10 Steps To Building a Targeted Twitter Network in One Hour Per Week.

Posted by Jami Mullikin on May 3, 2010 in Marketing, Social Media | 3 comments

I have to say that it took me a little while to really get a grip on twitter. At the core it is simple, share 140 characters or less. But to be strategic in your approach you need a relevant network to share and follow. Although there are numerous tools to help you gain numbers, quality far outweighs quantity in the twittersphere and the addition of Twitter Lists makes it very easy to do. I recommend a small invest in time, an hour or two per week minimum, to manually search for content relevant to you and your customers and custom build a highly targeted network. Statistically, about 35% of those that you follow will follow you back, an even higher percentage will return the favor if you re-tweet content that you believe your network would find relevant.

Here are 10 steps to help you find relevant follows/followers on Twitter using Twitter Search and Twitter Lists:

1. Search twitter.com for terms relevant to your business. Remember, searching google is pulling millions of internet pages and searching twitter is only pulling your keywords from 140 character posts. Twitter is far more targeted.

Example: search RFID in the twitter search field.

2. Find a result that is relevant to your interest and click on that person’s profile.

3. View their profile and confirm that your interests align based on their tweets and bio line.

4. You can choose to follow them, or add them to a list.

5. Follow people that fit your general area of interest. About 35% will usually return the favor and follow you back.

6. To create a list go to “Lists” and add a “New List”. Now you can view tweets from individuals on that List, but you do not have to follow their profiles. This is nice if you want to keep up with a certain niche group, but really do not want to establish any connection.

7. Also notice if that Profile has been added to any other Lists in the “Listed” column. If so, click the “Listed” link and view the Lists that they are on.

You will see the Lists that they appear on and how many tweeps are followed and are following each list.

8. Click on the List Name to view the Wall of tweets from only people on that List, as with all Walls it will be most recent posts first, and updated in real time. Skim the posts to confirm that your network would find them relevant. Follow and share anything that resonates with you and your network.

9. When a Wall has really relevant posts, click on the “Following” link in the upper right sidebar. This will take you to a List of Profiles that have been “Listed” by the list creator. This is where you really get targeted follows and followers.

10. You can simply click the “Follow” icon to the right of each profile and, in this case, follow as many as 318 profiles that are already tagged as having an RFID interest.

And one really cool bonus, you can target your search by geographic distance by adding your zip code and distance.

For example, you could search this: near:29615 within: 50 mi RFID

Now, every post within your geography with the keyword RFID that has ever been posted on twitter will be displayed. How is that for target marketing?

If you can take one hour per week and replicate these steps, you will rapidly develop a super-targeted twitter network. Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any other tips and suggestions.