6 Tips for Generating Leads With Twitter

Twitter has a lot of buzz, and lately I haven’t been able channel surf past CNN without hearing about it. And for good reason – it is a simple way of connecting huge amounts of people. The viral network effect that Twitter has is powerful, and leveraging that power to find potential customers is a no brainer. But figuring out the best way to do it isn’t easy. Here are six tips that you can start using today to generate interest and leads for your business.

1.   Build a following that wants what you have

With so many people on Twitter, it can be overwhelming to find the right people to connect with. If you take a quick look around, you’ll see people you’ve never heard of before with 5, 10, even 15,000 followers. Upon seeing this, business tweeters often fall in to the trap of “I need to get as many followers as possible!”. There’s one huge problem though, how many of those followers would actually want or need what you have?

I would rather have 10 followers that could end up being potential customers instead of 1,000 followers who don’t even care what I have to offer. So how do you find people who might be interested in what you have? Easy – by using Twitter’s powerful real-time search. When you are starting to build your following, search for users that have tweeted something related your business and follow them. When they see that you’re following them they’ll check your profile to see if they should follow you back, and right there you’ve already had your first interaction. Another (sneaky) way of finding followers interesting in what you have is to look at who is following your competitors. Follow people who are following your competition, and they might follow you as well. Once you’ve built a good following, people should start to follow you on there own.

2 .  Tweet early, tweet often

Twitter relationships are built on conversation, so don’t be the loner who stands off to the side at the party. If you want people to think of your company when they need a product you sell, you need to be at the top of their mind as they make the decision. In order to make that happen, you need to tweet often in order to have ongoing contact with your following. Many people unfollow accounts that haven’t tweeted recently, so you need to keep it up in order to hold on to them. One way to have regular tweets is to tweet things that you think are going to be interesting to your followers, not just things that have to do with your company.

3.  Create a dialog with your followers

Twitter has built in ways to converse directly with others, like @replies and direct messages. Direct messages are usually used by people who are well known to each other, but you can definitely leverage @replied to get your followers involved. The key to this is initiating the conversation. Take a look at some of your followers tweets, and send them a message by tweeting “@followername” and your message. This person will see that message, and more often than not send a reply back. Then others will see the message and maybe start talking with you. Before you know it, you’ll have a conversation going with many of your followers.

4.  Keep followers up to date on your business, but not too much

So far I’ve given you some tips on finding and interacting with people on Twitter, but I haven’t told you how to sell to your twitter followers. And that was on purpose. Twitter is much different than PPC ads, direct mail, or any other form of media you use for marketing. If you want to generate business TODAY, then Twitter might not be the right choice for you. But Twitter can be an enormously powerful tool in the long run for your business, because of the fact that you can engage potential customers even when they aren’t in the buying process. So by all means keep followers informed of what is happening with your business, like new product offerings or sales, but be sure to mix it in with plenty of good conversation.

5.  Offer your Twitter followers a special deal

Everyone like’s a deal! By offering your Twitter followers a deal, they feel like a special valued customer. It’s also inviting them to take a look at what you have to offer, and if you’ve followed the previous tips, there’s a pretty good chance their interested. Twitter deals are also very likely to be passed from your follower to their followers via retweet, so there is a potential to tap even more than your following. There are a couple tools out there that can help you distribute deals on Twitter, my favorite is www.twtQpon.com.

6.  Build content on your site that will interest your followers

Twitter, in a way, is walled off from the world. Yes you can interact with millions of people, but you’re doing so on Twitter’s turf. All of my previous tips are key to building a solid following and communicating with them, but eventually you want them to take the next step of buying your product or service. An easy first step for them is to take a look at your website. By building content on your site that will interest your Twitter followers, you are having them take this first step on your own terms. Just like we don’t want PPC traffic going to a homepage, we don’t want Twitter traffic going their either. Some things that your followers appreciate the most are pictures, videos, how-to guides, and much more. Be sure that you have a way of capturing their information right on the page you’ve sent them to, you want it to be as easy as possible for them to start the buying process with you.

Twitter is an extremely powerful tool for connecting with potential customers. But it is definitely part of a long term strategy, not a short-tem tactic. Gaining a relevant following and starting the conversation is not easy, but it has huge rewards. You’ll learn a lot more about using Twitter for your business during that process, and these tips should give you a solid start.

Tagged as: tips, Twitter