How Any Small Business Can Use Twitter to Generate Sales and Leads

As a business owner, it is important to use any possible tool available to communicate with your customers. Twitter is one of those tools, and it is powerful because it encourages customers to engage in conversation with businesses and vice versa. These conversations help build relationships, which in turn translates to higher engagement and conversions – and ultimately, more profits for your business.

Tweets can help you spread the word about products, the websites you’re involved with, news about what’s going on within your business. For example, do you have a sale event happening soon? Have your ordered or created a new line of merchandise? Have your taken on a new member of staff? You can use Twitter to keep your followers informed. Most importantly, it allows your customers to see that you are human, which is a critical part of social media engagement.

If you’ve never used Twitter before, this guide will help you learn key terms you’ll need to know.

Tweets
Tweets can be up to 140 characters long. You can use any characters, and include links.

@Username Tweets
By typing @ followed by the username of the person you want to talk to, (@username) before your message, you can send a tweet directly to a person. Everyone, not just that person will be able to
see your message.

Following
Following another user simply means their tweets will appear in your home stream. To follow someone, click “follow” on their profile page.

Followers
Like Facebook fans, these are the people who will see your tweets appear on their home screen. They follow you.

The home screen
All the tweets of the people you follow will show up here, like the status updates of people you’re friends with and pages you like on Facebook show in your news feed.

Your profile
This is your place on Twitter. All the tweets you post will show here.

Messages
Also known as a direct message, this is how you send a private message to another person. For this feature to work, you must be following each other. Messages sent this way would only be seen by the people you send them to.

With the basic terminology and how it works out of the way, let’s move on to how you can use it to promote your business.

Build a Great Profile

To be successful with Twitter, you must have a good profile – so here are some things you can do to make sure you’re off on the right start.

• Your profile picture. Upload a photo of yourself, because it will let people see there is a real person behind the account. If you’re tweeting for a company, use your company logo.
• Location. This tells people where you are located – make sure to include it.
• Web. Add your primary website address here. It can be any website you want – link to your blog, a product you sell, etc. Skipping this can cause you to miss out on some traffic.
• Bio. Sell yourself in 160 characters or less. Who are you? What do you do? Why should people follow you?

Change Your Background
If you want, you can also change your profile background. You can either upload one of your own, or use one of Twitter’s built in designs.

It’s a good idea to upload your own, because you can customize it and make it unique to your business. You are free to include text and advertising in your background, so you can include your website address, if you want.

Getting Followers
Much the same way no one will see your statuses on Facebook if you don’t have fans, no one will see your tweets if you don’t have followers – so here are some tips to help you get started.

Before we talk about that, it’s important to discuss the two types of followers: Well we’ll get onto that in a moment but first I want to define between two types of followers:

One type of follower is the people who follow you because you follow them. Most advice tells you to follow people back just because they follow you – and while this strategy works to get your started, it only does well over the short term.

The second type of follower is the one you really want and those are people who follow you because they want to follow you.

See the difference? The first type doesn’t necessarily have to be directly interested in what you tweet. The second however, is – and you need the people who will actively read what you’re saying and click on the links you share.

Getting the First 100 Followers

So, you just created a brand new Twitter account, and you don’t have any followers?

To start, follow other people.
Make a list of the power players in your niche. Find them on Twitter. Now, look at who follows those power players, and follow them.

Why?
If they are following your competitor, they are at least partially interested in your niche. Once you follow these people – at least a small percentage will follow you back.

Follow up to 300 people with that method, over a couple of days. You’ll start to notice followers coming to you – so keep it going until you get the first 100 followers, and then your next 100 followers.

Other Methods to Generate Followers

• Do you have an email list? Email your subscribers and tell them they can connect with you on Twitter.
• Tell people on other social networks you’re part of such as Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. about your new Twitter profile.
• Add a link to your Twitter profile on your websites, blogs, email signature, and forum signatures.

The most important part though – relies in posting relevant and interesting tweets. If you post genuinely engage with people, and are not all about self- promotion, you’ll begin to notice people following you without you needing to do anything. These are the best followers because they are most likely to engage with you and click links.

Some of the most common Twitter mistakes

People all over the world use Twitter, and when used correctly, it can be a wonderful way to market yourself and your brand. Many don’t do it right, and have done a lot of damage. To ensure you don’t make those same mistakes, keep reading.

Not Tweeting
If you last posted a tweet a month ago – you’re telling your followers you don’t’ care. People will quickly forget you, so tweet a couple times per day.

Following Just Anyone
Yes, you want followers but you don’t do it by following anyone and everyone. You want a targeted group of followers. Choose people who are tweeting things you are interested in, or who have shown interest in your niche.

Following 2,000 people when you only have 200 followers shows the rest of the Twitterverse you’re desperate. Keep the ratio similar.

Only Using Twitter for Self Promotion
This is the most common Twitter mistake. If all you do is talk about yourself, your products, or your services, people will stop paying attention to what it is you have to say – and will likely unfollow you.

It’s like this: you know that commercial you hate on TV? Imagine it playing all the time. You’d eventually either change the channel, or stop watching TV all together, wouldn’t you?

Tweeting Too Much
Twitter users don’t see much worse than logging on to find their home feeds full of tweets from a single person. Yes, your followers are interested in you, but they do not have to know every minute of every day in your life.

No Interaction
If you don’t interact with people – it shows you’re not paying attention, which shows you don’t care. If someone @ messages you, reply promptly. If someone re-tweets you – thank them and check out the profile. If you like it, follow them. Ask question and answer questions.