Listbuilding on Twitter—How Do I Tweet and Market?

Like any social media platform out there, Twitter is a great place to mine for a list.  In fact, as one of the hottest social media sites out there, listbuilding on Twitter is a must for your campaign.  Here are some of the basics for building a list on Twitter.

Put Keywords in Your Bio

It definitely stands to reason that you’ll want to relate your bio to your niche.  A great way to do this is to put keywords in your bio.  Many people do it without realizing it.  Since you know that keywords will get you noticed, you can use them as ways to draw people to your profile.

What’s really great about profiles and bios is that you can virtually stuff them with keywords and get away with it.  However, I would advise a little bit of caution.  While you have free reign to put as many keywords in your profile as you can fit, you should still have a readable profile because now that they’re here, you want them to follow you, right?

Build Your List Yourself at First

Once your bio is complete, you can build your list right off the bat.  Make some friends by doing keyword searches.  Most people on social media sites are “friend collectors,” so it shouldn’t take you long to get a decent list going.  You should do this off and on as your campaign goes on.

Before too long, people will start seeking you out.  Then you can choose whether you want to allow them to follow you or not.  Keep in mind that there are other marketers out there, and they may not be interested in your products.  You’ll usually want to reciprocate if someone starts to follow you, but the last thing you want is to be marketed to.  If a new profile following you smells like someone who’s trying to sell to you, they probably are.

Narrowing Down to a Targeted List

It doesn’t take much effort to build your list.  The real trick is maintaining it.  Culling down to a targeted list seems irrelevant, but don’t be fooled.  Twitter’s “prestige points,” as some people call them, aren’t awarded by how many followers you have.  Instead, it’s based on the ratio of followers versus friends.

As a result, it becomes necessary to cut off the dross accounts.  The ones that you’ll want to remove most of all are the ones that haven’t put up a Tweet in months.  These accounts are considered inactive and aren’t worth anything to your Twitter influence.  Besides, you know for a fact that you’re not making any money off of them.

Shopping for List Managing Tools

Naturally, since so many marketers are on Twitter, there are Twitter Tools that help with several aspects of your Twitter campaign.  Some are virtually useless, while others are quite handy.  My two favorites are Twinfluence.com and Twitter Karma.

Twinfluence.com is a great resource since it shows you who the top 50 Twitter members are at the moment.  Follow these guys, and you have a quick “in” to a goldmine of prospects.  Another great tool is Twitter Karma.  This tool helps with cutting off the inactive accounts from your list.