Using Twitter to Find New Business Clients
A Practical Quick Way to Connect to Customers via Social Networking
Jun 16, 2009
Most small business owners don't have the time or money to attend seminars or hire consultants just to use Twitter and other networking sites to grow their business network.
One simple, unobtrusive way to use Twitter to find new clients is the Twitter search function. Many Twitter users who want help with something phrase their question/Tweet with the word "anyone," as in:
Anyone know how to do 'such and such?'
If that 'such and such' is related to a specific problem, that Twitter user may be a prospective client for the business owner who can solve that problem.
Search Example
For example, take a one-person contract programming business specializing in Silverlight web development. This business owner needs to find clients who need help with Silverlight web sites. The search is simple:
- Go to http://twitter.com/
- At the bottom of the page, click on the Search button.
- Click on "Advanced Search."
- At the top search field, "All of these words," enter, for example, "anyone silverlight."
- Scroll down to "Places." If the entrepreneur/Silverlight developer is based in the Seattle area, they might enter "Seattle" for "Near this place," and "50 miles" for "Within this distance."
- There is also an option on the Twitter Advanced Search page to specify if the Tweet is asking a question or not.
- Once the search criteria is entered, press the "Search" button at the top or the bottom of the screen.
Chances are, the Silverlight developer will find people asking questions about using Silverlight. One may be a potential client.
By reviewing search results, the business owner or marketing specialist may edit the search terms to retrieve the most likely prospects for their product or service.
To get continuous results to this search, on the search results page, click on "Feed for this query" in the upper right-hand corner. Select the RSS provider you prefer and click on "Subscribe Now."
Who Can Use Twitter Searching
This search process can work just as well for dog kennel owners and vacuum cleaner repair people as it does for software and web developers. And the only people that the business owner contacts are those who are already asking questions related to their service -- pretty unobtrusive marketing.
A Twitter account is not required to search but it is required to respond to anyone who matches the search results. So a free Twitter account is necessary to utilize social networking in this way.
A variety of Twitter plug-ins are available for enhanced searches. Just google "Twitter search." But the search function built in to Twitter is easy to use and powerful.
Twitter searching is also a way to monitor how your company or brand is discussed. http://technicalbusinesswriting.suite101.com/article.cfm/using_twitter_for_client_communication
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