If you are a business owner in this tough economy, you are probably eager to find any effective marketing tool that can help you spread the word about your products and services without spending a lot of time, money and effort.
If you haven’t already started using Twitter as a marketing tool for your brand, then it’s time for you to take a look at how you can get new clients and customers using the power of Twitter.
Twitter is one of the most powerful social networking sites on the Internet, with millions of users already, and it is growing all the time as more people catch the buzz and enjoy the addictive nature of Twitter.
Twitter is very similar to texting or instant messaging. But instead of only contacting one person, you can contact as many people as you have on your Twitter contact list. These contacts, called followers, will usually find you through various keywords related to your niche.
Therefore, your first step in getting onto Twitter and using it as an effective marketing tool to build your customer base will be to open a Twitter account and create a great profile related to your business. Once you will do that, you will want to start following others on Twitter who are interested in your niche.
Before get you too carried away, though, and start blasting marketing message all over the place. STOP. Wait. Watch what the other people and businesses you are following are doing. Also remember that no one likes a pushy sales person.
Once you learn the ‘rules of the road’ in Twitter and see how other people are using it, you will then be able to start to post messages yourself. The messages, known as tweets, are a maximum of 140 characters, making Twitter a fast, easy way to communicate with your potential customers every day.
Always remember the ‘social’ part of social media, and be friendly, interesting, and helpful. Create a bit of buzz about what you do by showing others what you. If you make it exciting enough, some of your followers might even re-tweet your message, passing along your information to all their followers. This is the online equivalent of word of mouth marketing, with potential or current clients and customer passing along your information to others they feel might be interested in your niche and all you have to offer in your business.
Twitter is not your storefront, but it is the equivalent of posting regular classifieds in a pennysaver dedicated to your niche, and visiting a chat room or discussion board about your niche, all rolled into one. Your profile, and the URL that you send them to for more information, will all lead them to your storefront, your website.
But don’t just send them to your ordinary home page and hope for the best. If you want to promote a new free special report, for example, so that you can collect more email addresses in order to generate more leads, you will want to create a special landing page for that particular campaign, taking the person who click through from Twitter directly to a page with more information about the special report.
If the special report is on an essential topic in your niche, you will not only get more traffic and leads, you might even get more leads on Twitter if one or more of your followers on Twitter re-tweets the link (in which case, the special report will ‘go viral’).
Create other pages that will help answer the frequently asked questions (FAQs) of your Twitter followers, such as an online rate card or more information about your service offerings and catalog of guides.
Another reason to be on Twitter is in relation to the growing phenomenon known as social search. Not that long ago, Internet users would go to a search engine to type in a keyword to learn more about a product or service. Now social media users are doing this right in social network search engines in order to find out what is being said about a product or brand, and what feedback they can get from real people, in real time.
The act of researching a product or service online the moment someone finds out about it and decides to learn more has been termed by Google “The Zero Moment of Truth” or ZMOT. You may not be able to control what a potential customer sees at the ZMOT, but if you do not join in the conversation at the social media sites at all, you have no chance to influence the conversation.
Therefore, you will not only want to participate on Twitter and other popular social media sites, you will also want to encourage your happy customers to do so as well. Social media marketing does not have to take more than 15 minutes per day if you are organized and have clear goals. You can do it even faster if you use a number of the automated tools available to work harder, not smarter.
The important thing to remember is that social networks are social in nature. They can be used as powerful marketing tools if you avoid the most common errors that a lot of over-eager business owners and marketers make, and learn how to use Twitter and other social sites to their full potential.
Twitter is a great tool to help you get more new clients and customers and spread the word about your business in 140 characters or less. It can be fast, fun and addictive. Join in the conversation, craft compelling offers, and don’t forget to ask for the re-tweet, and you could soon see one of your marketing campaigns go viral, boosting your traffic, leads and sales.
FURTHER READING
Successful Social Media Marketing In 15 Minutes A Day
How to Use Twitter for Viral Marketing
Mastering Google’s Zero Moment of Truth in Your Online Marketing
Twitter Advertising 101: A Beginner’s Guide to the New Twitter Ads Program
How to Start Using Twitter as an Effective Marketing Tool for Your Business
