Many online marketing experts once questioned how anyone could turn a 140-character tweet into a marketing tool.  Bu in fact, Twitter has become a successful and very useful attraction marketing tool.  However, I have to admit I was once one of the “skeptical naysayers” regarding the attraction marketing potential of Twitter, and also questioned the degree of success someone could have using Twitter to market products or services on a thriving, long-term basis.

Fortunately, I never hung up the towel on Twitter, but was determined to learn how to use Twitter successfully in the world of online marketing, and as an attraction marketing tool.

I began my quest for answers with Twitter by setting up my own personal “Twitter Research Lab” and have been testing the marketing potential of Twitter for the past 6 months.  After putting Twitter to the test, I can now pronounce that like most good Internet marketing tools, if you use Twitter wisely, it can indeed be a great attraction marketing tool.

The key phrase here is “use Twitter wisely.”  For most marketers play with Twitter a while and give up too quickly before having the opportunity to experience or see success that Twitter has to offer as a marketing tool. 

What I’ve learned over the past six months is that there are four basic types of success stories on Twitter. 

[Celebrities] Twitter Success Type No. 1:  These are the celebrity types like Ashton Kutcher (4.5 million followers) or Jessica Simpson (2.2 million followers), that are going to reap a butt load of followers simply because they are celebrities.  Granted, in some cases (like the latter) they have nothing better to do than tweet because they have more free time than the average Joe and they need to (1) keep their egos stroked daily with any kind of  “Look, I’m still popular!” feedback from the masses, or (2) or using Twitter as their personal popularity machine because their agents told them (and it’s true) that it will bring them media attention.  And as we all know, publicity, even bad publicity, is a good thing – if you’re a star or celebrity. Unless you’re a star or celebrity, you have little hope of falling into this category.

[Social Media Animals] Twitter Success Type No. 2:  This category requires a lot of hard work and many different types of people fall into it.  It covers a very wide range of highly successful Twitter users.  Essentially, it is made up of everyone from teens that are online 24/7 with the likes of Facebook, personal blogs and Twitter and have all tied together using the latest and greatest plugins and gimmicks to have their Tweets broadcast on every venue they can imagine, to celebrity types that don’t tweet for fun, but tweet for gain.  Examples of celebrity “types” that are turning the tweeting world upside down for promotional gain with a deliberate and highly organized Tweet and Tell business model are politicians and talk show hosts that want to spread their agenda.  Examples:  Sarah Palin, John McCain, Sean Hannity and Glen Beck would fit the role of politicians and talk show hosts that are tweeting like mad.

[Happenstance] Twitter Success Type No. 3: These represent the “one in a million” types that get their 15 minutes of fame on Twitter because they have (or had) a unique story that (through happenstance) the media found out about it and opted to headline or feature their story, sending a flood of online junkies to visit their Twitter page.  In other words, regardless how they achieved their 15 minutes of fame on Twitter, memory of them and their stories quick fades away and their tweets are no longer relevant to the public at large.

[Online Marketing Pros] Twitter Success Type No. 4:  These bad boys never play with the same playbook as you and I.  They develop and/or use apps created to milk Twitter for all its worth.  Have you ever wondered how you can tweet until your fingers turn blue and end up with only a small hand full of followers, while some of those people following you have 30,000 – 50,000 – a 100,000 or more followers.  You probably ask yourself questions like, “Are they “really that good?”  “Do they play by a different set of rules?” and “Do they have a tool or shortcut that allows them to achieve these results?”  The answers are, “Yes,” “Yes,” and “Yes.”  These bad boys play the game by a different set of rules than you and I.  They are armed with apps that allow them to search Twitter by keyword and then invite large numbers of followers by the masses that fit a certain profile.  Now imagine the power of having the ability to find several thousand people on Twitter that have words like “Ebay, MLM, network marketing, teaching, golf, etc.” in their profiles and then being able to tweet your special sale message to that group.

Think of that last category a minute.  Despite all the rules you’re read about not being able to do this on Twitter, I’m telling you there are online marketers that are using special tools and apps that allow them to milk Twitter for leads, and then exploit those leads (i.e., followers) by pushing a sales message (through the form of a tweet that contains a link to their website or a presentation file) to everyone that meets their selected profile, or sales criteria.

