People don’t always associate Twitter with marketing.

If you’re not using Twitter to improve your business, you’re making a big mistake.

Every year, about 200 billion tweets are sent out.

This number is astonishing.

With so much competition in the social media space, people may assume that Twitter’s best days are in the past.

That’s incorrect.

Twitter has never been more popular than it is today.

Check out these numbers:

Twitter has about 328 million users across the world.

That may not seem like a lot compared to the 2 billion monthly active Facebook users.

Still, 328 million isn’t a number you can ignore.

There are plenty of opportunities for you to generate leads and improve conversions on Twitter.

If you’re not actively using Twitter for business, it’s not too late to change.

Fortunately for you, I’m an expert in this space.

I’ve helped companies increase their Twitter engagement by over 300%.

In this post, I’ll show you how to generate leads on this powerful social media platform.

Recognize why consumers are on Twitter

Before you can start marketing, you have to determine whom you need to target.

Are you trying to engage with every single user with a Twitter account?

That’s not an effective strategy.

Instead, focus on your current customers and target audience.

Find out who is:

• mentioning your brand by name
• following your profile
• engaging with your competition
• tweeting about relevant topics and products in your industry

Market to these people if you want higher conversions.

Roughly 80% of Twitter users have tweeted about a brand.

After seeing the name of a company mentioned on Twitter, 54% of people searched for the business, retweeted the content, or visited the company website.

Why do you think so many people talk about companies in their tweets?

Twitter is a great way for customers to communicate with their favorite brands.

That’s why a third of Twitter users voice their opinions about products and businesses.

As a marketer, you need to embrace this engagement.

Recognize that it’s an incredible opportunity for brand exposure and growth.

When someone tweets at your brand, you’ve got to respond—fast.

According to Sprout Social, it takes an average of 10 hours for brands to reply to users on social media.

You’ve got to do better than that because customers will wait only 4 hours for a response.

If you don’t have time to respond to tweets, delegate this task to someone on your marketing team.

This person can easily respond to people on Twitter within minutes, directly from their smartphone.

Knowing this information is especially important if your target market consists of millennials and baby boomers.

Nearly half of them follow brands on social media.

Based on all the information I’ve discussed so far, it’s obvious that Twitter users want to engage with businesses on this platform.

Now that we’ve established this, it’s time to use this information to generate leads for your company.

Learn how to use Twitter advanced search query

Earlier I mentioned there are over 328 million users on Twitter and 200 billion annual tweets.

Not all these users and tweets are relevant to your business.

The key is filtering out the useless ones to generate leads.

This is my favorite way to get the most useful and significant source of leads: Twitter’s advanced search queries.

Here’s how you do it.

Step #1: Navigate to the “Advanced search” menu

I’m sure you’re familiar with the regular search bar on Twitter.

From your search menu, look at the left side of the screen under “Search filters.”

Click on the “Advanced search” button to proceed.

Step #2: Add keywords relevant to your company

This search field will give you much more accurate results than the generic search bar you’ve been using.

Add words and phrases based on your marketing insights, industry, and target audience.

For example, let’s say you run a website specializing in outdoor sports equipment.

You could add words like hiking, biking, backpack, tent, mountain trails, or surfing to the search bar.

It all depends on the goal of your marketing campaign to generate leads.

If it’s winter, you may want to include terms such as snowboard boots, skis, snowboard goggles, etc.

Don’t go crazy. Stick to a few specific words and phrases to start.

Step #3: Look for relevant usernames (accounts)

Adding accounts to your query can give you even more specific results.

Not sure what to put in these fields?

Here are some suggestions:

• your profile
• profiles of local competitors
• large-scale competitors
• industry experts

Adding your profile to the search may be the only obvious suggestion on this list. But maybe not many people are mentioning your company by name on Twitter.

That’s why the other ones are just as important.

Are people tweeting about your competitors?

Those users are your prospective customers.

What about an industry expert?

Let’s continue with the example about an outdoor sports store.

You could add Sean White’s twitter account to this search query.

He’s a professional snowboarder, so it’s not unreasonable to think that users tweeting about him are interested in snowboarding equipment.

The possibilities are endless.

You’ve just got to get creative to find the most accurate and relevant results to generate leads.

Step #4: Turn on your location

By default, your location services will be turned off for the advanced search query.

Turn it on to enable more relevant results.

For simplicity, I’ll continue using the sports store example.

Let’s say the shop is located in my city of Seattle, WA.

You have an ecommerce store, but you don’t deliver outside the northwest region.

Tweets about hiking equipment in Florida won’t be relevant to your lead-generation strategy.

It’s easier to narrow your search by adding a location now than having to filter through bad leads later.

However, if you have an ecommerce shop with global distribution, you may decide to disable the location feature in the search.

