How To Use Twitter As A Marketing Tool Part 2: Connect

Yesterday, I talked about using links in tweets to market your business. The most important conclusion I came to was that, although you need to provide your followers with valuable and sharable content, you must ensure that your links funnel your followers to your website and product pages, so that they are encouraged to buy your products.

Of course, if you just post link after link after link, without any personality or interaction, you’re not going to get any followers, let alone any clicks. You need to make sure that you create a personality for your profile, interacting and engaging with your followers in a way that is both polite and entertaining.

Customers

Make sure that your Twitter account is easy to find. Place your Twitter handle somewhere obvious on your website and other social media pages, so your customers can find and follow you. Customers will often want to contact you with queries and complaints.

Last week, I went into some detail about using Twitter as a customer service tool, so I won’t here, but I will emphasise how important it is to respond to your customers, politely and quickly, and to try to be as helpful as possible.

You can connect with your customers in other ways as well. Ask them questions, ask for their opinion on industry updates and new products, invite them to comment on topical and relevant news.

Be as personable and approachable as you can. Don’t be afraid to enter into conversations with customers, but make sure not to keep pestering them if its clear they want to be left alone (people will often ‘favorite’ responses instead of responding themselves if they want to finish a conversation).

You can also search for conversations on Twitter that are relevant to your industry, or questions that you believe you can answer. Reaching out to people can help gain you more influence and a better reputation, as well as increasing your following.

Influencers

As well as connecting with your customers, you should try to connect with other influencers within your industry. Search for blogs that talk about your industry, then rank them using analytics sites like alexa. Search on Twitter for popular and active accounts and them cross-reference them with your blog search findings.

Follow influencers and see if they follow you back; failing that, post their content with a compliment and a mention and see if they thank you. By connecting with influencers, you can include yourself within a community of experts, so that your name becomes synonymous with quality opinion. You might also find influencers willing to commend your products to their own large audiences.

Don’t be too pushy, however, influencers depend on their unbiased and expert opinions: if they publish views which seem preferential they will lose the respect of their followers, so they will only recommend your company if your company deserves it.

If you don’t get any response from influencers, don’t worry, it’s more important to focus on keeping your customers happy. In fact, only contact influencers when and if you have the time. Your priority should be responding to the comments and mentions of your closer connections and more active followers.

As well as customers and influencers, you can follow a number of other categories of Twitter user. For more information, go to out “Who Should Your Business Follow On Twitter”.

By increasing your following, staying active and improving your reputation, you will have a larger, more trusting, audience to target with your links and funnel towards your sales pages.

For Part 1 of this article, click here. For Part 3, click here.

How do you connect with customers on Twitter?

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Will Sigsworth

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