So what is Twitter?

Twitter is an interesting social networking service which is a little difficult to define. While it is normally talked about in the same discussions as other social networking sites, it certainly isn’t the same as Facebook or Google+.

Created in 2006, Twitter was originally envisioned as a “micro-blogging” site and as a way to share short (140 character) messages, also known as ‘Tweets’, to large groups of people quickly and easily.
Say you want to go snowboarding, and you want to invite all of your friends to come. Instead of calling or texting each of your friends individually, you just tweet it out and any of your friends and family that are following your twitter will be instantly notified!

Great, how does that help my practice?

Twitter is a great way to send out messages to all of your clients, (or potential clients), and an even better way to promote your other Social Networking efforts!

Social Networking boils down reputation. That is the most important thing to remember when planning a Social Network marketing strategy.

For example, you just wrote a very well thought out and insightful blog that does a fantastic job of showcasing the fact that you are a leader in your field! But what good does that do if no one reads it? Tweet out a link to the blog and notify all of your fans immediately!

Ideally you want your tweet to be so informative, or at least interesting, that all of your followers “re-tweet” it to their followers. Then those followers “re-tweet” to their followers, and so on and so forth!

Before you know it, you’ve gotten your marketing message out to hundreds or even thousands of people, without costing you a dime!

How is that for a Return On Investment?

Oh, and a note on links. Since Twitter imposes the 140 character limit on tweets most standard links will far exceed that. A great way to get around that is to use URL shortening services. There are a few out there, but we prefer bit.ly.

For example, using bit.ly I turned:

http://thelongestlistofthelongeststuffatthelongestdomainnameatlonglast.com/

into:

http://bit.ly/3ScBfd

You do not have to sign up for an account to use bit.ly and the links you create never expire!

So how do I get started!

Starting a Twitter account is easy. Just go to www.twitter.com and click sign up! Then start putting your Twitter username, which will be something like ‘@coachingwebsite’, on your business cards, website, the signature of your emails, and all of your other marketing material! This is the quickest and easiest way to start getting followers!

Stay tuned for another blog in the coming weeks on advanced Twitter techniques and best practices, and, while you’re signing up for your Twitter account, make sure to follow us as well!

http://twitter.com/#!/coachingwebsite

Taylor H – CoachingWebsites Support
Email any questions to [email protected]