Twitter has been really good to my businesses!
In a short span of only 4 weeks I was able to increase sales, using exclusively Twitter, by over 1231%. Needless to say, I’m a HUGE fan of Twitter and feel it is an easy social media tool can be very effective for building your business.
As a good friend of mine once said, “Twitter is like a cocktail party. You can come and go as you please and there will always be people ready to chat with you.” It’s a great way to approach Twitter… it alleviates the pressure of feeling like you need to be there ALL the time, and gives you a frame work for thinking about how to interact.
Let’s imagine you walk into a cocktail party, you rush up to some people, push your business card into their hands and say, “Hi, I’m So-And-So and I sell XYZ, you need to buy it!” Then, as they gape at you, not quite sure what to do, you turn on your heel and shove your card into the next person’s hand saying the same thing. What kind of impact would that have on your business? Right, a pretty crappy one — you might even get thrown out if you pissed off the wrong person. Not a great approach.
Now, let’s imagine that you walk into a cocktail party and, instead of doing what was described above, you scamper in, get a drink, then find a dark corner and keep your face hidden away from everyone. You stay there for a while, wondering why no one is talking to you, then you slink along the shadows and out the door without even saying, ‘Goodnight’ to the few people you did say ‘hello’ to. What kind of impact would that have on your business? Again, not much. At least you wouldn’t piss people off, but you wouldn’t see any results for the time and energy you invested.
Those two scenarios, while exaggerated, highlight the things people often do on Twitter, and other social media for that matter. Then they come away thinking, “Heck, that doesn’t work. Those people who told me I could build my business here were just plain wrong.” Well, there’s a right way, and a wrong way, to use social media: so let’s talk about some of the ‘right’ ways!
7 Steps to Growing Your Business With Twitter
- Be Consistent: You don’t need to be on Twitter 24/7, but you do need to get on consistently. I suggest 12 minutes a day — 6 minutes in the morning and 6 minutes at night — with the right plan, you can make it work extremely well in that short amount of time.
- Share Openly: For decades giving something in exchange for people’s address has worked extremely well in all kinds of businesses. Today, we get to give something in exchange for just a moment of people’s attention. You’re best bet is to share content you know your target prospect is interested in, needs or wants.
- Interact: Yup — just like at a live networking event or cocktail party you need to interact. You can’t just show up, stand on your soap box and shout about your wares. You actually get to build relationships — they last longer and are much more valuable over time than the quick glance you’ll get by shouting at everyone to get their attention.
- Thank: When someone does you a solid and shares your stuff — whether it’s content, a link to an offer or just re-tweeting a quote, be sure to thank them. It opens the door to more interaction, let’s them know you appreciate it and encourages them to keep sharing. It also let’s them know you’re a real person, not some automated bot spouting tweets (don’t get me wrong — automation makes it work better, but it has to be a mix — you or a real person that represents you need to participate regularly).
- Support: Re-tweet other people’s stuff every day. There is TONS of great stuff being shared on Twitter every day — go find a few things that your followers will like and share… it gives your audience great stuff to check out, supports your fellow Twitter friends and helps to build the foundation for relationships.
- Drive Traffic: When you give out that content mentioned in step 2, you can “house it on your own turf” — essentially on your own website, and you can get people to come to your place to consume it. When they do, it’s your job to make it interesting and compelling enough that they want more.
- Get the Opt-In: When they do come to your digs, don’t be rude, make sure you invite them in: make sure you have an ‘offer’ to give them something else they want — a free report, some great videos, a recording — something you can deliver at a low or no cost to you, but that is valuable to your prospect and will make them feel welcomed and served. Find out what your target market wants, and then give them another piece of that information, tucked away behind the door. Then, before they come in and get it, they have to give you their name and email address — now they are part of your personal list and you can continue to build that relationship with them, serving them and warming them up to become a buyer when they know, like and trust you.
So, there you have it: 7 great ways to build your business and grow your following on Twitter. Your next step is to create a system so that you can follow these steps daily without getting sucked into the black hole of social media. Strategically doing each of these for just a few minutes 2 or 3 times a day can make the difference between wasted time and smashing success.
And, now I’d like to offer you free instant access to a webinar where I go into detail on the types of content you can share and some of the tools that make using Twitter (and other social media sites) super effective and a whole lot easier. Just visit www.TwitterSellingSecrets.com for more information.
