What is it?
Twitter is a micro blogging service which allows you to summarise what’s new on your flat share website or whatever is on your mind in 140 characters or less.
How does it work?
You register an account, set up your profile and you can begin tweeting about your flat share website. If you are going to use Twitter as a tool to promote your flat share website, it is advisable that your account name reflects your website.
Now you can begin networking by following people with similar interests to yours as they can find you.
How can I use it to promote my flatshare website?
Twitter can be used as a tool to bring awareness to your website and help you communicate with your existing customers whilst sourcing new ones too.
When you register your account, choose a name which reflects either the flat share industry or preferably your websites name as this will make people aware of your name and recognise it when they see it.
Create your profile.
This is done through the Settings button at the top of the page.
You must include the URL of your flat share website which you are promoting as this will be prominently featured on your profile page and is the link between your Twitter page and your website.
In the One Line Bio field, concisely (160 characters to be exact) explain what your website does. Try to include keywords which will result in your Twitter page showing up in relevant searches.
Do not tick the Protect My Tweets button as this will limit who can see your tweets and will be removed from the public timeline, which will result in you missing potential traffic to your website.
Picture tab
It is advisable to add a picture of your flat share website’s logo, this will make your tweets identifiable to your followers and helps create that brand identity. Remember that your image will be very small on the page so choose something that will be clear and easily identifiable to your followers.
Design tab
Adding a theme to your background can make your Twitter page more appealing to those that visit it. You can begin by using one of the predefined Twitter designs, but consider creating your own background which incorporates either your logo or reflects the flat share industry.
For more information and ideas on this, you can visit websites such as TwitterImage.com
Connections tab
Twitter now allows you to connect to blog or Facebook account, so that any posts made on these are directly displayed as Tweets. The advantage of this is that you can update one and your Twitter is automatically updated making it slightly more time saving for you.
Start Tweeting
Once your profile page is set up, you are ready to begin networking and tweeting. Do not expect results overnight, although you may have a surge at the beginning, Twitter is a tool with long term benefits as opposed to short term gains.
Twitter is all about being interactive, so start following people and making connections, one way to begin is to use the search to find people with an interest in your industry or who have mentioned it in their tweets. If someone starts following you, Twitter “etiquette” is to say thank you.
Balance
Make the most of Twitter by getting the name of your flat share website out there to as many as people as possible, but keep their interest engaged by posting regular tweets. Build in time to check your Twitter account each day, but make sure that it doesn’t start to rule your life!
A balance is needed so that you don’t “over tweet,” send spam like messages or send the same tweet more than once on a regular basis. This will become annoying to your followers who consequently may stop following you.
Keep in mind though, that people have started following you and should expect you to promote your website, so perhaps you could send a daily tweet highlighting a special offer that you have or something that would be of particular interest on specific days.
And when you tweet, do not write the whole message in block capitals.
Building credibility
Building your credibility can increase the number of followers which you receive, which in turn generates more traffic to your website. This can be done a manner of ways, but tweeting about the flat shares in general or someone else’s website (in a favourable light) are two good methods.
Once your credibility is established, people may use you as a source and a go to for information and their flat share needs – this is good.
Short URLs
With a limitation to the number of characters that you can use in each tweet, adding links to specific pages on websites can easily eat up your allocation. This is why companies such as www.clicky.at allow you to turn a conventional URL, such as, http://www.whitelabelflatshare.co.uk/content/website_owners (59 characters) into a much shorter link to your desired web page – http://clicky.at/eb7w8t (23 Characters).
Promote your blog
If you run a blog in conjunction with your flat share website, you can utilise Twitter to tell your followers and others that you have a new blog post. This can help draw additional traffic to your blog and hopefully from there, your website too.
Link to your website
The reason for signing up with a Twitter account is to drive traffic to your website, therefore include a link to your website in some of the tweets that you write, whether that is to the homepage or a specific page that you make reference to.
If you don’t include a link to your website, ensure that your tweet is something of value to them about your website or the flat share industry so that it encourages them to click onto your website to find out more information.
Additional Tools
Since the start of Twitter, a plethora of additional marketing tools and add on’s at your disposal to help you manage your Twitter account.
TweetDeck.com
TweetDeck is “your personal browser for staying in touch with what’s happening now, connecting you with your contacts across Twitter.” It opens as a desktop application that you allows you to monitor your followers tweets whilst also allowing you to set it up so you can see when someone uses your keywords (or your websites name) in their tweets too.
TweetScan.com
Similar to TweetDeck.com, TweetScan searches for your flat share related keywords in peoples Tweets. If you use your keywords, you can see what people are tweeting about and if relevant, you can point them in the direction of your Twitter page and website.
Clicky.at
Mentioned previously, this website allows for you to shorten the length of your URL which is beneficial for when you add a link to your website or blog.
So you now have a basic knowledge of how to utilise Twitter to help promote your website, so good luck and happy tweeting!
Further Reading
Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time
Dominate Your Market with Twitter
You can follow WhiteLabelFlatshare.co.uk on Twitter too. Just go to… Twitter.com/flatshares
