While social media platforms form an integral element of many marketing and sales strategies, Twitter is sometimes considered to be the poor relation.
Here, Keith Tully, Partner at Real Business Rescue, provides a quick and simple guide to increasing business to business leads on twitter.
Marketers and sales professionals may be guilty of neglecting to tweet their messages and instead turning to alternative platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. However, when it comes to generating online sales, Twitter can be a great resource and significant sales can be made through this channel if backed up by a carefully thought out strategy.
1. Target your prospective customers
It may sound obvious but having the right people seeing your posts and Twitter activity will significantly increase the effectiveness of your campaigns. Invest time in building up a list of followers who have similar interests or have needs that your company can service. Get into the habit of searching for queries people are making and politely interject if you feel your product or service offering is appropriate to their needs. Depending on your target market you could consider reaching out to influencers to further build your following and spread awareness of your brand.
Depending on your target market you could consider reaching out to influencers to further build your following and spread awareness of your brand.
2. Be active
If you want to generate success on Twitter then you need to put the effort into making this happen. This means regularly posting and interacting with customers or those with queries or complaints about your products or services. Customers are more frequently turning to Twitter to raise concerns or to ask questions. The visibility of this type of interaction, particularly when it comes to handling complaints, may seem like a bad thing, however this can be turned around to your advantage. Although any complaints directed at you are in the public domain, so is your response. Mistakes happen in all businesses, it is how you resolve them which is the important thing. If potential customers can see that you react swiftly, professionally, and effectively to problems, this is likely to paint a favourable picture of your business and commitment to customer care.
3. Be useful
Give people a reason to follow you. Don’t use your platform just to sell to your followers, but instead endeavour to inform and add value as well. People can spot when they are just being sold to, and being spammed with sales messages can grow very tiring very quickly. Provide people with quality content that is relevant and current, and they are more likely to forgive the sales pitches sandwiched in-between.
Don’t use your platform just to sell to your followers, but instead endeavour to inform and add value as well.
4. Consider paid promotion
Boosting your content to reach a wider audience who would not otherwise see your posts can lead to serious gains in exposure. You can create a bespoke list of who to target so you do not waste money advertising to those who have no interest in your offerings. To get the most value out of paid promotion, you should only do this to boost your most standout posts rather than just your run of the mill content. If you have worked hard on a piece of research, creating a striking visual, or have something important to say, don’t let it go to waste; shout about it and raise its profile to get as many eyes on it as possible. While this does come with a price tag, targeted correctly you could reap serious rewards when it comes to generating sales, increasing your following, and spreading brand awareness.
5. Mix up your content
While on the subject of diverse forms of content, consider the type of media you are posting. Although articles are great for giving in-depth information, consider incorporating more visual pieces into your schedule. Infographics are extremely effective at displaying crucial facts and figures in an eye-catching and easily digestible manner. Not only this, but they are also highly sharable, meaning your content has the potential to reach far and wide naturally without you having to do all the legwork. Likewise videos are great but make sure any voiceover you use is subtitled; many people watch videos on mute so you need to ensure your message is delivered even without audio.