Many sites promise to teach the “art” of using Twitter to achieve more sales and business contacts, but few offer practical solutions
Many sites promise to teach the “art” of using Twitter to achieve more sales and business contacts, but few offer practical solutions on how to actually get down to the job and do it. It’s like when our children begin with their first “sweethearts” and they just don’t have the faintest idea on how to interact with female gender. With metaphorical words or tangential descriptions they generally end up more confused than before. They want a trick to make girls fall at their feet. And who uses Twitter to do business, wants the same. But is not that simple. I won’t lie.
Twitter, like other social networks, requires time and investment. Everybody mentions how Dell achieved via Twitter over six and a half million in sales last year. But this didn’t happen by opening an account. Dell’s strategic communications division has more than one hundred employees devoted only to this sales channel. Therefore, the ultimate reality comes true again “you need money to make money”.
If you aspire to develop and maintain this channel, you must take it as another activity of your company, and give it the importance it has. It tends to be milsleading the simplicity and personal use that is given to Twitter, and it generates the idea that “with a couple of tweets every day, it’s enough”. To tweet to generate business is not something you can do while commuting each day or during lunch. You need a plan, to devote time to this plan, and to follow it faithfully.
Get a schedule. Open Twitter every day, at the same time –if nothing unexpected arises- and do this:
Step # 1: Follow who you find interesting. If you have few followers, this is what you should do.Follow to be followed. Follow who you think can offer interesting material, the “gurus” of business, your competitors, and other industries and related professionals.
Step # 2: Search your keywords in Twitter. At the moment, don’t do anything else. First, we must learn what is spoken in our business. Learn about latest trends and what people look at these times. Not all businesses, but some have large seasonal fluctuations in terms of demand for products and services.
Step # 3: Imagine you are a child and your parents change you to another school in the middle of school year. School year has started, and in breaks you are really lonely, you have no friends, and they all stare at the new kid (you). What’s natural? Introduce yourself. So far, the words “sell”, “promote”, “super discount” and all related are taboo. You have time to sell but first you must find who to sell to.
Step #4: Offer solutions. Imagine if someone comes up with a question, or needs information about your niche-products, services, etc… Volunteer to find an answer. Please don’t ever tweet with something like “Visit our website and find exactly what you want”. On the other hand, you couldn’t, even if you wanted to, remember that only 140 characters are allowed. Imagine yourself in school break in the situation described above. You see a group of children playing soccer. You approach and say: “Can I play?”. You surely woudn’t even consider saying “If you let me play I’ll invite you home because I have the Play Station III”. Forget about what you have at home and play. Enjoy the moment.
Too much for the first day. We will continue our strategic plan to do business through Twitter in next post. Now have a hot chocolate and marshmallows, and have a good time.
