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How to Use Twitter for Marketing & PR

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Twitter is a tool for "micro-blogging" or posting very short updates, comments or thoughts.  In fact, since Twitter was designed to be very compatible with mobile phones through text messages, each update is limited to 140 characters.  Truly, a micro-blog.  Another way to think of Twitter is like a cross between instant messaging (IM) and a chat room, because it is an open forum, but you restrict it to the people with which you connect.

I have to admit I have not always been sold on Twitter.  At first I did not get it at all.  Then I thought I understood it, but thought it was stupid and useless.  Then I used it a bit more and got some more followers and followed a few more people.  Now I think it has some value, especially as a marketing and PR tool.

Ideas for How to Use Twitter for Marketing & PR

  1. Engage your CEO in social media.  Social media is a great way to have a conversation with your market and make and mange connections with prospects, customers, bloggers and other influencers.  But for a CEO, the typical routes to social media can be hard.  Especially if you are a larger or global company.  A CEO typically has little time to write a blog or answer lots of messages and friend requests on Facebook.  I cannot tell you how many CEO blogs I have seen with only 1 or 2 posts because the CEO never had time to update the blog after the first couple entries.  But, Twitter is limited to 140 characters per update, so it is all about short thoughts and comments.  If your CEO can send a text message, they can use Twitter from anywhere in the world as a marketing and PR tool.  Twitter is actually perfect for CEO or founder who is always on the road meeting with people and who has some interesting opinions on your market.
  2. Keep in touch with bloggers / media.  It is really easy to follow someone on Twitter (see below). And you'll be surprised how often they decide to follow you as well.  In fact, I have lots of people I consider "famous" in the marketing and PR worlds following me.  In my opinion, this is a way easier way to connect with influential people in the media than calling and emailing them.
  3. Monitor your company / brand on Twitter.  A while back we noticed that Guy Kawasaki mentioned Website Grader on Twitter.  Well, of course we had to let him know a bit more about Website Grader and maybe ask if he would also blog about it?  The result was this blog article on Website Grader which drove a good amount of traffic and leads.  (See below for a cool tip on how to easily monitor people talking about your company on Twitter.)
  4. Announce specials, deals or sales.  If you are a retailer or anyone who often has special offers, you can use Twitter to announce these deals instantly to a large audience.  You know those commercials from Southwest Airlines about that "Ding" application you could download and would then alert you about specials on flights?  Well, Twitter can be used as a kind of free version of that.  Dell and Woot have done just this type of marketing, with a lot of success.
  5. Live updates on events or conferences.  If you participate in a large trade show or run your own corporate event, you can use Twitter to announce last minute changes, cool events that are happening ("Just announced, David Meerman Scott book signing in the exhibit hall until 11am") and more.  It is a great last minute marketing tool.
  6. Promote blog articles, webinars, interesting news and more.  Its really easy to post a link to something in Twitter, and I often post links to blog articles on this blog, or other news articles relevant to HubSpot.  A good idea is to post articles on other websites that are relevant to your business, like a customer success story or other PR coverage.  If you have other content that is appealing to your audience like a free webinar, post links to those too.

