Online Selling Tip: Do You Use Twitter to Promote Your Site or Product?

Twitter is becoming more of a promotional tool everyday. You can attract a large audience in a matter of seconds. The key to doing so is to have the proper following (audience). The first step to getting the right following is to create a profile on Twitter that will attract people that would be interested in your tweets (updates) by going under “settings“. Start by giving yourself a profile picture. You can either use a personal picture or a graphic that goes with your theme. Once you complete this, choose your profile background by clicking on the “design” tab in your profile.

On the “account” tab you can enter your homepage address, place your website, blog, or eBay store address here. Next you will see a space to give yourself a “one line bio”, Doing this you need to give a brief summary of what you are promoting. This will act as key words in the search function when people are searching for people to follow. After you have completed this step go to find people and search for people that would be interested in what you will be tweeting by choosing the “Find People” tab at the top of the page and then choosing “Search on Twitter” tab. There you will want to enter keywords to find people that match your search. For instance, If you are going to be promoting your blog that you are writing about parenting, you will want to search for words like mom, parenting, children, or kids. If you are selling collectables like beanie babies you will want to use the keyword beanie babies to find people who like them.

Ok now that you have set up your profile and started following others, start tweeting your updates on your sites and tweeting with others on their updates. On top of having a great profile and following others you will need to create a relationship with others on Twitter so that they will follow your updates that you post. No one will follow a one sided tweeter. One way to boost your following is to post a Twitter badge on your blog or personal website (eBay won’t allow this badge on about me page or store page). Your site followers will most likely choose to follow you for updates. You can also put a widget on your site that shows your tweet updates. You can find these badges and widgets by checking out the “Apps” option at the bottom of the page on Twitter or you can create a custom badge on one of the sites below.

http://www.twittown.com/twitter-badges

http://mashable.com/2009/03/30/twitter-badges

http://www.widgetbox.com/widget/twitter

Remember, with anything on the internet, it takes time to establish yourself on Twitter, so don’t get discouraged and walk away, continue tweeting and one day you will start getting traffic and sales because of the relationships that you build with others on Twitter.