Top 5 Ways To Optimize your Twitter Network

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As you know, I am a big believer in Twitter and its potential as the future of online communication. You should also know that Twitter can help you achieve a lot of your goals, but contrary to popular belief, Twitter is not a magical solution. One cannot join Twitter and expect immediate results without investing substantial amounts of time building up your network. However, the next question asked by every person on Twitter at some point or another, is how do I build up my network? How do I get more followers?

Let me answer that question with one golden rule of how NOT to get more followers! I actually tweeted this right before writing this post. Any service, no matter how good its results are, that promises or provides more followers is a scam! You might get 20,000 new followers in a month, but you can be sure that a high percentage of them are spam accounts, and those that are not, are also not the kind of people you want following you. How do I know this?

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The people who use Twitter properly, to communicate with others while contributing quality content, are not going to be using these services to find people to follow! They will be participating in collective dialog, which will in turn lead them to meet other interesting people. They might also search wefollow to meet others like them, but you can be sure, the serious Twitter users will not use artificial services to find followers or followees.

OK, so no follower services, then how DO you build your network effectively? For starters, there are some basic prerequisites you need to know before tweeting. There are also things you have to avoid when tweeting, but at the end of the day, what will enhance your Twitter experience the most, is implementing the principles of SEO in your use of Twitter.

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Here are 5 SEO principles you should use while Tweeting if you want to see the best results:

1:  Relevant Titles: Like I have said on many occasions, you need to define yourself and what you are presenting, before even sending out your first tweet. Are you a blogger? Is tech your thing or are you a stay-at-home mom that is looking to communicate with others like yourself? Just like in SEO, your titles need to match your theme!

When it comes to Twitter, your title should appear in the first 5 words of your bio, so anyone who comes across your profile, knows immediately whether to follow you or to move on.

2: Compelling Description: Any SEO newbie knows that each page on your website should have a description that best explains what is on that specific page. No different with Twitter. Your Twitter bio is of utmost importance, as it is in essence your personal description. It is the first thing people see when checking your profile.

Just like no one person, no matter how much of an SEO expert he/she is can tell you what percentage of importance Google attributes to titles or descriptions, same goes for Twitter. However, anyone will tell you that a page’s description can have a serious effect on your Google ranking, and the same is true for your Twitter network. Do not make people search through your tweets to determine who you are and if they want to follow you. Make the information easily accessible in your bio.

3: Interesting Tags: The truth is, this is very similar to your title, but also different, and important enough to mention on its own. As a continuation to your initial decision of who you are on Twitter, you need to add yourself to Twitter directories using relevant and attractive tags.

If for example, you are a tech blogger, the tags “blogger” “techie” and possibly “iPhone” are words you might consider, assuming of course they are somewhat relevant to your content. You should choose words that best describe you and your content, while keeping in mind the things that people generally search for. Same deal as a website!

4: Content is King: I don’t care what any SEO expert says (even though most will agree with this statement), content is the number one most important factor when optimizing a website. Without interesting and unique articles on your site, people will not want to visit your site, and at the end of the day, that is the reason you are optimizing your site, to get more traffic. See where this is going?

No matter how good your Twitter title is, how compelling your description is, or how attractive your tags are, if your tweets do not provide an added service to your followers, you will not succeed in maximizing your Twitter network! You might have a lot of followers, but they do not follow you because they are interested in what you have to say. They might follow you because they want you to follow them back or for many other possible reasons, but you can be sure, this is not a long term solution, and it will not give you the ability to get the most of out of Twitter as a tool.

Do not listen to people when they say Twitter is about answering the question “What are you doing”? It isn’t! It might have started out that way, but any heavy Twitter user will tell you that the question you should be answering on Twitter is “What can you share”? In SEO, great content equals top traffic, both in quantity and quality. On Twitter, interesting and beneficial tweets equals a better network both in quantity and quality!

5: Inbound Links: Someone once told me that SEO is a lot like the restaurant industry! The more serious food publications that review and discuss your restaurant, the better your reputation, and in turn, the better your customer base becomes. So too in SEO, the more “serious” websites that link to your content, the more Google will realize you are a force to be reckoned with, and will advance your ranking in their search results.

The same is of course true with Twitter, just replace the links with RTs. The more you tweet top notch content, the more you will be RTed, which will of course lead to more followers in your field. Now the goal should not to be RTed, just like your goal in SEO should not be links, but at all times, you should have this in the back of your mind when tweeting. “Is this tweet something people will find interesting?” If it is, press Update, if not, think twice before putting it out there.

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I am sure there are many more SEO principles that can be implemented with your Twitter network, but being as I know close to nothing about SEO, this is what I could come up with. The bottom line is, and if you come away with one thing from this post this should be it, there is no fast track or easy way to maximize your Twitter network. You will need to spend some serious time building up your following as well as finding interesting people to follow in your field. It might take some time, but at the end, you will get your return on investment, and then some!