Using Twitter for Marketing & PR - A Step-by-Step Guide

  1. Sign-up and post a profile.  Visit Twitter and click on the "Get Started - Join" button in the middle.  The rest is simple enough that I think you can figure it out without my help.
  2. Write some updates.  The beauty of Twitter is that the 140 character limit is the great equalizer - I am about as good of a writer as Shakespeare on Twitter.  Post a link to a news article you liked with a one line comment, mention an interesting thought you had, or tell everyone what you are cooking for dinner.  Just write something.
  3. Make friends.  Making friends on Twitter is pretty easy.  Just surf around the web on your favorite blogs, people's Facebook profiles etc, and when you see a Twitter box that tells you what they are doing click on it.  That will bring you to their profile and then you just click on the "Follow" button on the top left and you are now following them.  Most of the time they will then follow you back, and the audience for your 140 character insights will have grown by one person.  You can get started by following me: Mike Volpe on Twitter.  You can also click on the people that other people are following to find more people to follow.
  4. How to post URLs.  Twitter is based on 140 character updates.  If you have a really long URL, that doesn't leave much room for  Most people on Twitter use www.TinyURL.com to take a long URL and make it short.  Give it a shot if you have a long URL that you want to market on Twitter.
  5. Monitor conversations about your company.  Even if you don't join Twitter yourself you can monitor what people are saying about any person, company or brand.  This is quite useful from a marketing and PR standpoint.  Twitter has a search engine that lets you do just this.  For instance, here is a list of everyone who is talking about HubSpot on Twitter.  You can subscribe to these searches by RSS to keep yourself updated.  Another tip is that you can "follow" all the people you find talking about your company (just click on their username to go to their profile).  If they are talking about your company, they would probably be pretty happy that someone from the company wants to follow them.
  6. How to "chat".  Using the @ symbol before someone's Twitter username is how people have "conversations" in Twitter.  This makes their username a link to their profile so other people can follow the conversation (sort of).  For example if you wrote "@mvolpe thanks for the cool blog article about Twitter today" that would be a way of telling me you liked this article. Try it out.  It's not IM (instant messaging), but it is sort of like a publicly broadcast IM service. 

Webinar: Twitter for Marketing and PR


twitter for marketing and pr


Want to learn more about using Twitter for Marketing and PR?

Download the free webinar for tips and tricks to drive inbound marketing using Twitter.


Posted by Mike Volpe on Wed, Mar 05, 2008 @ 09:51 AM

COMMENTS

Please be our friend...puh-leeeease???
www.twitter.com/5alarmmusic
:)

posted on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 at 1:27 PM by Production Music Library


@5 alarm music - done!

posted on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 at 1:42 PM by Mike Volpe


I blogged about exactly the same topic today. The first thing I recommend clients consider when thinking about Twitter marketing is to ask their clients and prospects if they Twitter. If you get blank stares it might be best to hold off for now.....

posted on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 at 2:26 PM by Outsmarts


I think Twitter is a great and fun site...It has a lot of potentials...also the people there are pretty friendly and helpful.

posted on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 at 4:23 PM by Internet Marketing Joy


would love to follow you LOL....
http://twitter.com/ethnicomm
tks :)

posted on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 at 11:40 PM by Bhupesh Shah


@Bhupesh Shah - you got it!

posted on Wednesday, March 05, 2008 at 11:54 PM by Mike Volpe


Mike,
Our agency experiment has proven that success with Twitter is limited only by your imagination.
Thanks for the always enjoyable site!
Respectfully Yours in Safety and Service,
Brian Humphrey
Firefighter/Specialist
Public Sercice Officer
Los Angeles Fire Department

posted on Thursday, March 06, 2008 at 5:32 PM by Brian Humphrey


to be a twitter user is really cool

posted on Thursday, March 06, 2008 at 9:46 PM by amelia


Well... why not?
Here is mine, I would be glad to follow you guys.
http://twitter.com/buyandwalk

posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 at 4:46 PM by Federico Muñoa


Twitter is definitely catching on, it is another tool to add to promo arsenal. It speaks highly to web 2.0 and the future of marketing.

posted on Saturday, March 15, 2008 at 9:54 PM by Missy


I just visited your site by chance on the normal web crawl we do nightly and got stuck listening to and watching your "make your site a marketing machine" video presentation,. Excellent job, well done, it has helped me and whilst listening i could not help but make the changes, not all obviously, its taken me 5 years tio get we we are in a very competative industry, we WILL become clients of yours this year!

posted on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 at 8:31 PM by debt help Uk


Hi Mike Volpe,Great Information.
Thanks

posted on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 at 11:49 PM by Gregory



Awesome tips!
Thank you for sharing!
Webmaster and money makers, please add me on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/MoneyMakers

posted on Monday, May 26, 2008 at 2:40 AM by Debbie Johnson


Added you Debbie Johnson, please add me too: http://twitter.com/jasonlowjy

posted on Monday, May 26, 2008 at 2:45 AM by jason


It'll be great to follow each other as we are like minded people.
http://twitter.com/NetworkMarketer
Followed the rest above.
:)

posted on Monday, May 26, 2008 at 2:46 AM by Daegan Joel


Awesome article. I'm definitely atwitter about Twitter as I see it as a simple, easy way to blog without getting glassy eyed at the computer. It's a terrific marketing and PR tool that can be fun in the process!

