A complete guide to using Twitter to build your brand online

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This article is a part of the ET's Online Brand Building (ETOBB) Series. In this post, I will try to make a very good and complete guide for utilizing twitter's ability to build your brand online. Twitter is a very newly emerged resource that has become very essential part of your online brand building. The ability of twitter to increase your brand recognition and sales has been tested and proved via researches. Twitter used to contain only techie audiences until Oprah has featured it on her show. Since then, twitter has seen a great surge in non-techie audience and hence has become an invaluable means of brand building for not just tech companies but also companies of other niche like entertainment, adult, green products, sports, manufacturing etc.
As always, here I am going to put down a numbered list of the methods to utilize twitter to build your brand online. This list is made as chronological as possible. The points are short (like the tweets) and sweet. Each of them will surely be explained in detail with the tools to be used in the coming series of posts.

Build Your Account:

Building your account is obviously the first and important action to be done towards building your brand online. This can be done by the following procedure:

  • Create a Twitter profile for your brand that is attractive and with all the important factors taken into consideration.
  • Find and follow people targeted to your niche using WeFollow  Tweep Directory.
  • Do the maintenance work (unfollowing non-reponding tweeps, adding new followers, crossfollowing etc. ) on your profile every 3 days using Buzzom.

Form indispensable Relations:

Building a personal and long-lasting  relationship with your customers brings about the good will and loyal customers to your brand. These people not only use your service but also promote it to their friends. This can be done by solving their problems, retweeting their tweets, responding to queries etc. The best tools to be used in doing this are either of  TweetDeck (AIR App) or TwitZap (Web solution).

Publicize your Twitter Profile:

Advertise your twitter profile from different other brand building resources.  Use twitter widgets to publicize your profiles. Add your twitter profile link to all your forum signatures, mail signatures, blogs, websites, business cards etc. You may also use  some innovative advertising methods like those of Ashton Kutcher :) Some of the important tools that help in this task are twittercounter , twitt-twoo wordpress plugin, twitstamp etc.

Analyze your followers:

As twitter is a continuous stream and your tweets could go unnoticed in the stream. Also, you cannot spend your entire online time just for Tweeting. So you need to know the timings when majority of your followers are active and tweet in those times. So you have to analyze the activity of your followers and know when the majority of them are active. You also need to know the topics that interest them more and their clicking habits etc. The important tool that could help you in this task is twitteranalyzer.

Establish Credibility:

Whatever you do, you need to keep building credibility as your main motive. When you evolve as a credible source for the service you provide, you will surely be recommended by all your followers to get their task done. You can build credibility by retweeting only good information, tweeting some good tips and tricks, helping the followers etc. This cannot be done with the basic web interface of twitter. So you need to use some very good twitter client like tweetdeck, twitzap etc.

Brand Monitoring:

Once you go into the world of internet, your brand will have to face the happiness and grievances of people directly. Sometimes your service may go wrong and you will face the wrath of the customers if not acted upon early. You cannot delay in this kind of matters and hence you need to monitor the tweets of users on your brand and reply them accordingly. If they gave out a testimonial retweet it, if they ask for support, provide it and if someone is grieving, try to know the reason and solve it. This builds up a positive review on your service. Important tools that help are yacktrack, social mention and tweetdeck.

Organize Giveaways:

Organize occasional contests by giving away some interesting prizes. See to it that the prizes are not so costly but spur the tweeps to participate. The best resource for organizing twitter contests is twitthis. Ofcourse, you can organize the contest without any tool like it.

Profit your Followers:

There is no reason for others to follow you unless you benefit them. So you need to profit them. You can do this by recommending your best followers, retweeting their tweets, answering queries etc. You can do this by your twitter client. You should also use #hashtags and take part in the trending topics.

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Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 ETOBB, WH Tips and Tricks
  • http://eurekatips.com/2009/08/16/37-methods-build-your-brandservice-online-seo/ Eureka Tips» Build your Brand Online with Guerilla Techniques of SEO

    [...] Twitter: Create a Twitter account, follow targeted people and make some good tweets to drive traffic. [...]

