How to Use Twitter to Drive Traffic to Your Small Business Blog
It is an obvious fact that blogging is a powerful medium to improve SEO, create a social media footprint or share back stories. However, one would ask, how the heck can Twitter be of use to my small business blog in driving traffic?
Learning how to master Twitter, especially for small business owners, is quite a challenge. Learning Twitter has a steep learning curve and once you do it the wrong way, you’re dead, so to speak. After using Twitter for the last couple of years, and through a lot of trial and errors, below are some tips for you to drive traffic to your small business blog. Check it out.
1. Change the Default Logo – after creating an account on Twitter, assuming that you do not have, change the default logo into your own logo or picture for that matter. Your logo should represent you, your style and your business. If you intend to put your picture in your profile, be sure that you look respectable. Twitter is not a “join it and they will come” marketing tool. You have to put some effort and time in creating trustworthy relationships with your prospective customers. Twitter followers in general would want human beings behind those profile pictures or logo. Your logo attracts followers so it should be compelling enough to arouse your readers’ interest.
2. Show Up – As mentioned earlier, there is a steep learning curve when using Twitter to drive traffic to your blog. According to an article by AdWeek, only 17% of Twitter users updated their accounts in December, which is an all-time low. Similarly, a study conducted by Nielsen Co. revealed that 60% of Twitter users do not return from one month to the next. However, most small business owners show up once and send a tweet.
Most business owners tend to feel that they are wasting their time and are gone for good when they do not receive @messages, get new customers or gain traffic. Twitter, as a marketing tool requires persistence, effort and long-term outlook. You have to have persistent effort everyday.
3. Complete Your Bio Profile – Your profile is similar to the About Page in your blog. Twitter gives you enough leverage by using 160 characters to give a brief description of your blog, who you are and what your business is about. Additionally, make sure that your website link is visible or better yet, include the link of your blog as the one text link that Twitter allows you to have.
Surprisingly, there are a lot small business owners who skip this portion. The results of putting less time and effort in creating a great bio with be similar to the one below. Would you visit the small business blog of “iambusiness” profile?
4. Brand Your Small Business Twitter Background – Your Twitter background is your business image. It’s your brand to your readers. If you don’t have your design for uploading, try using creation tools such as TwitterImage, TwitBack and TwitrBackgrounds.
ProBlogger is not a brick and mortar small business but Darren has an easily identifiable background that would arouse your interest and visit his blog.
5. Social Proof Matters – Your readers and potential customers would probably look at your metrics. How many are following you, how many do you follow, and how many tweets you have sent. When it comes to creating traffic for your small business blog, ugly as it may seem to be, social proof matters. Although your followers and people you follow don’t have to be as large as the ones of ProBlogger, Chris Brogan or John Jantsch, it certainly would help if your small business blog has a few hundred followers and to be following a few hundreds as well.
6. Be Sincere – You will definitely gain a following and eventually direct your business if you are sincere with your interactions on Twitter. Try starting off the way Jonathan Fields does in his early morning greetings:
Following Jeff Pulveris’ 95-5 rule of giving and taking, customers will slowly trust you and eventually visit your small business blog.
7. Use Twitter Search – Searching relevant terms related to your business niche is a great way of finding traffic for your blog. With Twitter Search, this becomes easy. However, be sure that you give relevant and valuable information at your @replies so people will not accuse you of spamming. As an example of the effectivity of Twitter Search, I made a search the other day for inputs on web hosting companies. You cannot imagine the amount of spam I got as a result.
8. Collaborative Relationships – Find out who the leaders are in your niche and connect with them through Twitter. Collaborative relationships with these people can send an enormous amount of traffic to your blog.
9. Useful Links and Hashtags - Sharing useful links that are related to your small business through sites like Digg, StumbleUpon and Reddit are a great way of creating traffic as well. These sites make it easy for you to search and discover the best of what is on the web in your niche. The natural tendency of your followers is to visit your blog if you share good stuff and give them relevant information. A good example would be tweeting relevant information on diving and diving equipment riding, if my business blog is a diving shop.
Retweeting resource posts are good way of increasing blog traffic, too. Look out for “Best Of” or “How To” posts. If space permits, create a hashtag for your small business as well.
10. Power of Picture – Using TwitPic or Yfrog is an effective way of posting pictures on your Twitter. Photo-sharing is a great way of increasing traffic. It creates a contextual basis for your readers to know what you do on a daily basis. Picture of you working or honing your craft will be a great way of sharing photos. It creates social trust and intrigue which eventually converts to more visitors on your blog. Take a look at the picture below which I posted last Friday and the responses I received.
To reiterate what I earlier said, it can take quite some time to develop the trust of your readers and follower base. But remember, too, that it only takes one tweet to lose it.
