Acquiring Targeted Twitter Followers
Whether we like it or not, social media has changed the way that we do business. Especially when it comes to the realm of marketing, finding and even keeping clientele, we must embrace social media as the currently most effective tool in our tool belt. If you are looking for social media agency london then read more here.
Today, we want to look at Twitter in particular. We probably all recognize that the number of followers we have seems to be a good indicator of the success or popularity of our brand.
However, what we need to keep in mind is that having a lot of followers is not the end goal. What good does hundreds of followers do if less than 5% of them would actually buy your product/service?
The true goal behind getting followers is finding followers from your target audience – those most likely interested in buying your product/service. These followers actually equal potential profit.
So the question is: How to get targeted twitter followers?
There are two main methods for finding and acquiring targeted followers: • Poaching from competitors • Twitter advanced search
Before we get started, though, there are a couple of important things to know.
First, you may find services out there that allow you to actually buy twitter followers. This is a bad idea. Again, the main goal of having followers is not simply to see your numbers rise on your twitter page; it is to get followers who become actual customers. Bought followers have no intention of using your business.
Second, there is a core method behind both of the techniques we are going to discuss, and that is you following the type of individual and/or business that you want to be your customer.
The reason this is key is because, statistically, 50% of those you follow will follow you back purely out of good etiquette. So, simply by following potential customers, you will be able to gain quite a few followers that have an interest in your services/products.
Additionally, even the 50% who do not follow you back are still exposed to your brand. An increase of exposure is always a good thing, even if those entities do not pursue you immediately or directly, so the 50% who do not follow are still not a wasted effort.
Okay, so let’s discuss the details of the two techniques listed above.
Poaching from Your Competitors
This approach is rather simple. You should already know who your primary competitors are, and all it takes is a few simple Google searches for services/products in your field to find tons more.
Spend time visiting each of their Twitter pages. Once there, look toward the top of the page where you should see the word FOLLOWERS with a number above it.
Click the FOLLOWERS link and spend time reviewing the information. You should find hundreds of people and businesses that are exactly the type you are trying to sell your services or products to. It is a ready-made potential client/customer pool.
Now, just start following each of them. Again, about 50% of them will start to follow you back on principle, possibly more when you hit the more relevant audiences.
With very little effort, you are heightening your brand exposure to the audience that matters and gaining more followers who have potential to become customers. We have found this technique to be extremely valuable for business to business entities.
Twitter Advanced Search
The next technique is using the advanced search options on twitter, which you can find here. This approach works great for either business to business or business to client/customer companies.
A side note – this tool does require more deliberateness and thoughtfulness to use effectively. Unlike poaching your competitors, where you get handed the pool of potential customers, here you have to think hard about what characterizes your ideal customer.
Once on the search page, you will see a variety of categorized text boxes which allow you to enter your specifications. In each of the boxes, enter your specifications based on what your customers will most likely be tweeting about.
For instance, if you sell fishing equipment, you would want to look for people talking about fishing or going on fishing trips. If you need to restrict your clientele to a specific location, then you can use the “Near Here” section to limit the search to just those in a relevant area.
We have suggestions below of how to best use the form. It is broken down into four main categories: words, people, places and other. If you follow our suggestions and think critically about your ideal client/customer base, you can find hundreds and even thousands of new potential clients/customers:
Words
All of these words:
Whatever words you enter into this box will be searched for in any order. So if you sell fishing equipment, you could enter “fishing trip.”
This exact phrase:
It will search for your exact words in the exact order you enter them.
Any of these words:
Every word will be searched separately. This is a good spot to jam full of relevant keywords (fishing rod, bait, boat, fishing pole, etc)
None of these words:
Helpful to exclude things. For instance “Xbox” or “PlayStation” to avoid those who like fishing games.
These hashtags:
Good to use to poach competitors. If your competitors have unique hashtags, put them here.
People
From these accounts:
This one is not really helpful for our situation.
To these accounts:
Also not very helpful.
Mentioning these accounts:
Another good way to poach competitors. Enter your competitors’ twitter handles here.
Places
Near this place:
Very helpful for findings customers/businesses in a specific locale. It won’t search an entire country at a time, though, so it is best to search by city or county.
Other
Positive:
Another not very helpful section
Negative:
Not very helpful
Question?
Another way to find customers of your competitors. Look for those who have tweeted questions at your competitors.
Include retweets:
Again, not very helpful
As you can imagine, even though these steps are fairly simple, they are time intensive, especially if you want to keep up. Allow about 20-30 minutes a week to applying the above methods to really be effective.
If that sounds a bit overwhelming to you, you can SocialMotion Media team today for a hands-off service.