  • http://www.virtual-coach.com Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach

    My best takeaway from your post:

    "You can do this by recommending your best followers, retweeting their tweets, answering queries etc. "

    Deliver value...and value will come back. Nice and simple.
    .-= Barbara Ling, Virtual Coach´s last blog ..Give BACK to Your Affiliates - Covert Angel Time =-.

  • http://www.djdeals.co.uk/ Alex Shadow@ dj equipment uk

    :-D That's quite a handful post, for someone like me. I think its a layman's guide to twitter.I have been using twitter but somehow i was not able to optimize it, valuable tips from you now are definitely going to help me out Analyzing the followers and brand monitoring are the best among all tips.

  • http://www.monsterzeug.de Mark@Geburtstagsgeschenke

    Great guide! That's pretty much all you need to know as a twitter newbee. I've been searching for quite some time to find a decent guide - so thanks a lot!

  • http://www.ajhyip.com Zen

    Great suggestion of guide. It would be helpful for twitter fans and followers. Thanks for sharing it with us.

  • http://www.accountancyhere.com Mike Bern@ uk accounting firms

    Twitter has been proving as a real help in meeting correct people for the business, a great source for promoting your work online.You have posted some very practical and useful tips for optimizing twitter.Tips like profiting your follower and analyzing them are simply great, And establishing credibility and helping the followers is again a mind-blowing tip. We often forget about such small details and are not able to utilize twitter to its full extent.

  • http://www.softworxsolutions.com/ChiroWrite/Architecture/tabid/56/Default.aspx jim@chiropractic software reviews

    that's absolutely great guide .perfectly written. much useful for me. helpful as well.
    thanks .keep sharing.

  • http://www.homebackpackers.com/ Dj@sydney backpackers

    Twitter is very helpful in online marketing of products. I have used it and the results are so good.

  • http://www.eurekatips.com LuckyMurari

    To take in 1000's give 100's :)

  • http://www.eurekatips.com LuckyMurari

    You will soon see more detailed explanation of each of these tools as and when I get time :D

  • http://www.eurekatips.com LuckyMurari

    Glad to know that this helped you. Wait for more comprehensive guides in the series :)

  • http://www.eurekatips.com LuckyMurari

    Enjoy :) and share the article with your friends :D

  • http://www.eurekatips.com LuckyMurari

    Thanks Mike for your good review. Watch out for more posts in the series :)

  • http://www.charityglassdesigns.com Kohler Horst@Christian Jewelry

    :-D Twitter is the word today if you want to promote yourself and your product whatever it is. And you posted a full guide to use twitter and exploit it fully for your use.Great tips from 1 to last.. Wefollow is the very useful tool to get to know people in niche product line.it helps you meet people and also help people to meet you as well.

  • http://www.eurekatips.com LuckyMurari

    Glad that you liked it Kohler :)

  • http://www.fitzroydental.com.au Dentist Melbourne

    Twitter is a communication platform that helps businesses stay connected to their customers. As a business, you can use it to quickly share information with people interested in your company, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and other people who care about your company.

  • http://www.brandsmakeup.com makeup

    i can build credibility by re tweeting only good information, tweeting some good tips and tricks, helping the followers etc. This cannot be done with the basic web interface of twitter. So you need to use some very good twitter client like tweet deck, twitzap etc.

  • http://www.protectyourhome.com Ted@adt

    Twitter is not for link building, it has nofollow tags! Several people were spot-on about Twitter, it's a communication channel to your customers. Social Media is about building more traffic to your website, not seo link building.

  • http://www.eurekatips.com LuckyMurari

    agreee with all what you have said. But I was not claiming using twitter for seo link building. THe article is about building ur brand using twitter

  • http://justfreebusinesscards.com James@Free Business Cards

    Yes and by building your brand you can have a major impact on your seo by getting consumers to talk about and link to you
    .-= James@Free Business Cards´s last blog ..Make your Business Cards Pop =-.

  • http://www.webpagefx.com Frank Lynch@WebpageFX

    Hey that’s an important information to me, i was thinking to start on my own platform, but now i think Twitter will be best option, I have been using twitter but somehow i was not able to gain its values, thanks for sharing this wonderful info.

  • http://justfreebusinesscards.com James@Free Business Cards

    Why not start your own platform??? If you offer a strong API and a unique set of services than it can really take off... Jaiku only died because google let it die.
    .-= James@Free Business Cards´s last blog ..Advances in the Business Card field =-.

