How Marketers Can Use Twitter to Sell Stuff, and Why I Don't Intend to Use It This Way, if I Use It at All

Gary North

Dec. 5, 2009

I received a response to my Twitter postings -- a total of two, so far. It told me what is the matter with my Twitter postings from a marketing perspective. It boils down to this: Twitter is more about style than sharing, form rather than substance.

If this is true, include me out.

If he's right, I might as well quit. If you are not interested in my ideas, or what I find of interest on the Web or books I read, drop me.

If it bothers you that I post my ideas on my site, free of charge, and send you a link, then you do not appreciate my goal: to post my ideas where Google can find them. My site is in Alexa's top 60,000. Google places higher-rated sites higher on its postings. I plan to post all of my Twitter notes on my site. I would be crazy not to. The idea is to find readers for my ideas. Google finds readers. I have ideas.

I am serious about this. I am too old to change.

Here is the marketing strategy letter that I received. It might work. I will never know. I am not going to follow any of the advice. It is way, way too self-conscious about how to make money by using Twitter. It means spending my life on Twitter. If I did that, I would have nothing of interest to say. I am in the idea business, not social networking as a way of life.

For people looking to use Twitter as a way to build his business, the following may be just what you need to know. It's not what I need to know.

Hope I can suggest some things to you. I use Twitter and FB just about every day. I have about twice the number of people following my tweets as I do people I'm following.

Your tweets point to free content on your site. This is far better than pointing to members-only content, but still looks a little sales-pitchy since they're all to your site.

I get notified when people follow me on Twitter, and I check out their site. Some things I look for before I follow back:

1) Does the person follow 14,254 people and have 13,569 people following them? If this is the case, then all they're doing is following anyone with a pulse, and then unfollowing them if they don't follow back. Not worth following this person.

2) Are most of the tweets of the form (New blog post: Post title, http://linktopost)? If so, then there isn't a whole lot of discussion going on. The person is just publishing his feed on Twitter. Usually not worth following.

3) Are most of the posts retweets (RT: @SoAndSo Something so-and-so said: http://soandsolink)? If so, then this person could be a bot (automatic script designed to retweet on the presence of particular keywords) or someone who doesn't have anything original to say. Probably not worth following. 4) If the person looks like they're actually using twitter and they're in my niche, and if they have a website, I'll probably follow them.

5) If #4 is true and if they have more followers than they do people they're following, I'll definitely follow them. They're choosy, and they chose me.

So, right now, your Twitter stream looks like links back to your site. This isn't to say that you won't benefit from it, but a lot of people do this. Some easy things you can do that would make a world of difference (doing any of them will help):

1) Follow a few well-known friends that use Twitter that you can have short, friendly discussions with. They'll probably follow you back. This gets your following count a little higher. If you never follow anyone, people will wonder if there's actually someone behind the account.

2) Post interesting links but not all ones that point to your site. This gets rid of the sales-pitch flavor.

3) Occasionally watch for responses to your tweets. You can see them in the Direct Messages section (only people you follow will be able to send you DM's) but mostly in the @DrGaryNorth section. Here you can see what people thought of your tweets, or if they ask a question. (You don't have to answer them, but the information is available for you.)

4) Once in a while, poke in with a reply. It doesn't have to be often or much, but enough to let people know you're there. That means a lot on Twitter. (It shouldn't be so much that people will get to thinking that you're on there to answer questions.)

5) Occasionally "retweet" things that you see that got a response out of you. Builds rapport with other users because you're paying some attention to their content.

6) Occasionally thank people for retweeting your posts. As in, "Thanks for the RTs: @user1 @user2 @user3."

A few other things you may or may not be aware of:

1) bit.ly as a URL shortener is pretty good with the statistics it gives you. Do the links you have on your first few tweets give you tracking information? If you want to track clickthroughs, then you can use bit.ly (free) to get tracking (and get more text into your tweets at the same time).

2) Since shortening the URL is an extra step on twitter.com, it can be a little bit of a pain. But fear not! ;) One of the slicker Twitter readers/managers I've run across is Brizzly.com. It's pretty responsive, but the neat thing about this one is automatic URL shortening/expanding. Paste a URL in your tweet, and it shortens it automatically. If you follow anyone down the road, and you read their tweets in Brizzly, Brizzly will automatically expand the shortened URLs for you.

3) Regarding Facebook, you (or someone helping you) can set up a fan page for this site. People need not "friend" your personal FB account to hear your ideas. They can become a fan of the Gary North's Specific Answers page on FB, and hear them there. Then, should you ever bow to the pressure of getting into the personal side of FB, you can do that and "friend" only those very close relatives and friends that you want.

The thought of having to spend my life like this horrifies me. I hope it horrifies you. Life is too short.

Folks, I am 67 years old, write 3 books a year, write 1,300 articles (plus my Twitter or Facebook posts) a year. I plan to begin posting 1,000 YouTube presentations on my economic commentary on the Bible. I want to write a home school curriculum for high school. I want to write my magnum opus on Christian economics.

I have a dozen other less important projects.

First things first. Figuring out how to use Twitter is not on the list.

If I post something that you find interesting, great. If it's not interesting, blip it. Simple. Easy. Fast.

If that's not good enough, then forget about it. I'm not going to change.

I don't have time to be this calculating. I don't think this is what social networking should be about. It should be about sharing.

If you can make a buck by sharing, fine. Nothing wrong with that. But that's not the goal. That's not my goal, anyway.

Every business should be based on sharing. The profits tell you that you have shared well. Focus on sharing, not calculating.