posted on Thursday, June 05, 2008 at 11:53 PM by Paula


We feel that twitter is so easy to use and it offers so much potential for marketing on a budget

posted on Thursday, July 03, 2008 at 7:54 AM by IVA debt advice UK


------------------------------------------------ 
Dave Winer, father of RSS says “Twitter, as it was conceived, was never meant to live.” 
 
“It’s very possible with better engineering its architecture might have gone on for a few more years, but eventually it would have hit this wall, where there were too many people posting too many twits to too many followers. The scale of the system as conceived rises exponentially.” 
 
So is the end of Twitter getting near? I hope not. Twitter I hope that you are listening and you better start taking things more seriously. 
----------------------------------------------- 
 
Here's my two cents. 
 
For instance there are about 100m users of yahoo messenger and usually 2-3 of them talk at a time that means scalability of 300m conversations. On the other hand with 100m twitter users who usually send messages to 100-10,000 other users the scalability required is 10,000m to 10^6m I have never known any current architecture based on webservers to handle such a scale. So according to me Twitter was never meant to live. It is like a concept car that will never see production. Users of twitter don't understand this and they don't care.  
They don't know whats happening when the website is down. The sad part is that the best analysts claim that Twitter is a billion dollar company in one year of operations. There is an old saying before the days of when people understood permutation combinations. One peasant asked a king to give him rice equal to the total amount gotten by placing double the number of rice grains on a chess square than the previous square, starting with one rice grain. There are 8x8=64 squares. We seriously need to visit grade 7 mathematics.  
 
I know of only one News/Messaging system that supports around 1 billion users sending messages to all 1 billion users each. Thats a scalability of 10^12m. It is not Web based but rather on a massively scalable serverless P2P architecture based. The team is soft spoken and when I last talked to them I was told that they don't care about money or hype or fame but rather for just the passion of next generation global systems that will stand the test of worldwide use. Its called Mermaid News Mermaid  
 
They have other softwares too but this post is about Twitter and Messaging. Once everyone comprehends basic mathematics that goes behind scalable algorithms they would go past the flashy screen and hype to actually want a system they can trust. To the analysts I would say it is easy to create a business plan, create a hype and raise $20m funding it is far more difficult to create something of use. 
 

posted on Friday, July 04, 2008 at 9:02 AM by peter parker


I just found this post from your answer on LinkedIn. I like the bit about being able to follow tweets about your company, but the url you provided isn't pulling up (terraminds). Is there another that accomplishes the same task? 
 
 
 
Thanks. 
 
www.twitter.com/PurelyCosmetics

posted on Friday, August 08, 2008 at 1:31 AM by Robyn


@Robyn - Thanks for letting me know. Twitter now has a search engine of their own - I updated the link in the article, and here it is: http://search.twitter.com

posted on Friday, August 08, 2008 at 2:46 AM by Mike Volpe


I've used twitter for a few projects with mixed results. I agree though - you're only limited by your imagination!

posted on Thursday, August 21, 2008 at 11:33 AM by Debt


Thanks for the great information! I never heard of Twitter before. Thanks for posting this!!

posted on Sunday, October 12, 2008 at 4:17 PM by Debby


Twitter is a great tool when not abused for pointless posts. I find it works well as a means of establishing relationships with credible industry professionals, for developing a personal brand and for keeping in the now with what industry experts are doing or sharing.

posted on Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 4:06 PM by Jeff Pontes


Solid list here. Thanks for sharing.

posted on Friday, November 28, 2008 at 12:34 AM by Peter Robert Casey


I am so grateful for this podcast. You I have been online for years and have SEO clients, BUT I have never taken Twitter seriously. 
 
I like how you present this information.  
 
