How to Post Tweets on Twitter – Part 4 of Twitter Marketing
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It’s can be a little hard to get started on Twitter. Not that it is difficult to use but it may seem strange to be making posts when you don’t have any followers yet, but trust me, it won’t take long before you start to build a following.
Let’s cover some basics first: posts, or updates, are known on Twitter as ‘tweets’. On your home page, you will see your tweets as well as the tweets of those people that you are following. However, when you visit someone else’s homepage, you’ll see only the posts they’ve made, not the people that they’re following.
Looking at someone’s posts can give you an idea of whether you want to follow them or not. Remember since there aren’t any language restrictions, people can post whatever they want, which you might not agree with or find offensive. But if you don’t like what someone has to say, then you don’t have to follow them.
Post often (several times a day often, not several times in 5 minutes often.) Try to keep your posts interesting and informative and do not post more then 2 posts in a row if you can help it. People will unfollow you if it they see too many posts (tweets) from you in a row. Now if you are having a conversation with someone that is something you think others will find interesting (say offering advice on your niche that they are asking help with), then that is different… but still try to keep it to a minimum of consecutive posts.
Posting a tweet is the easiest thing to do, ever. You see that box at the top of the page? Write something in it that’s less than 140 characters, and press update. Voila! You’ve posted a tweet. To make it even easier, as you type, the character number counts down, letting you know exactly how many characters you have left.
Of course, what to tweet is another matter entirely.
On the right-hand-side of your homepage, you can see what the popular topics are; if you want to get more exposure, add a post on one of those topics. Similarly, if you want your tweets to be associated with certain products (you know, like yours) then make sure to include the relevant keywords in your tweets.
Using links in your tweets are a great way to promote yourself and your business. Be careful, though; if every single link that you post is blatant self-promotion, you’ll find people un-following you pretty fast. Always remember that Twitter is a social media tool, not an advertising service.
While you can’t edit tweets once you’ve posted them, you are able to delete a tweet whenever you want. Just go to the post within your homepage, and mouse over it. On the bottom right-hand of the tweet, a garbage can should appear. Click on the garbage can, and your tweet will be deleted like it never existed. Except, of course for the potentially thousands of people who saw it before you deleted it; so think before you tweet.
While you absolutely can promote your business, also make sure to keep your tweets interesting and informative. Making a habit of posting useful, informative, or entertaining tweets just for the heck of it doesn’t hurt either.
Now that you know what to link, here’s how to do it:
- If the link fits within your tweet, then Twitter will automatically link it and leave it as is. Make sure that you use the full http:// address for the link to work properly but i do NOT recommend you do this (I will explain more in a second)
- If the link you want to use is too long to tweet (either the whole address or the address with the rest of what you want to tweet) then you need to make the URL shorter. To do this, you can go to http://www.bit.ly, a free service which will let you shorten any website address into something smaller – usually about 4 characters. Then you use the alternate address they provide you in your tweet.
Shorten All Links With Bit.ly
The reason you want to shorten all your links is for testing and tracking (watch the video below and you will see how bit.ly works). This is a 100% free service (but you need to register so you can track your links and get access to the api as well) and you can use it with twitterfeed, tweetlater (one of my favorite services) and other services as well.
Another great service (but has a monthly fee with it) is http://budurl.com/ (I am no way affiliated with them, just like and use them), it is not crazy expensive (I am just using the 12 month service right now and if need to upgrade to the $40+ one, then it will certainly mean I am making even more money from twitter, so that will be a great thing.
BudURL gives you a better way of tracking your links by allowing you to see some statistics that are displayed so you can cross compare campaigns a lot easier then bit.ly allows. It also has some prettier graphics 
One thing else that BudURL has that I love is you can 301 redirect the links, which is better from a search engine optimization perspective. Now do not get your panties in a bunch here, this is not going to make a gigantic difference in things but it can help. If you cant afford another monthly fee right now then Bit.ly is fantastic… and there are other great services out there to (in fact I know my buddy at JoeTech is soon coming out with something and you really should check out his blog, it is a cool blog with good info for geeks like us).
Overall Bit.ly is fantastic and if you do not want to spend money then use Bit.ly.
What About Automated Twitter Post Tools?
I do use certain tools that help automate some basic tasks, but I do not use them to spam my followers. I will be getting into specifics on these tools in a later post but for now I want you to concentrate on how to do this manually. I will be showing you how to automatically post a few posts a day that are stories your followers will love but do not worry about that at this moment, for now just get used to how twitter works. I promise to reveal all with very clear steps 
Two Awesome Ideas for Effective Twitter Posts
Method #1: As much as possible, when you have something you want to share with your followers, try to have it link to your blog. This is not going to be able to be accomplished 100% of the time, but whenever you can, you really want to do it.
Say for example, there is a cool video that you came across that you think your followers will be interested in. Do not link to YouTube (unless it is your video) but instead create a post about it on your blog and embed the video. Write a paragraph of text as to why you like the video (get your post ranked) and you will be able to funnel the traffic through your blog (and hopefully you will have an opt in plus other monetization systems in place to take advantage of the traffic). Believe me, Twitter sends great traffic (I prove that in the short video below).
