Should I pay Twitter users to promote my business?

There’s no denying that Twitter is one of the best, cheapest and most immediate ways of promoting your business online. It allows you to connect directly with potential clients and customers in a way that any other form of advertising, both offline and online, cannot do. While many still view Twitter as a wall of noise and a folly, the more astute business owners are using it to great effect on a daily basis as part of their marketing activity.

However, there are still a number of pitfalls that await you on Twitter, many of which initially seem like great opportunities. One such pitfall is using other people’s Twitter accounts to promote your services to their followers.

This is very common on Twitter. You’ll see accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers offering to tweet your business, website or Twitter account to their followers for a small fee. It seems like a great deal, as you’re able to reach hundreds of thousands of people for just a few pounds, but you might just be throwing your money away.

Now, we’re not saying that all Twitter accounts that offer to promote you to their followers are bad. There are some Twitter users out there who do a great job of promoting other people, but it’s all too easy to pick the wrong ones when you don’t know what to look for. We’re not going to mention any names, as that would be unprofessional, but here are a few pointers when looking at paying someone to promote you to their followers.

How can I tell the good from the bad?

Firstly, look at the tweets the account is currently making. Are they ALL promotional tweets for other people, or tweets offering their services? If there is no worthwhile content being tweeted other than adverts, think about why people would be following them in the first place. Would you follow someone who only tweeted adverts? Most people wouldn’t, so the quality of their followers may be suspect.

Secondly, and this is perhaps the most important thing to look at, what interaction are they currently getting with their tweets? If someone has hundreds of thousands of followers you would expect dozens, if not hundreds, of retweets, likes and replies to each tweet they make. If each tweet they make receives no interaction, or just a couple of responses, then that huge number of followers they have probably isn’t as valuable as you first thought. Perhaps the followers aren’t interested in what is being tweeted, perhaps they only follow the account to see their ad being tweeted, or perhaps they’re not real people at all and are instead just spam accounts designed to make the person look like they have a high number of followers.

Thirdly, look at the number of accounts they are following. If they’re following more people than are following them, they could have amassed those followers by just following and unfollowing accounts in order to get ‘followbacks’. A followback is when someone automatically follows you back after you have followed them. They won’t interact with your tweets, and they won’t turn into business, but they will add another follower to your follower count.

twitter-stats
They might have hundreds of thousands of followers, but are they following even more people?

Deception like this has existed for many years on the internet. It’s not the number of members a website has, or the number of followers a person has, it’s the number of ‘active’ members and followers that matters. You’ll find this with Instagram, Twitter, Google+ and any form of social media network. You’ll find it with Facebook Groups, forums, websites or anything internet related. The vast majority of people don’t actually exist, they’re automated accounts. They’re robots. They’re spam.

So, before you spend what seems like a very small amount to have your business promoted by a Twitter user with a large following, check how active that following really is. If they’re not interacting with the Twitter user’s current tweets, then yours will be ignored as well. Yours won’t be seen by ‘real’ people. Yours won’t generate any business.

If you found this Twitter tip helpful, please let us know in the comments below, and consider sharing it via your social media too.

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Do you want to go from Twitter novice to Twitter expert? Do you want your Twitter profile to pick up thousands of followers and receive regular engagements from each of your tweets? Do you want to get business from Twitter?

Categories: Twitter

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