What to Curate?

Don’t know what to curate? Find related businesses that share content your ideal customer would also appreciate.

Example: If you are a small karate school you could easily curate content for parents. The content could cater to the health and activity of their children. Maybe you don’t know what to post or retweet. Do this:

Go to Twitter.com
Search ‘healthy parenting’
Click People in the results (on the left side of the page)- if no results search another related term ‘children’s health’ or look at Posts results also on the left side of the page.
Follow these people
Make a Twitter list of these people- click the person icon with an arrow next to follow, select ‘add or remove from lists’. Create a new list.
Name the list ‘Healthy Parenting’
Bookmark the list page
Visit it often to find things to retweet

Who To Follow?

There is a discover feature in Twitter. But sometimes you find an account that is so great, you want to find more JUST LIKE IT. Here’s what you do.

Click the name of the person and their account pops up
Click their name again and you are taken to the full page of their account
If you are already a follower, click to unfollow them- you need to not be a follower for this to work
Click Follow to begin to follow them (or refollow them)
A box opens underneath where you just followed them of related accounts
Want even more? Right click- Open in Tab on each of the three people in the box that came up to go to their accounts and do the same thing.

Be A Local News Source

Let’s say you are a computer repair small business. You want to get people in your area to follow you on Twitter so that you can eventually market them. Why would local people follow you? The first reason I think of is local news, weather, events, etc. Since you are a computer business you might focus on tweeting local news that has to do with electronics or the computer world. Here are some sample tweets:

The Madison’s weekly karaoke is available every week for download on iTunes, just go here www.link.com
Our rec center is throwing a fun Christmas party for kids and their families. Everyone who wants to go can RSVP at www.link.com
The new cafe on the corner of Main and Crescent has free wi-fi. Stop in, say Hello and get some work done.

Make this work even better?

Follow everyone you can in the area. Here are a couple of ways to do this.

Use Twitter’s Advanced Search to find people in the area.

At the top of the page, search for anything.
When the results page comes up, click the wheel/gear icon to select advanced search
Put your city’s name in Places, hit search
You’ll have to click on each person’s name to get their profile to pop-up and select Follow

Or, an easier way to follow locals

Find a local and very popular account. Namely nonprofits, the news, newspaper, hot restaurants, car dealerships, etc.
Look at their Followers
Start following those that you think would most likely follow you back, or be a good fit for your business based on their profile
Be sure to follow Twitter’s restrictions on mass following. I recommend not following more than 300 per day

Got a Hot Competitor On Twitter?

Start following some of their fans, or:
Make a list of their fans- you don’t have to be a follower to add someone to a list
Bookmark it. Visit often and respond to their posts.

Of course, there is a lot more you can do with Twitter. I just thought you would enjoy these techniques to think outside the box. Enjoy!