Tweet Yourself to More Business

Have you heard of Gary Vaynerchuk? He’s not a famous politician like Obama, or a mega-celebrity like Oprah. He’s not a famous athlete like Tiger Woods. He’s a wine retailer from New Jersey. A pretty normal, everyday guy, you might say. Except for the fact that 1) he has a following of about 345,000 people (at last count) who hang on his every word and 2) he was recently awarded a seven-figure book deal from publisher HarperStudio. 

How did this wine retailer from New Jersey rise up from “nowhere” these great heights? 

Two words: social media. 

Using sites like Twitter, Gary was able to grow his company, Wine Library, from $4 million to more than $50 million in annual revenues. And as his popularity blossomed, so did the business opportunities that started coming his way. 

(Read more about Gary’s story here.) 

Now, while not everyone will land a seven-figure book deal like “Garyvee” (that’s his Twitter identity) pretty much anyone can use can use Twitter to help increase exposure for their business. And freelancers are no exception. 

Take freelance copywriter Terry Rylander, for example. She uses Twitter to stay top of mind with experts and prospects in her industry by offering interesting links, and responding to tweets and posts at least a few times a day.

Originally unconvinced that there was any merit to Twitter, Rylander opened an account at the suggestion of a colleague. Since then, she’s established some promising personal connections. Her strategy? Simple. She simply began following and interacting with the people in her industry whom she respected.

“I’ve been in my particular niche for over 10 years. Other than a cold call on the phone or e-mail, I would never have the chance to get my name in front of vendors, industry analysts, and industry experts,” Rylander explains. “I’ve had a number of Twitter conversations that have led to personal conversations.”

Here, in my opinion, are the top three reasons why every freelancers should add social media sites like Twitter to their marketing strategy: 

1) Money. Many of your current and future clients are currently active on social media sites.  This means it’s ripe opportunity.  It means contracts.  For example, I just landed a gig with Anthony Robbins (yes, THE Anthony Robbins!) exclusively over Twitter. (And I’ve only been using for about six months.) 

2) Fame. Social media is the fastest way to gain a name for yourself in your niche. Those that jump in now can gain an early mover advantage and quickly establish themselves as experts.  

3) Traffic. Social media sites can rapidly drive traffic to your blog, white papers and other projects you are working on. This means you can gain an immediate response to your marketing efforts and quickly track the results, if you use free sites like BudURl.com to track your clicks. 

A Twitter Time-saving Tip:

Contrary to popular belief, using social media doesn’t have to be an enormous time drain. In fact one of the most appealing things about sites like Twitter is that you can check in and out as often as you like and whenever it suits your schedule. It’s not like a blog where you need to constantly produce content or write long articles. (Twitter messages can be a maximum of only 140 characters long!)

Rather then checking in and out many times throughout the day, I carve out about 30 minutes during my down time to go on Twitter. And I use a service called TweetLater.com which allows me to schedule my updates for the next day, which is a big time saver.

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Michael Stelzner is the bestselling author of Writing White Papers: How to Capture Readers and Keep Them Engaged and founder of the Social Media Success Summit 2009. You can follow Michael on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mike_stelzner.