Using Twitter for marketing

It seems as though rules of etiquette around twitter exist that I did not know.

I thought:

• If I wanted to read what someone tweeted then I would follow them
• If someone wanted to read what I tweeted then they would follow me.

It appears that this falls in to the naive category.

Apparently, based on what a twitter marketeer told me, and on what I've seen people who outsource their twitter management do:

• If someone follows you, you have 3 days to follow them, before they unfollow you.
• Similarly, if you follow someone, and they don't follow you back within 3 days then you should unfollow them.

Why? Because this increases your reach and influence.

Note, these people don't use twitter for marketing. These people operate as twitter marketeers, who teach other people how to use twitter for marketing. And I have read their twitter feeds, but since they adopt the - 20 tweets a day, regardless of relevant content - strategy, I don't think it works in terms of engagement.

Personally. This all feels wrong to me. And if something feels wrong to you, don't do it.

Although from a marketing point of view I understand the following.

• When I follow someone, they receive a message saying that I have followed them.
• They may check out my profile and timeline to check if they want to follow me.
• If they don't follow me then they don't see my timeline.

If I actually want to market to this person via twitter then they need to see my tweet. So I have some choices.

• I could unfollow - as the marketing strategists suggest. At which point I gain no insight into what they care about and couldn't structure tweets that meet their need.
• I could mention them in tweets directly. They will see these mentions in their twitter tool. They might choose to follow, or interact.
• I could unfollow, and then refollow later, in the hope that they will eventually follow. I don't know if this works, I've never noticed someone unfollow me and later follow me.
• Perhaps I should market to them off-twitter. Perhaps I should link in with them.

I need to do more research on this, but it seems that if you use twitter as a marketing tool you may well lose site of the engagement part because if you follow 6000 people (to pluck a large number out of the air). How can you engage with them or monitor the stream of tweets for information you find useful.

I suspect I'll adopt the following strategy:

• grow your follower base organically
• follow people I want to read, and people I want to market to
• try to create tweets that people re-tweet
• engage specific people directly through questions
• use linkedin and email for direct marketing approaches

I'll keep researching until I build a good model for this, but in marketing, and business, if it feels wrong and you can't justify it, then don't do it. Ever. Despite what the Gurus tell you, but keep researching, just in case they do have valuable information - and because you might change your mind.