Five Steps To Building Your Brand On Twitter

I am a writer, graphic designer, and ranked by Google,MSN and Yahoo America's Favorite Love columnist I am engaged to Rick London a writer, cartoonist and brand designer, together, we own the seo and branding firm Pen And Ink Inc.

There are 5 basic steps to effectively branding your business on Twitter. Create a custom Twitter background, attract followers, build your base, interact with the community and make your sales pitch. This is not an overnight processes but with a customer base 50% of which have a college degree and earn $60,000 plus each year is worth the slow cultivation.

(1) Your Custom Twitter Background
Twitter’s unique design a background feature is a free billboard for you to promote yourself or your business. The design can be an extension of an existing website, promote a product or be an effective online business card with contact details. The unique background template is not a static item. It can be edited to attract or inform followers about new products, services, or web site locations.

(2) Attracting Followers
It is after all about who is following you on Twitter and by extension those who follow your followers. In the beginning tweeting famous quotes, music, humorous videos and news is an effective tool to attract followers.

(3) Build Your Base
Your base will not be successfully built with a hard sell approach. In a recent survey of twitterers 42% of respondents said they unfollowed other twitterers because they were tired of watching them self promote with links and no interaction. An effective way to build follower numbers is by manually following those who follow your followers. Your base will likely have a following with the same interests that attracted them to you.

(4) Interact with the Community
This is not a time for the sales pitch you are cultivating a client base. Tweeting information about subjects that potential customers might find of interest is the perfect introduction to your business. If you sell tackle tweet the latest fishing contest winner or chocolatiers could post news links to health benefits of chocolate.

(5) Making Your Sales Pitch
Now that you have their attention you can test a few sales tweets. Check for rise or fall in follower levels after each tweet and adjust content accordingly. Using humor to pitch your product can launch Twitter version of viral “the retweet” and send you message out to people far outside your base.

Design, attract, build, interact and sell are all the tool you need to successfully promote you brand on Twitter. Following these steps will ensure you are building a permanent base of repeat customers in the Twitterverse.