Using twitter

[HazelC]

Hi Darren! Twitter is one of the effective platform to help your business grow. You can gain customers and converse with them. Here are some tips on how to use twitter to get more business opportunities.
1. Incorporate hashtags (#) in your posts. Especially use hashtags that are popular and in line with your business. Ex: #onlinebusiness #ecommerce. This way people who are searching or engaging in that tag will be able to see your post, thus creating more potential customers from target audience.
4. Simply say thank you Thank those who followed you.
5. Converse with people. Reach out with them to make connection.

Hope this helps!

Don't 'over' use hashtags, many people do this and it's spammy EG: "My #Business Can Get You #Lots of #Sales" - that's just crap, Use a hashtag to mark something unique in a tweet.

Do Thank people for following, but engage too. Don't say "Thanks for the follow @jon @Freda @Gertrude @SomeoneElse and @Bob" Instead say "@Bob - thanks for the follow, I see you're into Jazz too, what's your favourite song?" - engage with people, have a common ground.

Have a look at the blogs on my website for top twitter tips that should help you

 

[mediaguy35]

Don't make the mistake of convincing yourself you are working when you are on Twitter.

So true, you can get wrapped up in the Twitter thing too much. Ive seen many sites that got 10k's of tweets, 5k followers and yet its pointless, its all ego, you know...

 

[Bob]

say "@Bob

Of course on UKBF that sends me a message. Will have to try harder to get followers for my dogs @KatieAndCookie

 

[fisicx]

Nope, nope, nope and nope again.

All of these are great for socialising, they aren't good for business - unless SOMEONE ELSE reccomends your business.

This is the key - it's not the promotion YOU do it's the promotion other people do for you. And have you measured the life of a post on any of those platforms? Read the research papers and you will see the changes of anyone seeing your submission decreased rapildy as the day progresses.

 

[Payments Guy]

I can only speak from my own experience here. Over three years of using various forms of social media in a b2b business I used to have the figures for income generation were;

Canvassing / Leafleting 12%
Referral 17%
Website (Unknown Source) 7%
Networking 7%
Twitter 4%
Facebook (Organic and Paid) 9%
LinkedIn 18%
Partner Channels 10%
Other 16%

The business was running longer, but I was only using FB, Twitter and LinkedIn properly for 3 years. Funnily enough, the 'best' work was referral and partner channel, but Twitter was the next best in terms of profitability, average spend and longevity.

//aside// I was running a b2c business at the same time. The figures were wildly different, and very much lead by leafleting and referrals //aside over//

It's an activity that requires very little strategy. Very little 'hard work'. The key I think is that much like networking, it isn't about 'selling' - and certainly not about selling to the room. By getting involved, and helping folk out, you become an expert, and gain brand advocates. THIS is where Twitter can be monetised for you - NOT sending tweets saying "Buy me"

Hope this helps

 

[fisicx]

By getting involved, and helping folk out, you become an expert, and gain brand advocates. THIS is where Twitter can be monetised for you - NOT sending tweets saying "Buy me"

Exactly. Let others do all the promotion for you. They will be your champions and refer your services to their friends.

You tweet about a great now bag you are selling > intsagram it > post on facebook > even share on G+

Girl buys nice bag from your website > tweets about it > pins the picture > takes a selfie with bag and posts to facebook

Which one do you think is going to have more impact?

 

[Evotank]

Hi Darren, I face a similar problem in that I have a membership site that deals with people who own holiday homes. The challenge was that ANYONE could be in my market and I found it very difficult to choose who to follow on Twitter as I had no way of knowing if they were my demographic or not. What I found worked was NOT to follow the big hitters, NOT to follow the ones that followed them, but to follow the people who were their contacts. The third tier if you like.

My presumption, was that it would be their customers who were the end user and so far my hunch proved half decent. Dedicate 30 minutes to this, and then watch your new followers with an eye.

Hope this helps

 

[fisicx]

And how many of these people have signed up to your membership site?

 

[MarketingAddict]

In most businesses you can generate leads from twitter etc, but the difficulty might be high or ads might be needed.

If you want leads, I suggest leaving Twitter for now and build a funnel, where you can bring traffic and convert it.

If you want to play with social media, I would suggest going with LinkedIn instead of Twitter for your business.

It would be good to share a tweet a day or something, if you have 15 extra minutes per week to schedule them, so as to be active, but if you are resource constrained, just focus on the funnel.