Then, by regularly tweeting to the audience they are focused on, they in essence become popular to that audience.  Never before in the history of the Internet has something been more powerful as Twitter, in this regards.

What many people never come to realize is the power of printing your message on the page of everyone who follows you.  That’s what happens with Twitter and how it works.  Let’s say, for example, that you have 100 people following you.  You tweet a message on Twitter and it is instantly published on each of your 100 followers Twitter pages.  Now ask yourself, how many followers do each of my 100 have and how many people will visit or see the Twitter page of each of those 100 members and possibly see my message?  Think about the attraction marketing power with having such a broadcast medium.  Granted, your message may only appear for a few minutes before it rolls off the bottom of the page of each Twitter account, but you can always tweet again, right?

I can’t cover everything you need to know about Twitter and attraction marketing in this blog post, but I promise to cover more in the future.  Until next time – do something to “become attractive” to your marketing audience.

If you’ve never heard of Twitter before, it might suggest you’ve been sleeping under a rock or you’re just not Internet savvy.  Twitter is one of the simplest social media tools you’ll find online, yet don’t let it’s simplicity fool you, for this social media tool has legs far longer that will appear on your first investiagation of Twitter. 

What is Twitter?

Quite simply, Twitter is an online community where people write text-based, miniature-scale blog posts about events and moments in their life.  Each post is limited to a maximum length of 140 characters. 

Millions of people use the tool to express what’s going on in their lives one 140-characters snippet at a time.  They talk about what time they get up,what they had for breakfast and how many times they let the dog out last night.  It is easy to  develop a cavalier, “Who really cares?“ attitude after reading several hundred “Tweets” do nothing more than document some people’s life in minute-by-minute fashion. 

And it is this same attitude tht prevents one from seeing how such a simple little tool can be used for big payoffs.  But trust me, follow my recommendation below to reseach how large corporations are using Twitter to glean how you can use it too (in a postive lead-generation mode). 

In fact, I can tell you now there will be many more articles about Twitter on AttractionMarketing.com in the future, because there are so many ways to use Twitter as an attraction marketing tool.  Yet most people have to be led by the hand on how to use Twitter in attraction marketing because it’s simplicity will mask how many ways one can use Twitter to attract and generate new leads for your business.

I actually scoffed at the thought of using Twitter as an attraction marketing tool when I first found it, and commented aloud to my marketing friends that Twitter was highly over-hyped and many of the marketing claims the Internet public was touting about Twitter was false. 

Granted, not everyone in the network marketing or Internet marketing industries is on the up-and-up, so it’s only natural to have people willing to say anything to make a buck.   But I found myself continuing to come back to Twitter over and over to see if I could separate the wheat from the chaff, and find positive ways to use this simple little tool that had the Internet world abuzz.

What I eventually discovered was that some people (and companies) were using various tricks and methods, which I will refer to as highly innovative and insightful, to use Twitter very effective to capture and redirect leads to their business.  I will provide a sampling of what I’m talking about, but since this subject cannot be covered in a single post effectively, I’ll write about Twitter’s use in attaction marketing often to share ideas, ways and methods for you to put Twitter to good use in your own business (as a lead generation tool).

Ways to Use Twitter as an Attraction Marketing Tool

• For sending Press Releases
• For announcing events
• For generating traffic to your website or blog
• For promotion of daily deals and special offers
• As a “special interest” chat and dialogue tool
• As a conversation tool with your clients or following
• For building relationships with prospects and clients
• As a tool for providing commentary on events as they unfold
• As a way to open dialogue with people interested in your business

Famous Companies That Use Twitter for Attraction Marketing

When reviewing the list of companies below, I encourage you to do something no true attraction marketer would want or encourage you to do; namely, click on the link to each company so you can research and investigage how they are using Twitter.  I don’t normally send people away from my websites, but I think of this topic as a special case and one where your personal investigation is needed to open your eyes to the marketing powers of Twitter.

So what do you think?  Has this article been an eye-opener for you?  If so, register as an AttractionMarketing.com user and write your comments.  To see how I’ve been able to use Twitter after discovering how effective the tool can be, feel free to visit one of my Twitter accounts now.