In this multi-part series on Twitter marketing for small businesses, we will be walking you through tips, advice, and best practices for getting the most out of Twitter for your business. In this post, we will discuss best ways to get your potential customers to take action.
The number one goal of conversion on Twitter or any social media platform is to remember the ABC’s (Allways Be Closing). Don’t get me wrong, we don’t want to come across as a pushy used car salesman, but we do need to be intentional about making it easy for our fans to become leads/sales when they are ready. You have to always think about how you can to give somebody the opportunity to take the next step.
Your primary goals on Twitter are to be seen as an industry expert and to encourage people to go to your website and take action based on an offer that might exist on your blog or a featured product page. The bait are your tweets and the hooks are your offers. This only works if you lead with value first. Twitter is a great place to generate opportunities for your business mainly because people are talking about their wants and needs.
Conversion best practices on Twitter
Encourage users to become a lead or purchase a product. Drive users to a conversion form, encourage them to email you to request additional information, call, or walk into your place of business.
o Examples of Effective Calls to Action:
- Request a quote or a catalog
- Educational event – Remember, your potential customers are trying to make informed decisions; therefore, putting on events like webinars or workshops can be an effective way to get them to take the next step.
- Special offers – Offering coupons, gift cards and discounts can be very effective for many businesses.
- Free analysis – If you’re services company, you can offer a free analysis or consultation.
- Promotional products – Many businesses have experienced surprising results by offering something as simple as a baseball cap with their company logo on it.
- Buyer’s kit – If your industry consists of long sales cycles and sales-by-committee, offering buyer’s kits are a great way to generate leads by sending anyone who opts-in information that will educate them on the process and help them internally promote a change within their organization.
- Technical resource or Premium content area – This is a spot on your website and social media environments where you have a lot of good technical data that your potential buyers need, but you lock it up in a library where they have to opt-in to gain access to it.
Remember the 90/10 rule. Simply put, 90 % of what you broadcast should be beneficial, useful and informative to your target audience; the other 10 % of what you broadcast can be promotional.
Short Shelf Life. You also need to keep in mind the shelf life of tweets lasts about as long as the spoken word. It’s there and then it’s gone for the most part. To be effective in converting people on Twitter you need to be thoughtful about offers that would appeal to your target audience. For instance, if your business is a restaurant you’ll want to listen for people in your city talking about where to go for dinner so you can @reply to them with a link to a coupon that exists on your blog that they can bring into the restaurant and get a special offer. 
Twitter can become one of the most effective social media platforms for your business. Twitter is the most convenient place to listen and find people to connect with on your journey to turning friends into customers and customers into evangelists. If you’ll follow the steps in this series, you can build an amazingly vibrant community and generate leads by jumping in to help prospective customers solve their problems.