It’s up to you.

However, I’d still recommend focusing on a particular country or region.

That way you can segment these leads and market to them accordingly.

Step #5: Filter the dates

If someone tweeted about your company 3 years ago, it’s probably a little too late to consider that user as a lead.

You want to make sure your search results are recent as well as relevant.

Start with the last few months. If you want more results, you can always expand that to the last six months or to the previous year.

These 5 steps are super easy to follow.

Next time you’re trying to generate leads on Twitter, start with the advanced search query.

Use hashtags to promote your brand

Hashtags are a great way to get your company name out there.

If you can get enough users to use your hashtag, it could potentially go viral and start trending.

Here’s what’s trending in Seattle today:

Come up with a clever and creative hashtag for your company.

Look at the sponsored hashtag at the top of this image from Papa John’s.

#NationalPizzaMonth is much easier to read than #nationalpizzamonth.

Granted, if a user types this hashtag without any capital letters, it will still work.

But you should utilize this capitalization strategy in all of your tweets.

It’s easier to read, plus it can help you avoid potential embarrassment.

Back in 2012, a British singer named Susan Boyle used a hashtag to promote her new album.

She tweeted #susanalbumparty to promote it.

It’s harmless, but the combination of certain letters without any spaces or capitalization could appear inappropriate.

#SusanAlbumParty looks much better and prevents confusion.

But who knows, maybe you want to be sneaky with your hashtags, hoping one of them goes viral.

I just wouldn’t encourage or recommend that.

Tweets with hashtags also have a greater chance of being retweeted.

Retweets will obviously expose your brand to a wider audience.

The more people use the tag, the more likely it’ll go viral or trend on Twitter.

See who used your hashtag. Engage with these people.

It’s an effective lead-generation strategy.

Use Twitter as a customer service resource

If your customers have questions, complaints, or other inquiries, encourage them to contact you on Twitter.

Why?

Because other people will see how responsive your brand is.

It creates exposure and increases your chances of getting more leads.

Customer service interactions are trending upward on social media.

This means customers know they can contact their favorite brands via Twitter and expect brands to respond.

If other businesses are responding to their tweets, your customers will assume you’re going to do the same.

Ignoring your customers’ tweets could end up giving you a bad reputation for customer service.

However, responding to them in a timely fashion can have the opposite effect.

Customers are going to complain. These things happen.

Don’t let a negative tweet throw you off your game. Respond politely, and try to rectify the situation. Do not get defensive or make excuses.

Remember that everyone will see this interaction, so keep it professional at all times.

Look at what happens when a person experiences a positive customer service response:

The customer is likely to do two things:

1. share the experience
2. recommend the brand

If this interaction happens on Twitter, it’s even easier for the customer to do both of these things.

Providing amazing customer service can do much more than just generate leads.

It could potentially double your revenue.

Using Twitter for customer service can reduce the chances of the customer getting frustrated.

A recent study suggests that Twitter is the least frustrating customer service channel.

So you already have an advantage there.

Engage with your customers

Now that you know how to find leads on Twitter, it’s time to make sure you’re turning those leads into conversions.

If someone’s tweeting about your brand, products, or industry, reach out to them directly.

Let them know you can help.

Think back to our advanced search query.

You may find some users who don’t even know your brand exists.

How do you change that?

Here are a few tips:

• follow their profile
• like their posts
• retweet their content
• reply directly to their tweets

If they didn’t know about you before, they will definitely know about you now.

Make sure your profile is active.

Give your prospective leads a reason to follow your brand.

Getting a discount is the top reason why consumers follow a company on Twitter.

They also want to receive:

• freebies
• entertainment
• updates
• sales
• exclusive content

If your Twitter account isn’t doing these things, your lead-generation strategy won’t be nearly as effective.

Conclusion

Content consumption has grown by 25% on Twitter over the last 2 years.

Users want to interact and engage with their favorite brands on Twitter.

People all over the world are tweeting about things relevant to your business.

The trick is learning how to filter those results to generate leads.

Use the Twitter advanced search queries to do this.

It’s a great way to customize a search based on:

• words
• phrases
• languages
• profiles
• locations
• dates

This information will give you the most updated and accurate results.

Once you find a prospective lead, reach out to them directly. Follow their profile, and try to get them to follow you back.

Run promotions, and offer exclusive content on your feed. This will entice users to interact with your page.

Twitter is also an excellent platform to provide customer service. If a customer has a positive customer service experience with your company on Twitter, they are more likely to share their story and recommend your brand.

Use hashtags as a creative way to get exposure for your business.

All of these tips will help you improve your lead-generation strategy on Twitter.

What hashtag will you create to generate leads via Twitter?

Source: quicksprout

Everything You Need to Know About Generating Leads on Twitter