5 Quick Twitter Tricks

Are you on Twitter? Have you read my post describing “How I Use Twitter?” Are you still interested in Twitter tips?

Fine. Here are five little Twitter tricks I’ll share:

1. Search for people to follow using Google.

Want to find people to follow on Twitter by profession? Let’s say that – for example – you want to follow people who work at Ford, Ford dealers, accessory shops that sell Ford parts, etc. Punch the following into Google:

bio * Ford site:twitter.com -lists

That’s called an Google advanced search, and (warning: shameless self-promo coming up) SEO experts like me use them all the time. This one says:

Find the word ‘Ford’ near the word ‘bio’ on the website Twitter.com. Exclude any results with the word “lists”.

Obviously, you can replace ‘Ford’ with any word you want. If you want to replace ‘Ford’ with two or more words, be sure to place them in quote marks, i.e. punch this into Google

bio * “sauces, dips, and bacon” site:twitter.com -lists

and you’ll find the Twitter profile of my wife, @saucydipper.

2. Find people to follow in your area with Twellow Hood’. Check it out – Twellow Hood.

3. Steal jokes. I’ve had limited success getting RT’d when I was serious, but I’ve been RT’d like a rockstar when I made a good joke.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCixAktGPlg[/youtube]

The thing is, making a good joke is hard. I’m not a thief like Mr. Mencia (the clip above is a little unbelievable, no?), but there’s no reason you can’t reference popular culture to make a Tweet funny. I have had some success replying to other people’s tweets with a  link to a video or image that makes people laugh. Even though I’m simply linking to a dumb video like this evil baby gag in my Tweet, it gets other people going.

4. Buy some Tweets. I talked about the benefits of sponsoring some Tweets in that “How I Tweet” post from a few weeks ago, but how many of you tried it? SponsoredTweets can generate some website visitors and new followers, and it’s really inexpensive. Check it out.

5. Drop some Tweets out of left field. On my @sporkmarketing Twitter account, I often retweet or comment on NBA basketball news. I’m an NBA fan, and I figure it can’t hurt to talk about it on my Twitter account (even if that account is mostly devoted to tweets about Internet marketing). I’ve seen other people do the opposite – they drop a tweet about SEO or web design or PPC or some other Internet thing even though they usually Tweet about cars, basketball, Vail real estate, etc.

If you experiment with odd Tweet topics once in a while, you might get the attention of your followers for being unique.

Got some Twitter tips of your own? Share them in the comments!