If you’ve been thinking that Twitter is only for news, politics, and celebrity gossip, then think again. Some of the first Twitter users were marketers and small business owners and even though Twitter lags behind Facebook with “only” 330 million monthly active users (and 1.3 billion accounts), you may NOT have known that:
- 65.8% of US companies with 100+ employees use Twitter for marketing
- 77% of Twitter users feel more positive about a brand when their Tweet has been replied to
- 58% of top brands have over 100,000 followers on Twitter
- 92% of companies Tweet more than once a day, 42% Tweet 1-5 times a day, and 19% Tweet 6-10 times a day
- The average Twitter user follows five businesses
- 80% of Twitter users have mentioned a brand in a Tweet
- 54% of users surveyed by Twitter reported that they had taken action after seeing a brand mentioned in Tweets (including visiting their website, searching for the brand, or retweeting content)
- The last two years have seen a 2.5x increase in customer service conversations on Twitter
- 60% of consumers expect brands to respond to their query within the hour, but the average is 1 hour and 24 minutes.
- 76% of consumers are likely to recommend the brand following friendly service
- Companies using Twitter for customer service see a 19% lift in customer satisfaction
(source: 60 Incredible and Interesting Twitter Statistics, via @BrandWatch)
THINK OF TWITTER AS A 24/7 VIRTUAL HAPPY HOUR
I know that this article is about finding prospects, leads, and customers on Twitter — but don’t let that be the sole focus of your Twitter strategy. Here’s my favorite social media analogy;
- LinkedIn is like an industry conference. You dress professionally and you share professional information.
- Facebook is like a backyard picnic. You might see people from work and you might also have your family, friends, and neighbors there. More casual and a mix of business and personal. But all of the people at the picnic are invited and connected.
- Twitter is like your neighborhood bar. You don’t have to be invited or connected to share a conversation. The conversations are diverse; spanning personal, business, current events, news, and entertainment.
As you set about growing your Twitter following and engagement with folks on Twitter, imagine yourself walking into a restaurant or a bar. You hear a group of folks talking about the latest sporting event. You see or hear the conversation and you walk up to that group of people.
The act of listening to the conversation and walking up to those people on Twitter – would be translated as a FOLLOW. You heard what they were saying and you wanted to be in on the conversation, so you followed them.
They invite you to the conversation (follow you back) and what do you say? In real life, you’d probably say something about the sport they are talking about. And you should do the same thing on Twitter. When someone engages with you, follows you or mentions you regarding a conversation about sports, you would NOT talk to them about container gardening and send them a link to your ebook.
HOW TO GROW YOUR TWITTER FOLLOWING
Now that you’ve got the basics of Twitter down, it’s time to get yourself dressed up to go socializing on Twitter.
Following are 5 ways to grow your Twitter following. One thing you’re going to notice is that each of these strategies involves YOU following someone else. Which begs the question “WAIT – how do I get people to follow ME?”
The overall strategy to grow your Twitter following is to do what’s called follow/unfollow. You get the ball rolling by following appropriate people and after a few days, they will follow you back. If they don’t follow you back, you can choose to keep following them or unfollow them. If you repeat this process over time, your Twitter following will grow.
1. SET UP A KEYWORD-RICH PROFILE
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by Twitter. With millions of people to choose from, where do you begin?
The first step to growing your Twitter following is to set up your Twitter profile. Use your company name as the Twitter handle and then list your name there as well. Write a keyword-rich bio that clearly describes who you are and what your business does.
It’s key to use your own image and describe yourself as the founder, owner, or CEO of your business. This makes your business brand accessible and approachable.
Larger companies typically use their logos and have an account just for their business. This is understandable if you have a team managing the account. But I’m going to assume that you’re not quite that large.
I mean look at Buffer — they are a large global company that is doing everything in its power to make its Twitter brand personable.
Notice the background picture with their employees making hearts with their hands — and take a look at the Tweet in this picture. Look closely. You can see that “Jess” has signed her name to the tweet – even though she’s using the @Buffer Twitter handle.
The whole purpose of Twitter is to connect and have conversations with people who may be otherwise inaccessible and a personable, real person Twitter profile is the first step.
2. USE ADVANCED SEARCH TO FIND FOLLOWERS
Finding targeted people to follow isn’t as overwhelming or hard as you might think. Twitter has an Advanced Search function that rivals any paid app and it’s a great place to start.
In the address bar, type search.twitter.com. You’ll get this simple search page and right underneath the search field, you’ll see advanced search.
Let’s say that I sell signage for gift shops. I simply search for the words “gift, shop, store” and at the bottom where it says “Places” I select Ohio, USA. Then I simply click on search —
And I’ll get a list of Tweets — click on the PEOPLE tab and voila! Here are a bunch of gift shop accounts I could follow.
Remember, you can tweak search parameters and filters. This will help you to identify people who are talking about or interested in your niche. Then you can start a conversation with them, by writing a tweet to them, by clicking on the Tweet To button on their profile, or by scrolling down their timeline to find content to respond to.
3. CREATE TARGETED TWITTER LISTS OF PROSPECTS
Another thing I can do as I follow people place them in a Twitter List called “Awesome Gift Shop Owners”.
Twitter lists are the best way to segment your Twitter followers so that you can engage with smaller groups without being overwhelmed.
4. FIND AND FOLLOW HASHTAGS
Like Twitter lists, hashtags are another way to segment and group Twitter conversations. If you’ve watched a TV show and seen the hashtag at the bottom of the screen — that is a segmented LIVE conversation about a specific topic. To follow our “Gift Shop” example – you can search Twitter for the hashtag #Giftshop.
Notice that #giftshop is used with a series of other hashtags — you can now bounce around and see who to follow or what conversations you want to jump into.
5. GRAB OTHER PEOPLE’S TWITTER FOLLOWERS
The next way to grow your Twitter followers is to look and see who other people in your market or industry are following. To do that, you can simply go to a Twitter profile, click on Followers and look through those Twitter followers and follow anyone you feel should be a member of your online Twitter following.
Most business owners or experts usually have created public Twitter lists and are members of Twitter lists. This is a fantastic way to grab more followers.
You can see who all the people are on specific Twitter lists by simply clicking on the list name and then in the left-hand margin, select “members” and you’ll see a list of folks who are on that list.
WAIT — HOW LONG DOES THIS TAKE?
All of this sounds incredibly time-consuming and it can be. But so is driving to a networking event, going out to lunch with people, and cold calling. Only this Twitter strategy is something that you can do while watching TV or when you have a quick 15 minutes in between appointments.
I believe it’s critically important to run through these 5 steps yourself for about 30 days. It will give you the experience with Twitter that you need and give you the keywords and phrases that your target market is using while they are having their conversations on Twitter.
After you’ve spent about 30 days and accumulated at least 500 followers — you can now hand this process over to an automated platform to help you out.
