Online Marketing with Social Media

Social media is a relatively new Internet phenomenon designed to help regular people publish their opinions online, keep in touch, and make friends.

Most social media sites weren't originally set up for online marketing purposes, but can be used that way. And one such site is Twitter.

The original purpose of Twitter was to give people an easy way to tell their friends and family what they're up to. A Twitter user gets 140 characters (letters, numbers, spaces and punctuation) to describe what they're doing or thinking.

You can't say much in only 140 characters, which lead me to believe there wasn't much of a marketing application for Twitter. Oh how wrong I was!

I'm using my Twitter site not to tell people what I'm up to, but to publish short lead generation, online marketing and SEO tips. And as a way of linking to useful articles I've written, no matter where I published them.

Any Twitter user can visit my Twitter page and become a 'follower'. By doing so, they can keep up to speed on the latest developments in lead generation, online marketing and SEO technique (at least from my perspective).

My aim here isn't to instantly win thousands of new clients. It's to make use of an existing tool, and use it to further my own online marketing goals. This is different to the stated use of Twitter as envisaged by the site's owners.

I had an inkling that using Twitter would convey SEO benefits, and it looks like this is the case. What's more, I've managed to pick up 14 'followers' in just 24 hours (as I write this), and have no idea where they came from. It looks like Twitter has an in-house method of creating interest that benefits new members.

I now look on Twitter as a useful marketing tool. Even better, it looks like it's about to deliver a new lead generation client. That's an unexpected bonus.