We will never know if carrier pigeons would exist if Twitter was born a few centuries ago, but they probably would fly on over and claim for other jobs.
But Twitter has also revolutionized the way we communicate—capable of going around the world with 500 million tweets in only 24 hours—and has become a great ally for companies who want to attract new clients through the Internet.
With 320 million active users a month, the star network of microblogging is a nest of opportunities for businesses that want to grow no matter what their industry, the size or the company´s origin.
Just as a fact, 1 out of 3 Twitter users admit using it to find new products and 4 out of 5 use it to follow brands and companies according to the last report on HubSpot.
After reading this information, the question is simple:
If your clients are on Twitter, why don´t you look for them there?
Luckily we are not in the era of carrier pigeons so getting clients is fast, easy and you can see the results of your actions in real time. If you are looking for a way to get more clients on the Internet, then stop! Pause for a moment during your flight: you must know that life goes beyond tweets and retweets.
And to show you just that, we are going to share with you 5 ways to attract clients with the most famous blue bird of all time, that is actually free and simple to implement once you learn how.
Prepare your wings because if you apply these tips to your company, it´s going to fly way up high.
5 simple ways to use Twitter to attract new clients to your business
1. Make sure you have an attractive profile
The first step to attract potential clients on Twitter is to have a good display window, in other words, an attractive profile that is visually appealing and shows directly and concisely who you are and what you area all about to those who see it.
For example, eBay is a company with the highest Twitter engagement so let´s take a look at its profile and find out what your company needs and how to start using Twitter to get new clients.
1. Choose a @username
The @username is the only identifier of your company on Twitter so choose one that defines it, is easy to remember, represents your company and is easy to find.
2. Add a profile photograph
Choose an image that represents your business visually and adjusts correctly to the small area, since the image is shown as a logo in all the tweets you publish.
Choose something that is easy to recognize, for example your company logo. And even if the size of the image changes automatically to adjust, choose one that measures 400×400 pixels to make sure it looks perfect.
3. Write a biography
How many times have you read a 500 word biography that in reality doesn´t say anything? With Twitter that doesn´t happen, because you only have 160 characters to tell your story.
This makes you write a clear and concise bio describing your company and your products or services, so take advantage of this space to let your users know why your company is unique and why they should follow you. Even if you have a physical store or pre-established schedules, you can add the location and the opening hours.
4. Add your URL
Provide users who visit your profile this so they can continue to find out more about your company if they are interested.
In other words: place the website of your company with a traceable link to bring traffic and potential clients to your business.
5. Place an image in the header
Use your creativity in the image header: you can show your products or services, edit the image whenever it´s convenient so it includes an offer or, showcase your business in large dimensions. For example, eBay has taken advantage of this by showcasing Mother´s Day since it´s celebrated in many countries to attract more clients.
The recommended image must measure 1500×1500 pixels, although you must take into account that in mobile devices the proportions are shortened 2:1 —and considering that 80% of Twitter users use their smartphones, it´s best not to forget it —.
6. Choose a fixed tweet
Placing a fixed tweet in the upper part of your profile can help you attract clients since this is fixed in the upper part of your chronology and each user who visits your profile sees this first.
This characteristic is capable of giving you more exposure and helps your potential clients so they don´t lose the message you are trying to send them, so choose a good tweet that can help you convert an audience into followers and these into clients.
To fix a publication, just choose the fixed tweet you want and on the three-point logo, select “fix on your profile page”. It´s that easy!
2. Use the search options to follow your audience
One of the best ways to attract clients on Twitter is to use the search options, by using the “advanced search” option or with user biographies among other alternatives. Let´s take a look at how to implement each one:
Use the advanced search to find potential clients
It´s possible that you have already tried to find potential clients with the search bar on Twitter that unfortunately resulted being too general.
An option exists that is quite effective to attract clients: the advanced search.
To use it you must use the following URL: https://twitter.com/search-advanced. Then write the word or words related to your business.