 

[johnzakaria]

First, create a strong profile in which you tell people about your skills
Get targeted followers from famous twitter profiles in your niche
Tweets valuable content while giving your followers free things.

 

[Glenn Rodgers]

Hi friend do not consider or make aim to get leads from the social sites usually the users of the social website are having fun and reading the updates only. But yes you can put twitter or face book in your plan as second option.

 

[Ben Norman]

Hi Darren,

There is plenty of tools out there that can help you find relevant followers on Twitter. I recommend Followerwonk, which allows you to search Twitter bios for keywords - amongst some other great features.

Let me know if you would like any further guidance on this. I have worked with many clients on building their Twitter presence.

 

[fisicx]

Ben,

If you read the whole thread you will see it's not about getting twitter followers - it's about generating leads. And twitter isn't much good for generating leads. This has been tested and proven many times over.

 

[Festoon Lighting]

Lots of conflicting advice. I use twitter but don't spend lots of time on it as there is too much other work to do. My company has over 1000 followers so it is worth doing.

 

[Ben Norman]

Hi fisicx

I think it is possible in the long term to generate leads from Twitter - with a tight strategy that looks at providing advice and high levels of customer service, you certainly can convert through the platform. Whilst it should not be used as the primary platform for lead generation, it certainly shouldn't be ignored either.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

Hi fisicx

I think it is possible in the long term to generate leads from Twitter - with a tight strategy that looks at providing advice and high levels of customer service, you certainly can convert through the platform. Whilst it should not be used as the primary platform for lead generation, it certainly shouldn't be ignored either.

You "think" it's possible? Wouldn't it be better to come up with some objective measure that proves you're right? (I've yet to find someone who sells Social Media services who can provide such proof).
Tell me, if you owned a business and you hired a salesman, would you accept his excuse, that it's "a long term strategy", for his failure to produce sales?

 

[Ben Norman]

Hi WeblinkPlus - I simply mean that there are many resources out there that offer plenty of great tips on generating leads that may work for some - such as Social Media Today who have produced a lot of content on the topic. The fact of the matter is, there are no short cuts in digital marketing strategies that are going to transform into leads over night, and utilising Twitter or any other social platform is a supplement to other lead generation techniques.

 

[cristinabarkerjones]

Hi Darren! Twitter is one of the effective platform to help your business grow. You can gain customers and converse with them. Here are some tips on how to use twitter to get more business opportunities.
1. Incorporate hashtags (#) in your posts. Especially use hashtags that are popular and in line with your business. Ex: #onlinebusiness #ecommerce. This way people who are searching or engaging in that tag will be able to see your post, thus creating more potential customers from target audience.
2. Follow some people in line with your business.
3. Engage in twitter list. This is very useful since you can find people who are in a circle of a particular field of expertise.
4. Simply say thank you Thank those who followed you.
5. Converse with people. Reach out with them to make connection.

Hope this helps!

Great advice! Twitter is not Facebook nor G+. You must have a unique approach for every Social Media. For instance, most of the people in Twitter prefer to see text posts and not images. Try to provide interesting and helpful information on regular basis and you will notice the effect in a few weeks. Good luck!

 

[mixtureofmarket]

Don't 'over' use hashtags, many people do this and it's spammy EG: "My #Business Can Get You #Lots of #Sales" - that's just crap, Use a hashtag to mark something unique in a tweet.

Yeah. Sorry I forgot that one in my post. Anyway, the recommended number of hashtags to make in a tweet is 3. It's also better to use the hashtags in the end of your tweet. Ex: The key to any business success is through customer satisfaction. #business #customer #service

 

[fisicx]

Hi WeblinkPlus - I simply mean that there are many resources out there that offer plenty of great tips on generating leads that may work for some - such as Social Media Today who have produced a lot of content on the topic.

All those resources were created by SM afficionados. The resouces I read were created by businesses who measure the ROI. And they have universally rejected twitter as means of direct marketing. Twitter (like most other SM platforms) only works if OTHER PEOPLE talk about you and your business.

 

[Clairebearing]

Be patient. Promoting your products on social media like Twitter will consume time to increase fans .But it is real a good way to promote your brand .

 

[fisicx]

Where is your evidence for this? Extensive testing by many has shown it doesn't increase brand awareness. People following you are already aware of the brand. Everybody else discovers your brand through other channels not twitter.

 

[Deleted member 184921]

I tried using twitter to promote my website. The trouble is the content quality of the various posts of people doing the same thing is quite low, so not likely to have much impact.