Using Twitter for promotion – Part 1: Imagine Twitter to be a newspaper…

It's not about what you are doing or what you want… Promotion done right is about what your audience wants and needs.

A couple of days earlier a friend asked me how he could use twitter to promote himself and his work. Our long discussion motivated me to write a series about twitter and how to use it right. With no further delay, here's the first…

Imagine a newspaper. It has headlines, news pieces, editorial, advertisements, etc. All of this gets divided into local, regional, national and international. Another way it gets split is politics, entertainment, sports, finance, etc. There are a lot of sub-divisions in one newspaper.

If you walked down your street in the morning you would see different newspapers lying at your neighbours doorsteps. There are a large variety of newspapers available and people choose their paper based on the kind of news and reporting they are interested in.

Do you see how twitter is like a newspaper? – Its has 140 character headlines with links to more, a variety of tweets depending on the persons interest, self and other advertising and followers who can choose tweeple to follow depending on interest.

So how does a newspaper decide what news they would run and how they would report it? And how do you think they could increase their readership? Newspapers choose news based on the areas they have experts in and what their audience wants. But if they want to increase their viewership they first need to look into what kind of readers they want. After deciding the target audience they need to find out what their new audience wants and deliver.

Twitter works similarly; if you want more followers you need to first list out the kind of audience you want for yourself and your work. Then research the interests of your audience using a tool like Twitter Search to understand their needs.

Now that you know what information to provide to capture interest and give people a reason to follow you, remember that too much information can also turn people off. So my next topic in this series is how much to tweet and how to balance it.

So what do you relate twitter to?

Photo Credit: Xeni

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Twitter – Should you tweet with responsibility?

Twitter today is ‘the’ place to be; it’s where everyone seems to hang out. With more than a million users signing up every month, it’s seeing phenomenal growth. When using twitter you can talk about anything, air your views & opinions, promote a product or service, give breaking news... you get the picture right... As long as your message is within the 140 character limit you can say anything.

A lot of companies and people are using twitter to promote themselves; maybe not directly but yeah, twitter helps them track people’s opinions, get feedback, keep in touch, etc. This has become so important that companies have started to hire people with a job role that just requires them to be on twitter. Celebrities are taking to twitter too. It’s a way for them to interact with their fans, build a relationship and if they aren’t doing it already soon they will be promoting their brands.

I find twitter a brilliant tool for me to keep in touch with my friends, send them messages (all in one go), promote myself & my work and network with the right people. However I think this has to be done with a certain sense of responsibility since the world can see that I said and I am influencing people. Of course you may say I am entitled to my opinion and if someone wants to believe me or follow me blindly, that’s their problem. True! No doubt but it still is my social responsibility to not give people the wrong notions.

Let me give you an example – Gul Panag, an Indian actress who I quite admire as she doesn’t fit the typical actress mould (Links below)is quite active on twitter. Yesterday Gul tweeted about her bullet (bike) being delivered at the set after being serviced and how she was looking forward to riding home at 2 am. Am sure she was bombarded by her fans with questions on which model, how she rode, what speed and what not. One reply to a question I did notice was about the type of helmet. Let me paste the messages for you here...

gulpanag - @pleomorphous sort of.. It's a hybrid actually, full face visor , bomber pilot type
pleomorphous - @gulpanag Thats what I meant by "fancy half-face helmet" :-)
gulpanag - @pleomorphous it's ok I am a safe rider. What's good for a fighter jet pilot is certainly good for me:)

Now like I was saying before tweeting with responsibility is important and even more so for a celeb as there are a lot of people listening and celebs can influence them quite a bit. Celebs are also trendsetters. To me this attitude of Gul was not acceptable, she was telling her 2,664 followers that it was ok to wear a helmet that makes you look cool, no matter that it doesn’t protect your head. I’m not sure what others had to say but my reply and another in my timeline are below.

pleomorphous - @gulpanag I applaud your optimism, all the best. :-)
freya3377 – @gulpanag @pleomorphous Ofcourse Gul, the bullet open to the elements is as safe as a jet and comes with a parachute :)
gulpanag - @freya3377 you ride one I assume, from your knowledge;)
freya3377 - @gulpanag Ofcourse :) think it might be a good idea 4 u to promote safely when riding. :)

Surprisingly Gul says on her site “the single greatest contribution every celebrity- film sport or any other kind can make is to lead by example” – Read more

So the gist of my post is that tweeple should tweet but with responsibility. What do you think?

Please leave a comment or tweet me.

Gul's Official Site
Gul on Wikipedia

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