Method #2: Look at story titles at places like http://www.Digg.com and http://delicious.com. These sites have loads of traffic and what i do is search in Digg.com for the most popular topics with the keyword I am thinking and I make variations on that. So for example say you have a blog on “Dog Training” and you want to promote a post on Twitter. What you can do is enter…
dog training +p
…into the Digg.com search (the +p makes sure it is only stories others liked) and then make sure to sort by most popular. I immediately saw the story “Dog Saves Owner, Dies Trying to Save Cat” and wanted to read the story. Now if I owned a dog training blog, I would write an article related to that and try to work in how dog training can help make a loyal dog (or something like that) and then use that title or a variation close to it as my twitter post with a link. (Yes I know, great idea )
Twitterpaded with Twitter Marketing
Tomorrow I am going to get into more detail about how to respond to other people (retweet) and interact with other users (and get followers) but in the mean time if you like this post, please CLICK HERE to Tweet it with others now. You can also check out the previous posts in this series by clicking –> Twitter Marketing Training
STOP ==> No sir I am not done yet. There is a crazy contest going on and well today I want to give you all a day of rest
So, I am going to announce the winner of the 2nd copy of Viral Signup Generator and give you all an optional task to get completed for tomorrows prize, which is…
…and to enter to win that all you have to do is to simply follow http://twitter.com/cedricrice on twitter… of course to qualify you have to have completed the original tasks and this counts as another point for you towards the big draw The winner of the banner will be announced tomorrow but the winner of yesterdays giveaway of Viral Signup Generator is Esteban Leon of http://www.HacerFortuna.com
Do not forget to comment below if you completed the step. Add the url to your twitter account in the comment form.. you will get a link to it as well
networking, but all for good causes. Hungry and set up to handle huge traffic. Can you help us boost our traffic (don’t mean … include PM and be very specific as to what you will do to bring us traffic. Prepared to pay bigHow to Post Tweets on Twitter – Part 4 of Twitter Marketing- johncow.com 05/07/2009 It’s can be a little hard to get started on Twitter. Not that it is difficult to use but it may seem strange to be making posts when you don’t have any followers yet, but trust me, it won’t take long before you start to build
[...] How to post Tweets [...]
Following http://twitter.com/cedricrice .
Be luck be with me and I win the banner.
+1 points
I guess my total is now: 5+1+1=7 points.
Jason you be tracking the points well.
but of course… well actually not i personally but I am having them taken care of
Done
count me in
http://twitter.com/retrogade
I don’t use any auto DM tools, but I still personally DM all new followers. It is a great conversion tool
Done =D (as everything else so far).
My twitter: http://twitter.com/fricky
Bye!
Thanks for your Twitter tips. I will apply this to my Twitter account now. I love Twitter because it is very effective in terms of increasing traffic.:-)
Great Tips about how to gain exposure using Twitter by including trendy topics in your posts.
I was following cedricrice for some time already.
I completed today’s step. My Twitter ID is techkat2.
I’m also enjoying the series on Twitter.
Great stuff!
Kathy
Techkat
Following … cedricrice… would love to advertise….. my blog Pixellicious
It is nice article about twitter.Twitter is great tool for social marketing.
Done all the steps so far http://twitter.com/cedricrice I am following him.Let me hope win some prizes.Again all the best for all participants
Why not make some extra money from your own twitter profile 1. http://bit.ly/1YwgPm
2.http://bit.ly/TbD9o
3.http://bit.ly/g412m
Got this point, too! My link is http://twitter.com/ShannonBuck
Winning a banner ad on John Cow sounds like a good deal. Count me in. I’m also going through other steps to see what else i need to do. cheers!
Followed these things for points!
Thanks for the mention of BudURL. We have paid and free versions of our tool so please come and check us out. Once you sign up for a free account you’ll see a custom coupon code to get a longer free trial when trying our paid options.
Thanks!
Andy
budurl.com
[...] How to Post Tweets on Twitter – Part 4 of Twitter Marketing – 2 days ago It’s can be a little hard to get started on Twitter. Not that it is difficult to use but it may seem strange to be making posts when you don’t have any followers yet, but trust me, it won’t take… Topics: budurl, twitter, twitter marketing, Web 2.0 [...]
Hi John, I’m Esteban Leon, the winner of Viral Signup Generator from http://www.HacerFortuna.com.
How can I receive my gift?
Please sendme at my email
Thanks
Esteban Leon
http://www.HacerFortuna.com
The “something” you mentioned above is now public at http://Lnk.gd
Check it out and offer up any suggestions while I'm still developing from the ground up.
Great info on Twitter for those just getting started. I especially liked that you told people how to find popular articles in specific niches on Digg and Delicious. I will check out bit.ly also, I need to make a little more $$ before I incur any further expenses.
Peace