So you’re a small business hey? You think Twitter is only for the big players? Well, don’t take this the wrong way (and for god’s sake don’t leave yet), but you’re wrong.
Twitter is the most powerful marketing tool you can possibly be using. It’s working to expand networks for everyone, worldwide. Including Joe the local plumber.
Twitter can be used as a mechanism for drumming up business and putting yourself ahead of all the other small business’ in your town, city, state or country!
Best of all, it doesn’t need to take up hours of your day. The techniques outlined below can be done with as little as 10-15 minutes a day.
Here is how your can use it to your advantage and get the one up on your competitors:
Start Answering Questions In Your Industry
One of the greatest things about Twitter is the fact that people ask questions in real-time! Could you ask for a bigger opportunity?
All you have to do is use Twitter’s search to look for the keywords in the questions you think your customer’s might be asking you. Follow them, and answer their question wholly and fully and you’ve gained yourself a potential customer.
I recommend spending 10 minutes a day doing this and I guarantee you’ll have more customers you can poke a stick at in no time at all.
Geo-targetting For Better Results
Improving on the technique above you can further this question and answer customer hunting even more by targetting questions coming from people in a certain part of the world.
Using a service like Nearby Tweets allows you to search for what people are saying in a particular part of the world.
So let’s say you want to search for people in New York talking about blocked toilets. Punch it in, and you’ll receive back all those potential customers who might currently be experiencing a blocked toilet. Shoot them an @reply to their problem, or better yet, Direct Message them introducing yourself as the solution to their problem and ask for their details to give them a personal call.
Do You Blog?
If you’re already blogging, using the answers you’ve given from the above steps could form great blog posts. Next time the question comes along, you get to point someone at your resources and suck them into your sales funnel.
You Are An Expert!
While you are helping your new customers, you’re actually doing something even more special. You’re positioning yourself as an expert in your niche. Joe the plumber, just became “the plumber” to call on (he knows all the answers!).
Your following will see this as social proof that you are an expert, and you’re willing to share your wisdom.
A Twitter Background
First impressions last. Create yourself a background image (or get a company like Twitter Image to design one for you). Backgrounds should be approx 2048×1600 to cover most screen resolutions so when the window is resized it’s not stupid looking. You then have about 200 pixels down the left hand side of the image to use for marketing brand. Check out some cool examples @problogger, @howtomakemyblog for some ideas.
The background should feature an image of you preferably, and/or some identifying image of your business (premises or logo). Contact information should be nice and big, and easy to read. You also need to describe what you do in clear concise words, no more than a tweet worth.
Special Offers
One of the greatest things about having a specific medium to advertise to is that you can make special offers to create exclusivity in that medium.
Everyone likes to feel privileged somehow, sell this dream to your potential customers via twitter. Offer them discount codes only for Twitter members, and make them feel like they’re part of an exclusive club.
My advice is to setup landing pages off your business domain that welcome them specifically from Twitter and pitch the offer in it’s entirety as a reward for sticking with you.
Linking
Last but not least, it’s important to balance the self promotion with content that isn’t yours. By linking to useful content in your niche, you will become the master of resources. People pay attention more if you are credible. So don’t always toot your own horn.
Try to find complimentary content to link to. You don’t have to link to your competition, but keep it on topic, and news worthy.
This post of part of a series called Twitter Tactics.
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