Twitter can be a bit intimidating.  Most of us are scared to type that first tweet and our fingers freeze on the keyboard.  What do we say?  It’s a common fear that no one out there is interested in what we have to say.  We all feel this way, so here is a simple equation for using Twitter as a social media outlet and organic marketing tool:

Twitter Success = 1/4 Socializing + 1/4 Promoting Others + 1/4 Promoting Our Products + 1/4 Provide Information

1/4 Socialize – interact with others, chat as if you have known them all along.  Tweet about favorite topics such as television, movies, books, sports, recipes, and vacations.  Join groups and popular hashtags (#).

Think of a hashtag as a chat room, only on Twitter.  This is where strangers can interact with one another and discuss topics of similar interest.

1/4 Promote Others – encourage others, cheer them on, and RT (retweet) their blog posts and some of their favorite messages that we also enjoy.  Have they recently released a book, reached a milestone, or received a new rave review?  Tweet it!  Have they shared the most recent breaking news in the world of technology?  Tweet it!

1/4 Promote Our Products – Do we have a blog?  Tweet recently published posts.  Do we have a self published e-book on the market?  Tweet links to our personal websites where the Kindle, Nook, and i-Pad conversions are available for purchase.  Have we recently shared exciting news via a Press Release?  Tweet it!  Are we offering a promotion or a special price or giveaway?  Tweet it!

1/4 Provide Useful Information – One of the hot new social media outlets today is Google+.  We absolutely love keeping up with technology news via this platform.  Every time we see an interesting article that we feel others will find beneficial, we tweet it!  It’s that simple!  Odds are that if one person finds the article useful, someone else will as well.

By following this simple equation, we’ve recently hit 1,000 organic followers on Twitter.  What does organic mean?  That means we didn’t pay a service for a certain amount of “friends.”  Instead, we’ve reached out to the Twitterverse and attracted people who actually care what we have to say and are interested in our company.  That’s organic marketing at its finest.