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Find customers on Twitter – 4 steps
You’re on Twitter, now what? How do you use Twitter to find potential customers? Here’s a simple four step plan (it’s not the only approach, but a relatively simple one with which to start):
(1) Identify key Twitter terms- Similar to SEO and marketing your business one of the first steps is to define your target market. Who are they, what are they seeking, and important for SEO and Twitter – what are the keywords/phrases relevant to them? For example, if I sell golf instruction videos…. a key Twitter word may be “golf” or “golf’ lessons”. If I sell jerky – then “jerky”, “beef jerky”… would be a start.
(2) Search for Twitter terms - Now that you’ve identified your key Twitter terms, Twitter makes it easy to find people Twittering about those terms. You just perform a search (on Twitter) using each term and a list of Tweets containing your target term will be provided.
I recommend using Tweet Deck. With Tweet Deck you can set up one or more searches on your targeted terms and Tweet Deck will continually monitor Twitter for those terms and show you the relevant Tweets.
Many of the Tweets you find will be people that fit into your target market… people with an interest in your targeted Twitter term(s).
(3) Follow your Twitter terms - from the search results, follow those people that interest you. Remember, you can post on Twitter all you want, but most people will not see your Tweets unless they are following you… and you will not see their tweets unless you follow them.
(4) Provide useful content/Tweets and interact - This is a critical practice. Don’t just sell, sell, sell on Twitter. Although you see a lot of that – people selling something with every post they make. People who are successful on Twitter recognize it is a social environment and interact with their fellow Twitterers.
Offer tips useful to your target market. If the tips don’t fit within 140 characters… provide a link to the complete tip (an article, blog, or website – yes, your website, or blog). see you’re generating traffic to your site. Write Tweets like a newspaper headline – using a few catchy words summarizing the tip, followed by the link. Since you only have 140 characters, use a url shortening tools to make the url link short. Again, Tweet Deck helps you here, it has a built-in url shortening tool.
How often? Check your Tweet Deck once, twice, or more every day… to view the search results, follow people, and interact. Remember, Twitter is 24/7 and world wide so some people a wide awake and posting while you sleep. How much time you devote to this, is up to you… but with a plan and Tweet Deck your time is more productive.
