I find it interesting that so many people really don’t have a clue how to use Twitter for their business.

There are really only three ways to use Twitter, and if you do, you are almost guaranteed to have success.

1. Link your Twitter account to your site

There are several ways you can do this. I’ll explain two.

First. Add a link to your twitter account (somewhere visible on your blog). This is the easiest way to get more followers. Use a Twitter button, badge or icon, or the text follow me on Twitter.

Second. Put your latest tweets on your blog. All your visitors will be able to see your tweets and can follow you by clicking on your account. But if you add your tweets to your blog, you need to be aware that you might take attention away from the content on your blog.

2. Follow others

When you follow people on Twitter, most of who you follow will follow you in return. You need to follow people who you think will buy your product. You don’t want to follow people who have no interest in you or your products.

You need to get targeted followers. You can find people by using Twitter directories, there you’ll find people who are interested in certain topics (the same as you).

You can find people who are selling similar products as you, and start following them and their followers. You know that they’ll most likely be interested in you and your niche.

3. Add value

This is what most people don’t get and it’s the most important part of using Twitter (and especially if you’re using it for your business).

If you’re providing good and valuable information on Twitter, your followers will recommend you and your tweets to other Twitter users. You will end up with more followers, and your tweets will be read by more people.

You need to understand that Twitter is not just an advertising tool, you need to treat it as your email list. Focus on providing free information of high quality. Then, once in a while, you might want to promote your products. If your free information is of high quality, people will trust you and in the end buy your products.

Image: Jennie

Looks are important when it comes to Twitter. Looks are related to your appearance and who you are. I’m not talking about the physical you, I’m referring to your Twitter profile picture. And I’m not actually talking about being attractive, beautiful or sexy, I’m referring to authenticity.

You need authenticity in order for people to follow you, to be inspired by you and to connect with you.

Attention

Sexy women always get attention, even on Twitter. That’s why spammers are using sexy women as their profile pictures. This is not authenticity.

Adding a famous person, a celebrity, as your profile picture will also get attention. I’ve seen a lot of “fake celebrities” on Twitter, I’m talking about their images, not fake accounts. Well, I’ve seen that too. People like Jerry Seinfeld, Bono, Britney Spears, Barrack Obama, South Park, The Simpsons, you name it. It might be funny, but it’s not authenticity.

Personal vs Company

Many companies use their logo as their profile picture, or they use something related to their company. For instance, Southwest Airlines are using their logo, and AJBombers are using burgers. That’s ok, but I would go for personal if possible. Twitter is about being personal, it’s about connecting with people, real people. It might be hard for a huge company, like Ford to be personal, but they should try harder. They are using their logo as their profile picture, while they’re bio explains who are tweeting for Ford. On the other hand, when more than one person are tweeting, how would a small profile picture look?

Using Effects

There are many ways to use a Twitter profile picture. That’s what makes it so interesting. I’ve noticed that a lot of people don’t like to use their own picture, but they understand that they probably should. So, instead of using a plain old picture of themselves, they avatarize or add various effects to their profile picture.

Why being me is important

I enjoy seeing a photo of the person behind the tweets. A real photo, without any effects. It makes it more personal. Personal is important to me. I could have used a logo, or something completely different. I would probably have received a lot more attention that way, but in the long run, it’s about authenticity. It’s communication between real people, therefore, I haven’t found a reason why I shouldn’t be me.

By the way, this is me.

What about you?

It’s easy to change your Twitter profile picture. That’s not the question. The question is, what kind of Twitter profile picture do you like to see?

Thousand of followers on Twitter doesn’t help you much. The more members you follow, the less some members will trust you. Some might even think that you are spamming, and that spamming is the only reason why you’re using Twitter. It’s all because of the number of members you’re following.

One of the first very interesting experiences I had using Twitter made me realize that Twitter is about the quality of the conversations, not the quantity.

I never spam, and I do my best to use Twitter the way I believe that it should be used. I never tweet direct sales messages. Therefore, I got surprised when I received the message from an English guy about three weeks ago. He accused me of spamming. The reason he accused me, was all due to the fact that I am following more than 11,000 members, and he said that I can’t possibly join conversations with all of them.

Well, that’s true. But, I asked him, is that what Twitter is all about, having conversations with all the members you are following?

I’m still waiting for his answer.

I believe that there are two things that members don’t understand about using Twitter.

It’s really about:

1. The quality of the conversation
2. It’s about trust

You don’t need to have conversations with hundreds of members at the same time. You need to focus on few members and topics you care about. In order to focus on conversations, you should track the conversations on twitter and search for topics worth tweeting about.

Now, just by adding a comment makes the conversation interesting, and it doesn’t have to be a long one. Chris Ming Ryan told me that he always appreciates my RTs. I replied to him and told him that his blog posts are of such a high quality, therefore, I’ll be sending him RTs for a long time. Now, the conversation ended with him telling me about his two problems when it comes to blogging. Frequency and getting the blog in the hands of more readers. Do you see, it all started with one Retweet, and ended up with something completely different.

When you share your thoughts, join conversations, and focus on quality and not quantity, you’ll eventually gain trust. When members start asking you questions, and start adding you to Twitter lists, other members will recognize you for something a lot different than a sales person.

The big NO is direct selling. Never tweet like this (I received both in my timeline about 5 minutes ago):

“Work at Home to Make Money – Online Based Opportunities – Business …”

“You Could Get Started Today Building A Business From Home For Less Than A Penny! Its Free & Powerful!”

The big YES is to start conversations by asking questions or publish statements. Something like (I received this in my timeline just a few minutes ago):

The four most important words in any marriage: “I’ll do the dishes.”

My bet is, this will get both retweets and some interesting feedback.

Another big YES is to add value to conversations. You could add value to the statement above, by saying that there are three words that are a lot more important (but not as funny) and that’s “I love you”.

If you continue with this, members will recognize you, and they will eventually trust you. They’ll look you up, and visit your website, and they’ll want to know more about you. You’ll get traffic from Twitter because you’re adding value.

About one hour ago I received the following direct message, from a guy I have never talked to, from a guy I don’t know anything about. This was clearly an auto-message, and a first impression I wouldn’t recommend:

“Welcome to my Billionaire world! I HIGHLY recommend this (affiliate link)”

He didn’t send me this message in order to start a conversation, to add value to a conversation or to gain trust. My guess is that very few members, if any, will click on his affiliate link. It’s really hard to say that this is an example of Twitter spam or not, but if it’s not spam, then what is it?