Twitter is a wonderful way to stay connected with a wide variety of
people, even people you don’t know in the real world. I first learned
about Michael Jackson’s death via Twitter. All of the latest plugins I
use for WordPress came from Twitter. I’ve attended conferences and had
other attendees and even speakers recognize me from Twitter. I can
eavesdrop on some interesting conversations by people I would never get
to meet in the real world.
But with so many people on Twitter, and the ease of following them,
it’s easy to get overwhelmed with noise. If you’re trying to use Twitter
for business, this noise seems even louder.
So how do you connect with the right people on Twitter? And even more
importantly, how do you turn those connections into business?
1. Use search.twitter.com
to find your target customers. Use keywords, hashtags, location or
their industry to help find them. Look on their websites for their
Twitter addresses. Be creative
2. Follow people who look like they could be a potential customer.
3. Choose six to ten people and follow them more closely. Check out
their blog, LinkedIn profile and any other public web presence they
have. Add them to a group or list to follow their Tweets more closely.
If they publish it online, read it.
4. Over the next few weeks, promote them. Retweet interesting things
they say. Use the @reply to comment on their Tweets or to answer their
questions. Promote their blog posts or events. Comment on blog posts.
Let your universe know who they are.
5. Use the #followfriday hashtag to promote these people. But don’t
just put them in a list with a bunch of other people. Include a solo
Tweet with your thoughts about why they’re interesting. Instead try:
@janedoe is the queen of widgets #followfriday her if you want to know
about widgets.
6. Once you’re on their radar, start a personal conversation. Use
@replies, then DMs (direct messages) then move onto email or better yet,
the phone.
Going from step one to step six can take anywhere from a few weeks to
a few months. After all, no matter what anyone tells you, social
networking isn’t something you can automate or outsource. You need to
put in the time to build relationships.
If this seems like too much work, consider this: isn’t it far more
productive to focus on a small number of potential customers and truly
get to know them rather than having a huge list of hundreds (or
thousands) of anonymous people who you don’t know and don’t care about?
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources