You have spent hours researching, recording, editing, and perfecting your audio course, and no one is listening. The thing is, no one can listen to your course if they don't know about it.
Let's start small.
It is assumed that you have little to no following on social media platforms or anywhere on the internet as of right now.
Suppose that is correct, no worries. That's why you're here.
For those of you with a following, skip down the page a bit to see what techniques you can add to engage with your followers and spread your course's message.
This post focuses on how you can leverage Twitter to broaden your reach and spread the word on your course.
Why Twitter?
Twitter has over 300 million users.
Twitter gives you 100% reach to your followers and their followers.
According to Neil Patel's article, 74% of Twitter users follow small brands and products because they are curious about updates. In other words, the users on Twitter tend to care about a product or company. They want to pre-order the new shoes before the rest of the world knows or get the next subscription box.
The downside is people must follow you or follow someone that follows you to see your tweets.
Thus the question becomes, "How can you get in front of more people's faces by showing up on their feed?"
Question #1: Do you have a Twitter account?
If not, stop what you're doing right now and make one. Be sure the username is not donut_luver226 or anything else irrelevant. Make it something relevant to you, aka your name or what you do. For example, if you're a history buff with the last name "Thrill," who specializes in the Industrial Revolution, @rollingthrill, after the rolling mill, is a potential option.
Question #2: How do I make a Twitter Account?
- To start your Twitter account, go to the website
- Sign up by using your email, creating a username, and a password
Building Your Bio
- Picture time! Make sure the picture that replaces your avatar is relevant. It should be appropriate for your business or brand. If you are the brand, make it a picture of your face so people can start to associate you with the brand. If the account is for a company, put the logo in the picture spot.
- Your bio's goal is to tell people what your business is and what they will gain by following you. Bios are searchable, so include relevant keywords that relate to your brand or company. You can also include a call to action (CTA) to click the link in your bio for a specific reason (website, video, podcast). A potential option is a Linktree to include multiple links in one place.
- Include your location if it's relevant to what you do. If not, no worries. It is also a great way to form a community of people who might want to engage in actual human interaction in your area.
- A header image is not the star of the show but helps spice up your profile. Header images are important because they can serve as a place marker for another promotional image or marketing for a course you have just launched. The dimensions for pictures are 1500px by 500px.
- Can set up an autoresponder when someone follows you to send them an introduction message with your CTA.
What do you need to get people on your page?
- Post frequently, Sprout Social says 15 times a day is the sweet spot
- Post quality, relevant information
- Add value; People want to know why they should follow you. What are you going to offer them?
- Give teasers of what your course is in the form of relevant blog posts, audio snippets, questions you answer in the course, or the outline of the course.
- Engage with others. They can be specific to your posts and the responses you get or just companies and/or people you find interesting. You never know who might click on your profile.
- Follow people who circulate in the same industry as you (influencers). For example, you won't want to follow only chefs if you're trying to break into the financial space. Maybe your niche provides financial advice to athletes, so college and professional athletes, and financial advisors. When visiting the profiles of well-known people in either sphere, check out who they follow, as well as who follows them. Odds are they are likely to be interested in you too. Essentially you are building rapport with anyone who comes to your profile. If they are intrigued by your tweets, after a long enough period, they will likely go to your profile and click your CTA. They may even click on an article you directly tweet.
- When you have a steady following, ask them questions. Create a dialogue to make you more of a human being and less of a picture on a phone screen.
- For articles you write, use a bit.ly link in your tweets to lead people to your blog, YouTube videos, podcasts, and whatever else you want to re-direct them to.
Hashtags:
Keep it to one or two max.
Media:
Post that include videos, gifs, pictures, or infographics tend to have more engagement than tweets with just words. If you see little engagement, trying spicing the mix up by adding in some media.
- Keep a 2 to 1 scale for your graphics
- The ideal size is 440 x 220 pixels
Twitter chats
Create a hashtag specific to the company or your brand so people can find the chat by using the hashtag. Take advantage of platforms such as Tweetchat, tchat.io, and Twchat, allow your chat to become more of a chat-stream, rather than just an influx of messages. Before hosting your chat, post questions or ask your followers to send some in. Don't show up empty-handed, unless the point is to be on the fly.
Twitter's advanced search:
Using the advanced search features, you can pinpoint exact users who would be interested in your course. Follow these people. Once you follow them, they will get a notification and check out who you are in return. Odds are if they are already interested in a topic relevant to your course, they will be intrigued by your opinion/ what you can offer them.
How to Automate Your Posts
Twitter moves fast.
If someone does not catch your post around the time it was tweeted, odds are it's lost in the Twitter-graveyard, or until they choose to stalk your profile. To combat this, you need to post frequently to appear on people's timelines. It may seem a bit excessive and like overkill, but post a tweet every two hours or so. A relevant tweet, mind you.
I know what you're thinking; that's a lot of time wasted just pulling up the app and trying to be witty. First off, if witty is not your thing, don't worry — on Twitter, they value authenticity. Be yourself, and people will be attracted to what you have to say. Thanks to technology, there are options to automate your Twitter postings. To be upfront, some do come with a hefty price tag, but the value can pay for itself later down the road if done correctly. After building an account, you can select the day and time for your tweet. Some sites, such as Buffer, offer suggestions on peak times to post. Next comes the writing of the tweet. Fill it with words, a link, a picture--whatever you want. Save it. The automation site will take care of the rest.
Social Media Management Automation Tools:
Your Challenge:
- Create a Twitter
- Build an account on one of the automation sites suggested above.
- Post five tweets ad day for five days.
- If you automate the process: set up fifteen tweets everyday for five days.
- Follow 5-10 relevant accounts to your industry a day
The takeaway here is to start.
Post one tweet a day if need be at first. You will eventually need to increase your number of tweets by posting original content or adding to the discussion on other's posts to get more attention.
