Using Twitter for Business: How to Generate More Business with Social Marketing

Are you ready to get Twitterpated? (twitterpated: in love according to Bambi & Thumper)

Social marketing has grown exponentially, especially over the last couple of years. From the beginnings of blogs, MySpace & FaceBook to networking sites like linked in and the newest star: Twitter.

What makes social marketing so popular? Simply put human nature. We all want to feel like we are part of a community whether it’s in the local community, like churches, teams, etc., or in the online community like Twitter. Thanks to the internet, our sense of community can include people from across the United States and beyond our borders bringing us into the global community.

From a business perspective, social sites provide an opportunity to get in front of potential customers and influence buying decisions because online social networkers are three times more likely to trust their online community of peers over advertising when making purchase decisions.* And, according to a Nielsen survey, consumer recommendations are the most credible form of advertising with 78% of the respondents.*

In other words, if someone is recommended to your business by a co-worker, neighbor, friend or online network member, that person is 78% more likely to buy from your company. Because of this fact, 81% of people in marketing who were surveyed said they would be spending as much, if not more, on social media than they do (or did) on traditional advertising.*

So how do you use Twitter, the most celebrated social networking tool of the moment, and generate more business?

Here is the formula I use for the clients that are using Twitter. These same principles will work
for every business, because it’s not about the product or service you have, it’s about the people and creating a social buzz that will lead a business to you.

First, of course, you need to set up an account on Twitter, if you don’t already have one. When setting up your account be sure to add a photo of yourself or something representative of your business. Since the key to networking on Twitter is to have followers, the photo will make people more likely to follow you. Also, add your location (for local searches), a link to your website, and brief information about your business. For a more professional look, it’s best to have a custom background created for your Twitter site.

Side Note: TweetDeck.com is an awesome tool to help you manage the Twitter universe.

Here are some basics you’ll need to know before you start tweeting:

• a follower is someone who is watching your updates.
• following refers to the act of you following other people.
• the @ symbol is placed before a user’s name within the tweet to reply
  to another user, and this will show up in the main Twitter stream
• the # (hashtag) is used to help you sort by topic. For example, you
  can use #survivor to tweet with other Survivor fans.
• direct messages go only to the user you are messaging

Once you’ve got your account set up start by posting at least 1 tweet so people who see your profile will know what you’re about.

Next, you’ll need to look for people to follow. If you are really in this to gain business referrals, I strongly suggest you don’t follow every person on Twitter. Instead, do a search for key terms that describe your business.

If you want to concentrate on the local market, use the city and state for search terms. If you are a wedding planner, look for the search term “wedding.” This search can easily be done within Twitter by using the search box at the top of your home page.

There are also well-respected members of the Twitter community that you’ll want to follow based on your business. For example, business owners may want to follow Business Week (@bizweek). If you’re a coffee lover you may want to follow Starbucks (@starbucks). MrTweet.com can help you find people you may want to follow, just remember you don’t have to (nor should you) follow everyone.

Once you are now following people, you’ll see that people will begin to follow you back and you’ll even see people following you that you didn’t follow first. (All these follows can get confusing, hang in there it gets easier with practice)

Remember, you want to follow people who are prospective customers or can lead you to prospective customers. You should also follow people in similar businesses as long as they won’t directly compete with you (unless, of course, you want to see what the competition is doing!) And when people follow you, check their profile before following back. There are hundreds of thousands of people on Twitter and not everyone is going to be in your target market.

Now that you’re building your list of followers, you need to start tweeting on a regular basis. You can give tips related to your business, some people put out famous quotes or jokes, while others are focusing on the day-to-day events that they are focused on. I trade off between tweeting about optimization tweets, projects I’m working on, this day in history info, etc. I also tweet about everyday stuff like having the forces of technology working against me – argh! The more real and transparent you are, the more people will like you and engage you in conversation.

Twitter is also very good for self-promotion – to a point. Nothing is worse than following someone who only talks about their products, or services or only passes on their own blog material or articles. It’s a good idea to “retweet” or pass along the good information that others post. Within the 140 characters, you can post links to specific information located anywhere on the web, including your website. All you need to do is copy the “URL” or web address of the specific page you want to link and paste it into Twitter. Many times you’ll find that the web address for the link is too long for Twitter, and takes up too much space. In that case, you’ll need to use a site like tinyurl.com to make the link shorter.

One big part of Twitter is getting involved, and participating. You can sit there and read the Twitter stream but when you start to reply to people you’ll begin to engage others and bring them into your world. The next thing you know, people will be checking out your website and referring you (via Twitter) to others. When you are truly involved you’ll really reap the benefits. And, if you are running web analytics on your website, you’ll be able to see the traffic that is referred to you from Twitter, and how much of that traffic converts into business.

Once you’ve got the hang of “tweeting” you’ll want to use Twitter in more ways like integrating Twitter with FaceBook and adding the Twitter stream to your website.

There is no doubt that the internet has forever changed word-of-mouth. The power of the people is now greater than ever and is a part of everyone’s daily life. By using Twitter as a part of your online marketing campaign you’ll be able to influence the buzz about you and your company.

PS… you can follow me on Twitter: @ICTeajai