Hi Andrew,

Do you have any tips on how to use Twitter to market my eBay Shop? I really want to get onto the whole social media bandwagon but don’t know where to start. Twitter seems like the most easiest & straightforward option.

Thanks,
Tom

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your e-mail & question!

The use of Twitter has long been proven to help increase sales. And yes – even eBay shop owners can greatly benefit from using Twitter as a part of their marketing communication with followers.

But as you probably already know, Twitter is a micro-blogging site. Each post is limited to 140 characters making it crucial to maximize every post. A single mistake on your posting and you might end up losing your Twitter followers, not to mention your eBay shop’s clientèle.

Or worst yet, you might end up altogether discouraging potential clients because of one miscalculated tweet!!!

So yes, there are a few things you should be aware of before even publishing your first tweet. Hope these guidelines will help you promote and popularize your business, whether this is on eBay or online shop:

1. Think up of headlines that are worth reading. Imagine limiting your post to 140 characters every time. Needless to say, that is just extremely short! So you must craft every message like you would a headline. This way, your posts will be catchy always. And writing in headline style will give you the discipline to write in a short and concise manner, something which your Twitter followers will surely appreciate.

If you’re really struggling with this, borrow ideas from other tweeters, article headlines, magazine front cover headlines, book headlines and so on! Write down good headlines as you see them in a note book for later use.

2. Give more weight to giving free information. Use Twitter to build yourself as an authority in your chosen niche. One efficient strategy to do this would be to post links to articles. Of course, be mindful of the articles you provide links to. Make sure these will be both informative and useful to your targeted audience. So before you post anything, assess if the article is something you yourself would spend time on reading. If it’s not, then do not post its link on your account!

For eBay sellers this would mean sharing product updates, pre-orders, Youtube reviews and other, product related information, guides and articles.

New product releases, sales & special discounts for your followers are also valuable topics to tweet about.

3. Focus on posting quality information. Of course, you can post as many links to articles as you want. You can even have tweets of just about anything every five minutes! But ask yourself if this is this truly necessary, and assess whether it is something your followers would appreciate.

In my humble opinion, people would not want to be inundated with links to hundreds of posts. This is why I make sure to focus on quality and not on the quantity of my tweets. The chances of your posts getting re-tweeted, and of course getting more popular in the process, are higher if you post worthwhile content even if they are just 140 characters or less.

4. Utilize the platform to promote your articles. Twitter can be a very effective channel for informing people around the globe about the newest blog posts or articles you have written. And we all know how crucial article marketing is to promote one’s business in the vast marketplace that is the Internet. Using the micro-blogging site as a support mechanism for your marketing and advertising endeavours is a smart move that pays off. For one, tweeting costs virtually nothing.

Secondly, your Twitter’s success rate can now be easily calculated. Simply use a monitoring software program to keep track of people who visited your site after clicking your links on Twitter and you now have a much clearer idea of the kind of traffic your tweets actually generate.

5. Use Twitter exclusively for business and not for personal posts. People follow you because they know exactly what it is you can give them. Say you sell camping gears. Then your followers will expect anything and everything about camping and the great outdoors. Tweet personal rants because you had a bad day and you will immediately generate disapproving reactions, or worse, negative comments.

6. Project a good image by being responsive and helpful to your followers. It is always good business sense to closely observe what your targeted audience talks about. Doing so will ensure you get to give them what they want, when they want it, so that you get to earn in the process too.

You can do this by following as many people on Twitter as you can and responding to their tweets whenever necessary, such as answering a request for an advice, for example. And if there is a tweet you just have to share, even if it is not yours, then by all means re-tweet it! This will show that you truly follow every word of those who are in your contacts list.

7. Let the world know that there is a real person behind the account. Twitter is such a nifty tool in that it can be easily integrated onto your website so that your RSS feeds can be automatically sent out every time there are updates. However, the danger of this is that people might think your Twitter account is not manned by a real person at all but by a machine that only churns out links to new blog posts or podcasts.

So configure your Twitter to regularly post RSS feeds but make sure to still post and respond to tweets regularly. Also, it’s a good idea to create a custom designed background for your Twitter page with company’s branding, website information and pictures. I guess, a good example would be my own Twitter account.

8. Always be professional and do not be tempted to engage in Twitter war. Unfortunately, some people use Twitter to post hateful, even libellous comments. And it can be very tempting to reply with equally hateful intensity especially if such tweets are directed to you or your business. But tempting as it can be, you must never dignify such tweets. Remember, you’re working to project a good image for your business, and engaging in Twitter war, one which will be posted online for posterity, will not, in any way, help your cause.

Careful consideration and creativity are both crucial if you want success from your Twitter use. To avoid the pitfalls of wrong tweet posts, do not create tweets directly on the platform. Instead, consider composing drafts separately first. And read your drafts numerous times before you actually post them. This way, you won’t end up regretting any of your tweets. Sure, you can always take down a post. But once it’s been seen online, there’s really not much you can do to fully delete a post, especially if someone took a screen capture of your miscalculated tweet.

Hope this helps Tom!

Thanks,
Andrew

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