Using Twitter to Find Customers for your Small Business

Today, I’m going to show you why Twitter is one of the most useful tools you can use to engage your current customers and attract new business.

If you’ve been delaying checking out Twitter, here’s why today is a good time for you to investigate how Twitter can help your business.

Useful technology services often go through a cycle:
1. Obscurity. Nobody but geeks – like us at EasyCal :) – use it.

2. Early hype. Your geek friends may tell you it’s the best thing since sliced bread. Some forward-thinking blogs might talk about how it’s useful for your business. You usually ignore this, which has proven to be a good move most of the time.

3. Media hype. It seems like you can’t turn on the TV, pick up a magazine, or read a website without hearing about the news media’s latest darling. You may feel like you’re missing out, but you’re still not convinced. And besides, your time is limited, and you’re busy enough as it is without having to investigate the media’s latest flavor of the week.

4. Acceptance. Verbs like “tweet” or (back in the day) “google” no longer elicit an eye-roll. The media’s moved on, but real people are seeing the power of embracing the tool to benefit their everyday lives. Maybe your elderly parents start asking you what this service is all about. You finally figure that it’s worth investigating, and you turn out to be right.

Twitter is now entering the fourth stage. Aside: if you want to know what Twitter is these guys explain Twitter in plain English amazingly well. If you don’t know how Twitter works, you should check out the 2 minute video – the rest of this post probably won’t make much sense.

Here are four reasons why Twitter can help your small business attract and retain new business.

1. You can directly reach customers when their intent to buy is high

When someone asks about getting a massage in San Francisco or an eyebrow wax in Calgary, you have an opportunity to pitch yourself. You probably want to be careful with this one. A direct pitch for your service can come off pretty aggressively. A much better approach is to teach your customers.

Here’s an example. In November, I tweeted out asking for things to do in New Zealand. Kirsten at Skydive Wanaka replied:

It just so happened that I was looking to skydive by the end of the year. Kirsten seemed cool and helpful, and replied to a few more of my tweets about planning my route in New Zealand. I ended up stopping by Wanaka and paying Kirsten and crew $525 to jump out of a plane (along with enjoying the delicious local microbrews and very cool Paradiso movie theater).

All because Kirsten took the few minutes to help me out.

Here’s a great post on using Twitter’s search feature to find leads when people have high intent to buy.

2. You can build relationships quickly

Here’s rule number one of Twitter: be helpful. If there’s someone you want to be noticed by, read a few of their tweets and learn about what they’re interested in. Figure out how you can help – is it an interesting article (not one that promotes you :) ), a recommendation you can provide, an intro you can make, feedback you can give, knowledge you can share, etc?

Just reply to them, get on their radar, start a conversation, and start building trust. It’s best to do this before you need anything. Remember, you’re not doing this in a tit-for-tat way; you’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do. But the awesome part is that when you’re helpful, people want to help you. Trust that it’ll come around and put yourself out there first!

3. Word of mouth is a tremendous marketing tool

I know you’re heard how awesome word of mouth is as a marketing tool. It helps you get customers at a near-zero cost. Here’s the awesome thing about Twitter – when you create a good experience for someone, *and* you’re on Twitter, people will be more likely to either:

a) talk *about* you by referencing your Twitter user account.
b) talk *to* you by sending a reply to your Twitter user account.

In most cases, when someone references your Twitter user account, every one of their followers learns about you.

Time for another example. My girlfriend Daniela, who gives facials in Vancouver, gave a facial to Natalie at Womanzworld. Natalie loved the facial and tweeted about it:

The awesome part for Daniela is that Natalie has 721 followers who just learned about her.

4. Social proof is killer for your business

When people have a conversation about how awesome you are, you benefit hugely – it reinforces the choices they’ve made to buy from you.

When they have that conversation on Twitter, all *their* followers not only hear about you, but hear *multiple* people raving about you.

In the above example, Natalie’s Twitter account is followed by another of Daniela’s clients, Angel.

Angel saw Natalie’s tweet and replied:

The social proof of how great Daniela’s services are was flying all over the place thanks to Natalie and Angel. And Twitter made it possible for the two of them to let their 1000+ followers know how they felt about Daniela’s business. Pretty powerful stuff that’s already led to two new clients.

How To Get Started

The nice thing is that you can dip your toe in the pool without having to commit a lot. Two great resources to get started:

1. Twitter’s official guide for businesses is a great starting point.

2. Matt McGee has 100+ Twitter business tips over on his blog. Check them out!

What about you? Do you have any Twitter success stories about your business? Would love to hear them in the comments!

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