The “Twitterverse” is a massively under-served market, and your business provides exactly the products and services many Twitter users need. Your business just needs to be found so you can present them with your solutions to their problems. Check out our how-to on optimizing your Twitter lead generation, and start helping your ideal customers find your business via Twitter.
Introduction
Today we’re going to examine an often overlooked marketing channel: Twitter. If you are a Twitter user, you’ve probably seen ads as you scroll your Twitter feed. Ads have become more common on the platform in recent years, yet they seem to have limited reach. Sadly, Twitter ads are still one of the lower earners for ROI on the social media marketing totem pole.
There is a common problem of perspective when it comes to marketing on Twitter: too much focus on ads and not enough on lead generation and capture. Twitter offers significant opportunities for generating leads and making the first contact in a way few other social media platforms can. What most marketers seem to misunderstand is how to optimize a Twitter account for lead generation.
If you’ve never considered leveraging Twitter followers for leads, it’s time for another look. You need to understand why Twitter makes such a great lead generator, and develop some strategies for lead generation. I’ve put together this guide to help you do just that. Along the way, we’ll also review a step-by-step guide for optimizing your Twitter account to generate and capture more leads. Let’s get started.
Why Twitter Makes A Great Lead Generator
Back in the early days of Twitter, tweets were mostly about random status updates shared between friends and followers (most of whom were friends or acquaintances anyway). In 2021, Twitter has become a community-building hub for every sector of industry, knowledge and learning imaginable. People find their tribe on Twitter, and they continue to branch out their network every day.
These vast and diverse networks are the perfect place to find and develop leads for any business. Any user with an active account can quickly and easily join these networks at any time. Moving into a new market is as easy as clicking the follow button. Moreover, the analytics features make lead tracking and capture fast a matter of a few clicks. Once you recognize Twitter for the marketing treasure trove it is, you are ready to strategize and optimize your feed for lead generation. Here’s a quick overview of how to do both:
Twitter Lead Generation Strategies: Prepping Your Account
Twitter Lead Generation Strategies: Prepping Your Account1. Write An Outstanding, Value-Rich Bio
Never underestimate the impact of a well-written 160-character bio. It never ceases to amaze me how little attention some commercial Twitter accounts give to their bio. It is a critical component for making the most of your Twitter’s lead generation potential. Focus on showing your potential followers and customers who you are and what you are all about. Tell them what you have to offer, why your products/services solve their problems, and how you will provide solutions.
2. Pin A Engaging And Irresistible Tweet
The pinned tweet is a recent addition to Twitter profiles and a criminally underused piece of digital marketing real estate. Every visitor to your profile page will read this first. This is the prime location to post current promotional tweets or the start of tweet threads that showcase your best offerings. Posting the starting tweet of a thread offers the greatest value for your content, too. When users click the pinned tweet in a thread, they are immediately redirected to the series of tweets in the thread. Not only do you garner another click, but you also create an opportunity for in-depth engagement with your content.
3. Create A Dedicated Twitter Landing Page
This may seem like a very basic change, but it creates a powerful impact. Sending visitors to a page that uses the same language as your social media channel serves a dual purpose. First, this makes it far easier to influence them to complete a lead information form. Second, it is an additional point of contact outside of social media. Don’t underestimate the value of creating this unique landing page.
4. Always Curate And Create Content With Your Ideal Customer In Mind
All smart marketing campaigns create an ideal customer persona to give their campaign focus. Whenever you compose a tweet, make sure you are catering to the demographics, interests and pain points of your ideal customer. It’s elementary, but fundamental to attracting new business.
5. Craft Each Tweet With An Irresistible Draw
What makes a tweet irresistible? Engagement at every level: text, audio and video. Word choice, sound and compelling visuals are what grab and hold users’ attention. If you don’t have the production skills or resources to generate this content yourself, find someone who does. Hit all the points of contact you can, and make sure they are on brand and message for your ideal audience. Whether it’s for pinned tweets or weekly tweets, you will see a significantly higher ROI for your money.