Thanks, 
Yvonne

posted on Friday, December 05, 2008 at 5:37 PM by Yvonne Garcia


I want to invite people on my company website to follow our company twitter. How do I do that? I'm finding Twitter has a pretty steep learning curve for those of us new to social media. Thanks so much for your very detailed and convincing help.

posted on Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 5:43 PM by Shannon


I am just starting to use Twitter and found this article interesting and helpful. Thanks!

posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 3:24 PM by @ashleighcasner


You might also want to take a look at this article about using twitter for promoting real estate http://www.wpreality.com/twittering-your-property-away.html

posted on Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at 3:47 PM by Sean


Wow, this is great! Here's another valuable resource on How to Use Twitter for Marketing and PR.

posted on Wednesday, January 07, 2009 at 1:14 AM by Lionfire


I have learnt a lot from hubspot and i really like the content here. Keep up the good work guys.  
 
Recently started using twitter, i have shared my first hand expereince here http://tinyurl.com/bxfdpk 
 
Amit

posted on Tuesday, February 10, 2009 at 7:30 AM by Amit Desai


I work with several clients that I am trying to impress the importance of using twitter. I am wondering if you only had a 140 characters to do so what would you say?

posted on Monday, March 09, 2009 at 5:08 PM by Dennis Lankes


Thanks for the great information.

posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2009 at 8:21 AM by Clay


Started promoting our site ibenefitRx. Its kinda hard with not realy "specials" to micro-blog about though. 
 
 
 
and the @ chats seem slike they are spamming!

posted on Tuesday, March 31, 2009 at 6:33 PM by Josh Melrebin


Hi - thanks for the great story - I just signed up for Twitter today and love the advise given here.

posted on Friday, April 03, 2009 at 11:03 AM by Christopher Tremblay


Thanks for the howto. We have been using twitter for a bit. It's a great tool to communicate on the go.

posted on Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 1:42 AM by Stefan Birrer


Useful article and presentation Mike. Thanks. We're going to recommend it and post a link from our site. 
 
Glad to hear that your opinion on Twitter has changed, although it sounds like you still have some doubts ("Now I think it has some value...") 
 
The Ashton Kutcher / malarianomore.org win this week is an excellent example and only the tip of the iceberg.

posted on Saturday, April 18, 2009 at 5:03 PM by AaronZ


great post, i got my first twitter now.. hope can help my marketing. :)

posted on Sunday, April 26, 2009 at 7:26 AM by UGGS


Hi 
 
 
 
I have been wondering - if when I post it message on my home page would or would not all the people following me see it ? 
 
 
 
Also what about people I am following ? Would they see it as well ? 
 
 
 
I would like to know if I can I send a message out to everyone at once ?. 
 
 
 
Please tell me how all of this works. 
 
 
 
 
 
Thank you Craig 
 

posted on Friday, May 01, 2009 at 12:02 PM by Craig


Craig - you should check out our Twitter Marketing Hub, you can doanload our Twitter eBook for Beginners: http://www.hubspot.com/twitter-marketing-hub/ 
 
 
 
 
 

posted on Friday, May 01, 2009 at 12:44 PM by Mike Volpe


Excellent post,nice tips.I have officially become a twitter user myself and this will come in handy! 
 
Jim, 
<a>http://helptobusiness.com

posted on Friday, May 01, 2009 at 5:20 PM by helptobiz


we are on twitter - updated property listings for sale / rent in singapore.

posted on Wednesday, May 06, 2009 at 11:47 PM by ISREALTY


Great article Mike... follow me on Twitter JoyRealEstate

posted on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 11:30 AM by Joy Paterson


Very Good article! Like you, I didn't get it at first. Once you learn how to apply the benefits to your market, WOW! Amazingly enough, it's a gold for local marketing too :)

posted on Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at 9:55 PM by Virginia SEO


Great tips! Thanks for sharing. 
I just started Twittering, if you want to add me I am RPF_Jewellery.

posted on Friday, May 22, 2009 at 10:45 AM by Coco


thanks for your tips. Tiffany jewellery,Tiffanys

posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 3:28 AM by uggs


http://www.howtousetwitterformarketingandpr.com/

posted on Thursday, May 28, 2009 at 6:51 PM by hhehe


Some clients I've consulted have had a lot of success out of automating the promotion and deal tweets on Twitter as you mentioned. Thanks!

