If I could show you how to make money on Twitter, would you be interested? I use twelve different Twitter accounts (more on that later) to sell different products, tools, and services. And, like any line of business, it’s only through trial and error that you identify the best places to focus your energies and make the sale.
Do People Really Make Money On Twitter?
I came to the Twitter game pretty late.
One of the problems with Twitter is that there is so much hype, it’s easy to dismiss it as another fad, which is what I did until… well, until I saw that the really smart marketers were using it and saw HOW they were using it.
Where most of us go wrong is that we don’t sit back and study HOW others use Twitter. Most jump in, start tweeting, and hope for the best. There is a better way.
So, where do you start?
Related: Hashtag: “The Power of Twitter”
# 1. Create a Plan of Attack
Before you go out there and start marketing yourself, here’s a suggested plan of attack.
- Use a desktop application such as Hootsuite to manage your accounts.
- Setup different Twitter accounts for your personal, business, and affiliate sites.
- Establish yourself an THE definitive authority in your particular area.
- Follow lists that relate to your area and then create lists.
- Retweet others, especially influencers, to get on their radars.
- Work on Twitter (not play) for 30 min every day.
# 2. Study the Masters
Once you’ve got this in place, start looking at how the most successful folks use Twitter.
For example, some share quality information, others generate buzz, others inspire, and some are deliberately controversial.
The key word is ‘deliberate’.
They use different styles to attract readers, engage, and increase their sphere of influence.
Why are you telling me this?
Because before you start selling, monitor how others do it, adapt their tactics, and then see what works for you.
Related: Running An Effective Twitter Contest For Your Small Business
# 3. Let’s Make Lots of Money On Twitter
Now that you have the tools, made observations, seen mistakes others make, you want to get started, right?
- Products – choose a product, preferably your own, and develop a Twitter following around what it offers, not the actual product itself. For example? Instead of selling email software directly, share tweets about how to use email more productively, little known hacks, tweaks and other information that encourages others to share your tweets. Then, once you have the critical mass of followers drop in a tweet selling your product and ask your friends to RT it.
- Services – go to http://search.twitter.com/ and enter, for example, ‘project management ?’ (Note the question mark.) This returns tweets with questions about project management. Answer the question and direct them back to your site. In other words, use the ? to find problems others are having and then position yourself as an expert in this area. This is a very simple and effective way to get consultancy work.
- Sponsor Tweets – once you have a critical mass of followers in a specific area, for example, Web Project Management, contact companies who develop this software and offer sponsored tweets. John Chow made $12,000 with a single sponsored tweet last year.
- Affiliate Products – sign up as an affiliate, for example on Commission Junction, and then send tweets about this product to your landing page. This is arguably the simplest way to get started as you don’t even need a website. The affiliate link will be shortened by Twitter so no-one sees it till they land on the sales page. The downside with this is that you need to build a following to get through the noise as Twitter is flooded with fly-by-night operators flogging low quality products. But, if you get the right product it works very well, especially if you use automated tools to share the tweets round the clock.
- Webinars – this works well if you have specialist knowledge in an area and can persuade your following to attend an ‘exclusive’ online webinar. I attended one with Chris Brogan last year. He reckoned he made about 5k for the one hour webinar, which isn’t bad as there are almost no overheads.
Related: How to Write a Marketing Plan for Twitter
Conclusion
Twitter is a numbers game depending on your following (and quality of followers) but it does work once you get followers who share, retweet, and spread the word. And the key word here is Share. Having followers is fine, but connecting with those who spread the message – they’re the ones you want to work with!
Of the five mentioned about, selling your own products is arguably the most lucrative. Once you have the following, you can sell the products 24*7 and automate most aspects of the sales lifecycle.
What other ways do you use Twitter to make money?
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