Posted February 27th, 2010
How Can 140 Characters Make You a Millionaire?
With only 140 characters at a time, you can make millions…
Twitter. Why is it that Twitter is only 140 characters by the way? Well, because many cell phones can only text 140 characters, that’s why! Why is it that cell phones are limited to only 140 characters for texts? Because the message piggybacks on signals already being sent by the phone and it costs the cell phone company NOTHING AT ALL to send the text message! So guess what, they are charging us ten dollars per month each (or more, or less) for something that is completely free for them. Smart… infuriating, but smart.
Now then, back to business. How do I capitalize on the vast popularity of Twitter and get the millions of daily Twitter users to give me their cold hard cash? How can I monetize Twitter??
You can’t!
Monetizing means to make money directly from something with affiliate links, or adwords ads etc. Take a look around on the Twitter.com site; even Twitter themselves have yet to monetize the site!
If you are a new Twitter user, you will need to learn some of the Twitter basics regarding how things work and what it is you are seeing in your messages.
First off go to www.twitter.com and sign up for an account. I suggest using your company name, website name or your real name as your Twitter account name. Don’t make it something that may be offensive, hard to remember or unprofessional if you are doing this for your business.
- Yes you may have more than one Twitter account, but one is hard enough to manage, who needs more?
– Upload a small image, preferably a small photo of you or your company logo. Now you’re ready to get tweeting!
Next, you need to know a little about how Twitter works and what you will be seeing in your tweet stream. Most of the tweets you will see are two different types of usless information; 1) Spam and 2) Random meaningless tweets by strangers and “Goodnight Twitter” messages. (Don’t annoy people and post useless tweets like “Goodnight”… please!!)
The information you are honestly interested in seeing will not appear in your tweet stream! The information that you do see will be every update by every person that you follow. Imagine that you follow 2000 people like I do, or what about 15,000 or 25,000… how in the world do you follow that many people?
YOU CAN’T.
You’re on Twitter to get your message across, to speak to your audience, and to respond to only those messages that are actually sent to you and are not spam, but a human that is interested in speaking to you. And, in a nutshell, twitter.com is absolutely WORTHLESS when doing this!
Now if you follow me, don’t get me wrong; I’m not discounting you as a person or uninterested in what you may have to say, but I can’t possibly be that involved with the thousands of people I would like to reach on a daily basis regarding camera repair. Twitter is amazing, and if I could afford a full time employee to do just Twitter I probably would.
I use Twitter every day, and I see almost every person that tweets about a broken digital camera or camera repair. I can’t possibly message them all, and when I try to, I think they think I’m just spamming. I would advise you to not do more than what you can comfortably handle. You are using Twitter to build credibility with your audience, not to sell to them.
Ok now, in your tweet stream you will see messages with different symbols, abbreviations and crazy looking links.
- The most common symbols you will see are @… (a message sent to the person after the symbol so that it shows up in their tweet stream) and the # (a subject like #photography that is searchable)
– Some of the most common abbreviations are TT (Trending Topic: something that is mentioned in many different tweets right now), DM (Direct Message: sent only to you, nobody else can see it), RT (ReTweet: somebody else posted this first and I can ReTweet it letting others know I think it’s good) and FML… I’ll let you figure out what FML means.
– The crazy looking links have been shortened so that they take up less space. They look odd, and yes they can take you to any site without your knowledge so you must trust the person that posts it. You only have 140 characters remember, so shortened URL’s are a must.
If you want to seriously use Twitter then you will need software like Tweetdeck from www.tweetdeck.com; it’s awesome. Twitter is completely useless for any sort of business purpose if you try and use it through Twitter.com. Personally, I never go to the Twitter website, there’s no reason to!
Download and install Tweetdeck, configure it and get it running. You will have columns for tweets where you are mentioned (with the @ symbol before your name) and sent Direct Messages (DM). Beyond these two, you can add new columns for custom searches that are automatically updated and lets you see exactly what people are saying all over the world on Twitter at all times!!
Maybe you have a dog training business online; create a search column for ‘dog training’ and you will see every single message every person tweets with the words ‘dog’ and ‘training’ in any order of the tweet. They won’t always be about ‘dog training’, (I’ve been in training for scuba diving testing… that darn dog is barking again) but most will. Now figure out other combinations of keywords or search phrases… ‘dog training’ won’t show any search results when the person says ‘training dogs’, but the search term ‘dogs training’ will becuase they don’t have to be in order. Hopefully I am able to clarify the difference!
Any time you see a relevant message about something in your area of expertise, you can follow the person that posted the tweet (you aren’t really interested in following them, but they like it and normally will follow you back) and then send them an @ message. You SHOULD NOT try and sell anything to the person you are tweeting with your first message to them. Start a conversation and let them know you are an authority in your subject area and see if there is something that you can do to help… FOR FREE. You may post a link to your site, but highly motivated customers will look for a link in your profile, so make sure one is there to be found. Don’t try and push for a sale!
If you want to be a spammer and annoy people, then by all means please try to monetize Twitter! This is how!
1- Harass people with your first tweet when they follow you, by sending them an automatic DM that spams them with something to buy.
2- Spam the same tweets over and over all day and night, every day. Better yet, spam the same tweets at the same time from multiple accounts every 15 minutes 24hrs a day.
3- Post tweets that are obviously stuffed with TT’s!
4- Never talk with people who are interested in your area of expertise, use software to create every tweet for you.
5- Never give free advice, or post tweets to sites that will help people and have nothing to do with something you sell.
6- Post obscene or controversial messages about relition, politics or bodily functions. Also swear whenever possible.
7- Tweet @ every user you see with your offer and website
and so on and so forth…
I know if you start today you can use my information to get going with Twitter right away. Don’t worry about not understanding everything that’s going on or what you should do or say. Start off by following people in your market and see what it is they do on Twitter. Don’t follow celebrities unless that is your area of business; follow them once you know what you are doing and have the time to do your work plus see what Shaq is eating for lunch.
Tweet you later.
Tags: e commerce, how to use twitter, making money on twitter, making money online, social media, twitter, web 2.0
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