In case you’ve been living under a rock during 2009, it was the year of Twitter. Twitter and “tweets” were all over the place. Many marketers were just trying to get their feet wet, while others jumped in wholeheartedly and even created national campaigns around it. At least until the next hot thing, it appears that Twitter is it for now. For many B2C, as well as B2B, marketers it was easy to setup a Twitter account and post a few things here and there, but after a few weeks or months they began to wonder:
- Am I reaching the right audience?
- How do I extend my audience?
- What are some quick ways, aside from giving away “the farm”, to grow my audience?
This post is specifically around those questions. Here are three quick ideas you can use to grow your Twitter following quickly and relevantly.
Media Publications
The first place to look is to existing trade publications who have migrated to Twitter. Over the last several years, traditional and offline media has really been taking it on the chin due to the rise of online. As a result, many of them have taken to social media and online venues as a way to stoke the fires of their online publications. Whether you are looking to reach teens and tweens (i.e. TigerBeat), yacht enthusiasts (i.e. Sailing Magazine) or professional contractors (i.e. Contractor Magazine), there are offline or newly created online publications on Twitter. All you have to do is click on their “Followers” link and presto, you have a captive audience for your products or services. If they are interested in what these publications have to say, they are probably also interested in what your company has to say. So what publications are important to your industry? Even if they don’t have a Twitter account setup, you might find people who are regularly readers, just talking about it too. See for yourself.
Competitors
If you’re behind the curve a bit and your competitors are already out in front, use that to your advantage. They’ve already done some of the leg work establishing their accounts, following people in the industry, perhaps even advertising the fact that they are on Twitter. That’s great for you! Now all you have to do is check out who is following them and cherry pick the ones that are applicable to you. For example, if I’m a local pizzeria in Chicago, I should look at other pizza places in Chicago (i.e. Rosati’s Pizza, Gino’s East, etc.) The same is true for nationwide or global brands as well, both B2C as well as B2B. In the case of B2B, your competitors may not be that established, but it’s still worth checking out and it will vary sector by sector. For instance, if I’m Case Construction, you better believe I should be looking at Caterpillar’s Twitter following on a regular basis. Those are most likely prospective customers, or existing Caterpillar customers I might be able to switch over.
Listening to the Ecosystem
And just because you can’t identify any media publications or your competitors don’t exist on Twitter, doesn’t mean you are lost. Assuming the audience you are trying to reach is on Twitter, you have a captive audience waiting with for relevant information and here’s where you can chime in. Just go to any number of local or global Twitter search applications and throw in a few keywords which are applicable to your industry. Start with industry exclusive keywords and broaden your search from there:
Local (US):
Global:
- Twitter Search
- GeoFollow
- Radian6 (paid)
Once you’ve identified who is talking about your relevant topics, make sure to follow them. And don’t worry – if they don’t follow you back, it’s not the end of the world. At the very least, they will check out your profile, see what you have to say, and move on. You’ve shown them that you are interested in what they have to say and that could be enough to turn them into a future customer.
And it wouldn’t be much of a blog post if I too didn’t also try to grow my Twitter audience. I’m jeffwoelker on Twitter, in case you’re not already following me. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed these three quick tips. If you have additional ideas, please let me know in the comments.
Image courtesy of jez`