Written by Phyllis Zimbler Miller, Twitter Marketing Expert

Planning on how to run a Twitter marketing campaign requires, first, the assumption that you want to run a successful Twitter marketing campaign.  You do NOT want to be viewed as a spammer or as an annoying pest.

Thus you must plan a marketing campaign that actually does little selling and more connecting.  Why?  Because this “laid-back” strategy on Twitter is more likely to get you loyal followers interested in what you have to offer.

An Imaginary Twitter Marketing Campaign Scenario

You join Twitter and immediately start tweeting only about your products and services.  Every time someone follows you, you send that person a DM (direct message) with a link to one of your sales pages.  You use an application to automatically bring your blog feed into your Twitter account, and every one of your blog posts focuses solely on pushing your products and services.

How many people do you think will be interested in continuing to follow you and clicking on your links?

Twitter is effective for marketing purposes only when you realize it is NOT about sales but that it is about relationships.

A Different Imaginary Twitter Marketing Campaign Scenario

This time you join Twitter with a marketing strategy in place.  You find and follow people who might be interested in what you have to offer but you do NOT tell them about your products and services.

If you still want to send a DM when someone first follows you (which in my opinion is not necessary), make it a personal appreciation for connecting without pushing any of your sales page links.  If you really want to include a link, make it to a free report.

In your general tweets you share links to worthwhile articles that relate to your products and services.  These articles do not have to be your own; in fact, sometimes they should be to other people’s material.

Then every so often you throw in a tweet about a product or service of yours and include a link.  But even in this case what you say can make a difference:

Instead of tweeting:

Buy my super-duper widget right now and you’ll make tons of money in 30 days.

You can tweet:

Check out my new widget training program – it can help you attract more visitors to your website.

See how the second tweet is much less selling and much more sharing?

Now if you’ve been sharing worthwhile information connected to this topic, people following you will be more inclined to click on the link because these people are already conditioned to trust you.  You’ve established this trust by providing these people with valuable free information on the topic.

In conclusion, the best mindset for developing a Twitter marketing campaign is to take the perspective of your potential clientele/customers: Not constantly tweeting about how great your products and services are; instead constantly tweeting to provide information that will help solve their problems.  And occasionally you can tweet that the solution to those problems are the products and services you’re selling.