how to make money on twitterMany B2B marketers struggle to understand how to use Twitter for marketing. It’s understandable to pass on investing much time and energy on marketing that does not produce a return on investment (ROI). But often those who do promote their business with Twitter don’t realize it can help make money. Not only is Twitter an effective communication channel, it’s also a great place to generate leads.

So how can you make Twitter work for lead generation? Our free eBook, “A Beginner’s Guide to Twitter for Business,” is full of suggestions. Here are six simple ideas from the book:

Idea 1 – Tweet Offers

Start with the simplest one – share special offers with your Twitter followers. But be careful to not to overdo the frequency of your promotion. Too much and you can appear spammy.

For example, it’s okay for a recruiter to repeatedly share offers for job openings because users will naturally be vested in that opportunity. However, constantly offering the same whitepaper about improving heating systems might turn people off.

As a general guideline, use the “4-1-1” rule. For every four tweets you share or re-tweet from other sources, followers or trusted influencers, publish one non-promotional tweet of your own, and one tweet promoting one of your offers.

Idea 2 – Connect Your Blog To Your Twitter Feed

Make sure that your blog post gets tweeted as soon as it’s published. This seems like a no-brainer, but you’d be surprised how many businesses fail to tweet links to all their blog posts, which should in turn feature calls-to-action. You can automate this function using a service like NetworkedBlogs.com or marketing automation software like Hubspot.

Idea 3 – Respond With Landing Pages

There is absolutely nothing wrong with replying to questions on Twitter with a link to a helpful landing. In fact, answering the question with a few words and pointing them to a solution often gives your company credibility and authority.

Idea 4 – Hashtags

A hashtag is a keyword that is preceeded by the pound sign (#yourkeyword). Any word can become a hashtag, simply by putting “#” in front of it. But the truth about hashtags is that just adding one to a tweet isn’t going to give you any results. For hashtags to benefit your marketing, integrate them to a marketing campaign.

For example, when hosting an event, create a hashtag (ie: #bigevent). Then let users know about it so they can follow the hashtag and chime in with their own tweets and comments about your event. The hashtag will allow you to interact with commentary about the event and help you measure how many people are paying attention.

Idea 5 – Build Reach

For any of the above ideas to work, you need to get Twitter followers. The more people that follow and read your tweets, the higher your chance of generating leads. Here are some tips to increase your Twitter fan base.

  1. Make sure your Twitter profile is complete and includes relevant keywords.
  2. Promote your Twitter handle everywhere, including your website, signage, print ads, business cards, email, and direct mail.
  3. Share useful, valuable content. It’s not enough to just promote your content. Your content needs to be worth sharing.
  4. Add social sharing buttons and “tweet this” links to all your content.
  5. Find, follow and build relationships with people in your industry.
  6. Interact with your Twitter followers.
  7. Offer incentives for new followers. Or at least reply back with a quick “Thanks for following.”

Idea 6 – Twitter Chat

A Twitter chat is a public conversation where all the participants use a single unique hashtag. The host or expert gives followers a chance to ask questions during a scheduled time period using that hashtag and these questions are answered in real-time.

To maximize the lead generation efforts, each chat should come paired with a certain offer – an eBook, free demo, or other premium offer – that supports the topic.

To get a sense of how a Twitter chat works, join one of more than 600 regularly scheduled Twitter chats on a huge variety of industry topics.

As with any marketing tactic, test and measure your Twitter marketing efforts. Identify trends, then repeat what works and quit what doesn’t. With some experimentation you can learn what works best to generate leads with Twitter.

 

What Twitter marketing tactics have worked for your business? Please share your ideas in the commens section below.

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