By using Twitter´s advanced search, you can establish more efficient searches that help you find better results. For example, if you have a marketing company you can use “marketing online” as a keyword in the search such as “SEO”, “marketing”, “strategies” or “digital”.
You can use the advanced search option by adding concrete words, by using tags or hashtags, writing negative keywords and even selecting the location in order to find users that are close by.
With these searches you can find out the most used hashtags associated to your product, you can obtain a list of users that are interested in what you offer and you can get a better idea of the conversations taking place regarding your market niche.
Resort to the biographies to attract clients
Did you know that you can get potential clients with keywords used to write their biography and also with their location?
And not just that, but tools are available such as Followerwonk that offer the possibility to discover them. This is a search engine perfectly integrated with Twitter capable of showing you the path to gain clients.
By using a tool analysis, – or other alternatives – with a strong free version, you can search and connect influential people with your market niche (and you can also follow it based on their social authority), look in the biographies to find users or potential clients and you can even analyze and compare users, brands, products, influence, location analysis, get reports about followers, people who are followed and much more.
3. Investigate followers and those followed by your competition
One of the best ways to attract clients is to take a look at what your competition is doing and how. You can even take a look at if they are doing their job well and it´s quite possible that they follow many profiles that can be interesting for your company—at the same time it´s quite possible that users who you are interesting in follow your competition—.
That is why analyzing and studying your competition should be an obligation not just on Twitter but also as a part of your digital marketing strategy.
Look at who your competition follows, who follows them, the hashtags they use and learn from them since they are a reference for your area since they do the same thing you do and you can extract a lot of interesting information from them.
To do this you can use tools such as audiense (they used to be SocialBro) to analyze the performance of your competitors on Twitter and gain an advantage or use twitonomy to get information about your competition and receive information by email about all their actions completely free.
4. Use hashtags well so they can find you
Identifying the best hashtags or tags is important to find conversations where your audience is, interact with them and gain clients.
Many tools exist that can help you such as Twitonomy, Hashtagify or RiteTag that allow you to see which hashtags are the best for your business so you can start building a relationship with these users with the intention to convert them into clients.
Once you determine which hashtags are relevant to your area, you can reach people who are interested in these topics; and at times even the element of current events can captivate them.
For example, many countries celebrate Mother´s Day so many companies are betting on showcasing their products and services by using the hashtag #MothersDay to interact with those users who are using similar searches with this tag such as Maidenform, Brand of underwear.
But remember to choose key hashtags so they can find you and don´t fill your tweets with tags.
5. Create promotions or contests
What is the best way to attract potential clients and give them the opportunity to purchase products or services completely free?
This is exactly what you can do by creating promotions on Twitter. This is one of those strategies that offers the best results since these types of incentives provides many users the opportunity to interact with your business.
You can create photograph contests that allow users to show their creativity while they use your products, invite them to comment by using a particular hashtag, by following you or re-tweeting your publication to enter a contest, celebrating an event, answering a question or inviting them to submit “the best answer”. The options are infinite!
A good example of a contest is one by the hotel chain Sonesta Hotels, using the hashtag #WinteratSonesta that invites users to share photos about winter stay at Sonesta hotels—giving a touch of closeness – and incorporates tags —not only #WinteratSonesta but also the #contest — and all of this with the opportunity to win a 2 night stay in one of their hotels.
Another interesting example is Starbucks, who asked all their followers to show a product from their chain using the hashtag #myfrapuccino in order to win products and at the same time create an auto promotion ?
And more importantly, more than any of these tips, above anything else, publish quality content to launch and feed your account on Twitter and establish a good strategy that allows you to be successful on this social network.
What did you think about these 5 ways to attract clients using Twitter?
The truth is that there are many creative ways to attract clients, but if you follow these 5 tips, your business should start noticing a difference quickly—or in this case, as quickly as a blue bird sings—.
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We await you in the next article!