It’s no secret that Twitter is currently one of the biggest social media platforms, making it a marketing hotspot for businesses everywhere to reach out to bigger audiences at faster rates than ever before. There are tons of benefits to marketing your business on Twitter, so don’t let your business miss out on the huge potential for online success. If you haven’t already done so, develop a strong social media marketing strategy for your business.
And while social media marketing is still relatively new in the world of business, all of the same principles and practices from traditional marketing strategies still apply. With so many businesses clamoring for potential customers’ attention on Twitter, networking is more important than ever.
Finding Followers
Your business needs to stand out from the crowd and get your voice heard over all the noise, enhancing your chances for success with potential customers. Social media sites like Twitter are great tools for businesses to engage with influencers as part of their marketing strategies. Almost every top industry has powerful influencers who can be found on Twitter with large follower counts, and who can lure scores of potential buyers to your business.
Influencers can include, but are not limited to, journalists and broadcasters, professors, analysts, and even athletes. Knowing how to find and, most importantly, connect with these leading industry influencers can have a tremendous impact on the success of your business. So without further ado, here’s how to find and connect with the top influencers in your industry on Twitter.
General Interaction
This is the first and most basic step: Find out who the top influencers are in your industry. Then, initiate and maintain general interaction with them. This means clicking ‘retweet’ and ‘favorite’ on the stuff the influencers post on Twitter, and replying to their posts through your business’s own account.
Remember that when you’re retweeting, make sure that the content is also relevant to your own followers. This is one reason why you shouldn’t retweet, favorite, or even reply to everything that your influencers post or share on Twitter. The other reason is because you might come off as annoying to your influencers after a while, which is counterproductive to your purpose. But since you’re also trying to get their attention, maintain general interaction at first with a constant steadiness, but never go over the top.
Ask Questions
Once you’ve initiated and maintained general interaction, you should reach out to your industry’s top influencers and ask them questions by sending them a direct message. This is a good way to directly grab their attention and stand out from their own group of followers. But make sure that the questions are relevant, engaging, regarding theirs (and yours) area of expertise, and of course, can be answered within 140 characters or less.
Keep The Dialogue Open
Now that you’ve begun to ask questions and captured their attention, keep them engaged by keeping the dialogue open between you and your influencers. You can do this by reminding them every now and then that you have been actively following them for some time, that you enjoy the work and content that they post and share, and that you are interested in following up with them or learning more about what they have to offer to the industry.
If by any chance you’re worried that you might come off as annoying to them when you do this, don’t be. Again, so long as you don’t overdo it, you should be fine. This is how to market your business to the top people in your industry on social media, after all!
Start Campaigning
This is when you really start to reap the harvests from your blossoming relations with the top influencers on Twitter to your business’s marketing advantage. Start campaigning your business on Twitter by reaching out to one of them every other day to let them know about a marketing campaign that you are running for your business.
Don’t make your invitations for campaigning seem like a spam post or another piece of junk mail though. Instead, make sure that your campaign is valuable and interesting and present it in a way reflective of this value and interest to them. They’ll be more likely to accept and help you with your campaign on Twitter, reaching out to their many followers for you, if you do.
Start Twitter Chats
Next, find and participate in any relevant chats on Twitter surrounding and regarding your business’s field and industry. This is another viable way for you to make tons of great connections in your field and industry at a greater, more efficient rate. So use the chats wisely and make the most out of them. It is in these Twitter chats that you can find new influencers and make a good impression for your business to potential networking relations, as well as invite current individuals from your Twitter list to join.
Create An Exclusive List
And speaking of Twitter lists, it’s also a good idea to create an exclusive list of the top 10, or 15, influencers in your business’s field and industry who have a strong and active presence on Twitter. Lists are a wonderful way to stay organized and keep track, and can also save you a lot of time and money by narrowing down your choices to the cream of the crop in your chosen industry. This, in turn, will increase your chances of successfully marketing your business on Twitter.
Needless to say, you should rank these top influencers based on how valuable they are to your industry. This VIP list should always be evolving and changing to meet current industry standards or your current marketing goals. You can even share this list with your followers in a blog post on a separate social media platform or through a webinar.
Regardless of how often you change it or the method you choose to share it, the list of exclusive influencers you create will be full of valuable information for your own marketing strategy and for other people in your industry. Like the Twitter chats, this can boost your social media networking relations and overall credibility as a business. The lists also provide a nice little incentive for the influencers themselves who are on your exclusive list to interact, engage, and even campaign with you more.
And last but not least…
Keep Listening
It is always a good idea to keep an eye on your influencers for any potential chances to reach out to them. Sometimes, connecting with them doesn’t always have to be centered around your marketing goals and strategy. Every now and then, if an influencer hits a milestone in their life — like getting married or having a baby — then wish them congratulations. Either way, they will remember you and have an even more positive impression of you, not only as a businessperson, but as a kind and caring human being, or a friend in the industry. Even though they are more “social media” and less “business marketing” based interactions, they will still to have a wonderful impact on your networking relations, which will only make your business that much more successful.
With these simple and effective marketing techniques, you can widen your target audience, build and reach out to your customer base, and, best of all, make valuable and long-lasting relations with the top leading influences in your business’s field and industry. Like most social media channels, Twitter makes bridging the gap between you, your influencers, and your target audience faster, easier, and even more enjoyable.