posted on Sunday, June 07, 2009 at 8:21 PM by Twitter Bot


i like Twitter

posted on Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 2:29 AM by links of london


From an security aspect, engaging CEO's in social media might be one tricky move to pull off. Who doesn't remember the recent scandals surrounding Twitter tweets leaking confidential information? Personally, I'd be wary and leave the Twittering and social media to a communications expert.

posted on Saturday, June 13, 2009 at 3:36 PM by WoW Gold EU


Great read very useful information this will help in our marketing efforts! 
 
 
 
Dave

posted on Thursday, June 18, 2009 at 7:23 PM by David


Great artical!! Thanks! Please add me on Twitter and i am builderelement.

posted on Monday, June 22, 2009 at 5:00 AM by builderelement


I love Twitter and love your article too!

posted on Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 5:04 AM by dofollow


thaaaanks

posted on Monday, June 29, 2009 at 7:58 PM by بنت الخليج


 
thanks for your post.perhaps you will like ed hardy

posted on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 at 7:33 PM by abercrombie


Well writen blog! Simple but highly informativ! go on with this kind of work!

posted on Wednesday, July 01, 2009 at 8:38 PM by ben huebner


thank you for such great tips.

posted on Friday, July 03, 2009 at 1:10 AM by igottiffany


Well writen blog! I have read it.

posted on Sunday, July 05, 2009 at 8:19 PM by classic tiffany


Great info, thanks for sharing, I have been using twitter for a while but have just started using it for marketing in the last couple of months and its going pretty well

posted on Monday, July 06, 2009 at 12:33 PM by Elizabeth


folow me twitter http://twitter.com/makatuk

posted on Thursday, July 09, 2009 at 4:50 AM by justme


Everything will be all right,Thanks anyway.

posted on Saturday, July 11, 2009 at 12:25 AM by tiffany


i started using twitter before 2hours, and now when i read this HTU(how to use), i started thinking about making money from twitter, thx for this HTU, this will help me a lot

posted on Saturday, July 11, 2009 at 2:12 PM by Tommis Dart


Well writen blog! I collect it

posted on Tuesday, July 14, 2009 at 2:45 AM by tiffany


i like this

posted on Saturday, July 18, 2009 at 2:34 AM by Ed Hardy shirts


 
 
links of london 
 
links london 
 
links of london sale

posted on Monday, July 20, 2009 at 2:23 AM by linksoflondon


Good Tips and Thanks for sharing the info

posted on Wednesday, July 22, 2009 at 12:37 AM by Latest Seo News


I am also thinking about the question.  
 
 
 
New Balance

posted on Monday, July 27, 2009 at 10:41 PM by New Balance


Hi Great article .Its sounds like you had the same problem understanding Twitter.I am just now learning more about it .I have a question if you don`t mind.Do you no if i can place my affiliate link in my profile? Thanks

posted on Sunday, August 02, 2009 at 12:50 PM by kim


Thanks for your information!

posted on Wednesday, August 05, 2009 at 12:14 AM by ed hardy


Twiter is one of the most popular website in the internet world, so ifit can be used for marketing, taht will be great.

posted on Thursday, August 06, 2009 at 3:46 AM by New Balance


Great article on using twitter thanks!

posted on Tuesday, August 11, 2009 at 10:10 AM by wrought iron furniture


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posted on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 2:10 AM by links of london jewellery


Something like this i guess??!!! 
 
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4985/Retweeting-in-Real-Life-Cartoon.aspx

posted on Wednesday, August 12, 2009 at 8:06 AM by zapping


A man is driving up a steep, narrow mountain road. A woman is driving down the same road. As they pass each other, the woman leans out of the window and yells "PIG!!" The man immediately leans out of his window and replies, "WITCH(女巫)!!" They each continue on their way, and as the man rounds the next corner, he crashes into a pig in the middle of the road. If only men would listen.  
 
 
 

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