-Hillel

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hilzfuld

Hillel Fuld is a global speaker, entrepreneur, journalist, vlogger, and leading startup advisor. He brings over a decade of marketing experience with leading Israeli and Silicon Valley startups, and currently collaborates with many global brands in an official marketing capacity including Google, Oracle, Microsoft, Huawei, and others.      Hillel covers the dynamic local tech scene for many leading publications including Entrepreneur magazine, Inc, TechCrunch, Mashable, The Next Web, Business Insider, The Huffington Post, Venturebeat, and others. Additionally, Hillel mentors startups across Israel in different accelerators including The Google Launchpad, the Microsoft Ventures accelerator, Techstars, The Junction, and more.    Hillel has been named Israel’s top marketer, 7th top tech blogger worldwide, has been featured on CNBC, Inc, and was dubbed by Forbes as “The Man Transforming Startup Nation into Scale-up Nation”.       Hillel has hundreds of thousands of followers across the social web and can be found on Twitter at @Hilzfuld. You can learn more about him on his website: www.hilzfuld.com

 

20 thoughts on “Top 5 Ways To Optimize your Twitter Network

  1. Nice tips for Twitter users, it is perhaps more difficult when you have to express your idea just within 140 chars not like with title or description of a web page. But I’m sure that if you are successful with Twitter, you’ll be an awesome copywriter or your post titles will be definitely attractive.

  2. Thanks for the information, I am aways trying to improve my twitter experience to get more traffic.

    I will follow your tips, My twitter network is just starting to improve.

    I already change my bio to reflect what my tweets are about, thanks.

  3. I’m not sure why you connect the concept of SEO, which is better related to websites and search engines, to Twitter, which is more of a dynamic social media. The concept of SEO as related to websites is that you put the content up there and the search engines find it. This is not a momentary process, as it is with Twitter, but rather a long-term, on-going “relationship” between the website and the search engines. The more you change your site, adding content and links, the more the search engines relate to this new information, the more visitors you get, etc. etc.

    Twitter’s whole concept is here now…gone in a few minutes. While many of the concepts are similar -in terms of building your website/Twitter network, there are many differences as well. I wrote about some of them recently on our Staff blog (www.writepoint.com/blog). I think the ideal way to use the various media that are available to us is to focus on the strengths of each. My concern is that terms such as SEO are more website-based than becomes apparent.

    Again, all five of your points are extremely valid – I just think I’d separate between website SEO and social media SEO…if there is such a thing.

    P

  4. A Soldier’s Mother, thanks so much for reading. (to anyone who does not know, A Soldier’s Mother is one of my writing mentors so if you like my writing, you have her to thank).

    As for the comment, I think you might have missed my point. The point was that these are ways to take the lessons we have learned from website SEO and implement them on Twitter. Of course sites and Twitter are different, and I was not saying they were the same, but they do have a lot in common when it comes to optimizing them.

    Another thing I have to disagree with you is about the process itself. Just like optimizing sites can take months and even years till they reach their full potential, so too Twitter, I do not think it is immediate either.

    Anyway, thanks again for reading and commenting, your feedback is appreciated!

  5. Nice tips. SEO is a part of online content! May I suggest a number 6.?
    6) Be PERSONAL. The most rewarding aspect of Twitter is meeting people and engaging with them. There is no where else you can connect with such a diverse group. More important than tweeting links of information is simply letting others know you appreciate them. Now relax and join the conversation! It’s like a cocktail party online!

  6. This was very good information and gave much to wrap your mind around. I have found that people really enjoy tweeters that are engaging as well as value added content.

    Thanks

  7. Way to look at things from a fresh perspective. SEO for Twitter? Absolutely. When my Palm Pre lets me choose between google and twitter as search engines, and auto follow programs are adding me by keywords I tweet, you know SEO is a key twitter element that few are talking about.

    Have you seen tweepsearch.com by @dacort? A great tool for finding people by profile keyword. Especially good for seeing who an expert follows within a keyword topic.

  8. I agree the cartoon is great! Although I’d add that at the end of the day Twitter, more than any other platform in the social media space, is about communicating and in some cases having conversations.

    Very few people want to communicate or listen for that matter to someone who’s message is not appealing or engaging. Great speakers, communicators, etc. on the other hand have audiences (followers) who enjoy their words and feel that what they have to say (tweet) will add value.

    As a result being successful on Twitter is much more about answering the question that is the main point of this post “What can I share?” than anything else.

    Share great content and followers are sure to come.

    Have fun everyone and as Arleen said “relax and enjoy the conversation”!

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