3 Tips to Using Twitter for Lead Generation

I do a lot of traditional networking within my local community, attending breakfast, lunch and evening mixers throughout the year. As a result, I meet close to a thousand unique individuals in real life annually. It's served my business well over the years, so I keep doing it.

Traditional networking is still a great way to meet interesting people -- but one of the main advantages to meeting people in real life is that you get to engage in conversation more freely, which affords you the chance to really listen to what people want. Some of the most successful salespeople are the greatest listeners; they allow the person with whom they are conversing to do most of the talking. When you learn what people's challenges are, you have the greatest opportunity to provide a solution.

For example, listening to business owners talk about what marketing is working and not working for their business provides an opportunity for me to see if they are having frustrations with their website as a lead generation tool.  Since we are in the business of helping companies do business online, these conversations easily open the door to engaging prospects.
That's also why, for several years, I stayed on the sidelines as social media become more prevalent.  It seemed to me that many users were like the "card pushers" we dread at real-life events: people who simply wanted to put their cards in your face (by trying to get you to follow them, like them or buy something from them).

But during some time off from work, I made the decision to give Twitter a try. One of the reasons Twitter appealed to me was because, like traditional networking, Twitter provides short interactions amongst many people. You can quickly determine whether there's potential in building future relationships. If not, you stop listening and move on. I knew that Twitter could be a great listening tool and, as a result of using it effectively, we've generated tangible results. Our biggest single deal closed so far as a direct result of using Twitter was for more than $12,000.

After using Twitter for nearly three years, I'd like to share the 3 best ways I've learned to use Twitter for lead generation:

1. Actively follow those you follow and listen.
   Too often I see Twitter users following thousands, sometimes tens of thousands or more people on the service. This may be great for increasing your follower count, but someone that follows me and is also following a thousand other people isn't actively listening.  It's simply not possible to actively follow that many conversations.  Therefore, limit the number of people you have on your timeline to only those you can actively follow (or use lists to break them into manageable groups). This means reading most if not all of your tweets as if it they were emails in your inbox. By closely following conversations, you can see where the opportunities lie.
   Our biggest customer as a direct result of Twitter came because of a retweet.  I reached out directly to the person that sent the original tweet and very quickly our company signed on a new customer.  If I hadn't been actively following our followers' tweets, we would have missed out on that opportunity.
   
   
2. Follow people that could be good prospects.
   I use Twitter for more than just lead generation. I use it as my personally curated news service. I like to follow those users that Tweet links to articles I find useful. However, I also use Twitter to follow people that could become customers.
   
   For example, I'll look for new businesses that are just starting.  Many times these business owners jump on Twitter, but might not have a great website presence (yet!). I try to see the type of things they tweet about and engage in conversion with them. After building a good rapport, it's easier to approach them with a solution to their website challenges -- or simply make recommendations on how they could improve their results online.  At that point, it's not a blatant sales pitch -- I'm genuinely offering to help solve a clear problem.
   
   Following the type of people you want as customers and researching which users they follow (to determine who influences them) is also helpful. You may also be able to find out which events they'll be attending and then strike up a conversion in real life at those events.
   
   
3. Use keyword triggers: where, when, looking, need, in search of, call for, help, recommendation, suggestions.
   This is a great way to find conversations where people are actively searching for solutions you may have to offer. For example, by using Twitter's built-in search tool, I'm able to find potential conferences for my public speaking services.  Many conferences that are in search of speakers will tweet out a "call for speakers." Using those keywords, I can easily find a number of different conferences that are in need of a good speaker.
   
   

Taking the time to read tweets, engage others and proactively search for opportunities are critical to using Twitter as a lead generation tool. You'd expect the same from a business owner at a networking event, right? So treat Twitter the exact same way, and you can and will see tangible results.