  • http://www.couponus.com/coupons/smoothfitness.com monika@Smooth Fitness coupons

    i don't have twitter account yet but as i gone through you post i will definitely create it..
    .-= monika@Smooth Fitness coupons´s last blog ..ORANGE10 =-.

  • http://www.ninelimesdesign.co.uk Dave Sappers@Web Design

    This is great. Many of us want's to start online marketing and earn some bucks, i think this is useful information for those who wants to start their career online

  • http://www.snvservices.com/seo-experts.php monika@hire seo expert

    finally i made my twitter id and i got great responses.twitter is the best place for communication program.

  • http://www.doneforyouincome.com Aditya@Philadelphia money making

    Twitter are very useful resource for marketing your Brand . We can find maximum Celeb on twitter.

  • http://www.led-tvs.info Led TV

    Twitter is very powerful resource for the promotion of your brands. You just need to build a huge network on it.
    .-= Led TV ´s last blog ..POWER CONSUMPTION =-.

  • http://www.rentshout.com Purva@ Rental advertising

    thanks and this is really helpful to use twitter.

  • http://www.led-tvs.info Led TV

    Twitter is very useful resource for the brand building. I currently receive lot of traffic from the twitter.

  • http://www.totalbaylocksmith.com/ David Adams@locksmith san francisco

    One thing i have found is to create a group and follow as much as people you can, this will make more people to follow you and that will surely create more traffic.

  • http://www.eurekatips.com LuckyMurari

    Agree on this point :)

  • http://www.housershoes.com Charlie@discount shoes online

    one think i have learned is to build a personal and long-lasting relationship with your customers brings about the good will and loyal customers to your brand and these people not only use your service but also promote it to their friends.

  • http://www.baiyokefactory.com purva@wholesale thailand clothing

    i agree to this to build your brand ol u should use twitters..........we will also have fun with twitters. Thanks for sharing this information.
    .-= purva@wholesale thailand clothing´s last blog ..Baiyoke Wholesale Apparel =-.

  • http://www.webdesignblog.us/ Ben@Web Design Blog

    I've seen similar articles like this but I don't see how you can monitize this unless you're an affiliate or even have it worthwhile from a PR perspective unless you're a large company.
    .-= Ben@Web Design Blog´s last blog ..JavaScript Popup Message Boxes =-.

  • http://www.fxpipking.com purva@forex signal service

    Now a days its like elegant to use twitters....thus its right that by twitters you can built your brand online.

  • http://www.eurekatips.com LuckyMurari

    As said in the article already, this article is not aimed to make money on twitter. Making money jus ton twitter is very difficult to do. This article speaks of how to build your brand on twitter and to gain customer relations.

  • http://www.techrowe.com Pam Garritt@Home Theater Installation

    Twitter is the best platform I have ever came across with, since when I have made group and published my blog on twitter I can see lot of change of traffic towards my side.

  • http://wiity.blogspot.com/ reverse phone lookup usa

    To be frank Twitter or any other social networking site just doesn't not work for me.If you want to build your brand then Article marketing is the best,which will easily work for any one.
    .-= reverse phone lookup usa´s last blog ..Reverse Phone Lookup in USA =-.

  • http://www.promoedge.com.au David@Promotional Items

    it is very difficult to predict the time when your followers use the Twitter, since your followers could be from any place in world, so it becomes little bit difficult to predict unless you are not sure.

  • http://www.jeffgreen.pmz.com bankowned

    to build a personal and long-lasting relationship with your customers brings about the good will and loyal customers to your brand and these people not only use your service but also promote it

  • http://www.snvservices.com/seo-experts.php dedicated seo expert

    Cool Post and a million thanks for a informative post, keep up the good work mate.

    Twitter is the only social networking site which i like most.

  • http://www.uk-cottage-rental.co.uk Cottages for Rent

    Thanks for the information. I have not tried twitter. Your post is very useful for newbies like me who are just on the starting point of online business.

  • http://chiropractictables.blogsavy.com/ Ginger

    These are great tips!! It helped me see the potential to using twitter. I thought for sure it was just another mindless social networking site.
    My recent post Chiropractic Massage Table

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