6. Program Posting To Reach Your Audience During Primetime
Consider what time of day your ideal customer will be checking Twitter. For professionals between 21-35, primetime is Wednesdays between 8:00-10:00 a.m. or weekdays from 6:00-9:00 p.m. That’s coffee break time and after dinner time, and statistical research shows that’s when most people check social media. Given that the average lifespan of a tweet is 20 minutes, timing is truly everything
7. Actively Search Twitter For Leads
7. Actively Search Twitter For LeadsGetting found on Twitter is an essential part of lead generation, but that doesn’t mean you should sit back and wait. Be proactive and look for questions posted about your industry, recommendation requests, and even competitor tweets. Retweets and replies to these posts can provide valuable lead contact information and major commercial accounts you can follow. Following quite often leads to follow-backs, and seamlessly integrates you into contact-rich networks. Don’t miss out on the opportunities that are out there for the taking with a quick search or two
8. Create Follower Lists To Focus Engagement
Sorting contacts and leads into lists lets you follow their posts and initiate or maintain communication. Keeping separate lists also lets you monitor conversations your potential customers engage with on Twitter. The content of these conversations are a literal goldmine of marketing data, allowing your team to better focus their campaigns.
9. Engage With Followers Via Twitter Chat
In terms of personal communication and building relationships, few Twitter resources are better than chat. Initiating conversations via direct message allows you to present your brand at its best and learn more about your customers simultaneously. Chat is also a great way to learn new and interesting information about your industry. The knowledge you gain is invaluable in structuring future campaigns and improving your products and services.
10. Use Analytics With Twitter Ads To Increase Campaign Awareness
Examining results from ad buying is an important part of getting your account lead generation ready. Buying ads is a great way to increase your following, and every follow is another potential lead. Using ads without analysis, testing and refining your campaign is a serious cash sink, though. That means reporting and adjusting your ads regularly is a must.
If you play your cards right, a smart, focused ad campaign can pay massive dividends in new business and lead generation. Make sure you are exploring using Twitter ads for lead generation, and don’t hesitate to spend the money as needed. It just may be the magic ingredient for increasing your sales revenue dramatically.
Twitter Lead Generation Optimization: Step-By-Step
Once your account is streamlined and refitted for lead generation, you are ready to start optimizing your account for lead generation. Here are some practical steps to take that will generate the best ROI.
Step 1: Configure Conversion Tracking
If you aren’t tracking results, you aren’t running an effective lead generation campaign. The first step should always be to set up tracking for the number of leads that convert into customers. Keeping track of results is critical to measuring success.
Twitter also doesn’t offer a universal tag on your site so you can just visit it to count the number of users who reached your thank-you page. You will need a unique named JavaScript tag for each page so you can categorize the type of sign-up. After you configure that, all you have to do is check the number of tags to pull your conversion analytics.
Step 2: Select Twitter Ad Campaign Type Carefully
Twitter has six pay-per-performance ad campaigns to choose from. You set the amount you are willing to pay out for each campaign type. Setting the bids too low results in a zero result for impressions. You must strike a balance between what competitors are willing to pay and what you can afford. Keep in mind that while Twitter ads do have a high engagement, they also possess the worst ROI.
Twitter charges your account on a per engagement basis: there is a cost for every person that visits your profile page or clicks your image, hashtag, or Twitter stream. Paying for clicks without conversion gets expensive quickly, so you have to be smart about how you use ads. The clicks you want are for your website, app installs, new follows, leads or video views. Make sure your
Step 3: Monitor and Adjust Your Twitter Ad Targeting
Every ad account on Twitter can be targeted by geographic location, demographics and language. You can also add target keywords, followers that fit a preset profile, interests, custom remarketing lists, and much more.
Set your targeting options to match your ideal customer persona, and then adjust them according to the conversion reports. If a certain segment or ideal customer trait is underperforming, then remove it and try something else. The more regularly you monitor your ad performance and adjust the profile, the better your ROI and conversion rate will be.
Step 4: Create Ads Without Using Twitter Lead Generation Cards
Once you know how you are going to target your ads, you are ready to create the ads themselves. A word of warning before you begin though: do not, under any circumstances, use Twitter Lead Generation Cards (TLGCs).
The consensus of marketers who have used TLGCs is that the program is a losing game, and they lose big every time. You are better off creating your own ads and adding original content than using Twitter’s resources. Use the content strategies discussed earlier in this article, as they have proven track records of positive results.
Step 5: Always Set Bids, DON’T Use Automatic Bidding
I’ll be blunt: auto-bidding for ads is a scam. There will always be another user willing to spend more than you are on ad space and/or visibility. The only time you want to use auto-bidding on ad space is when you are running a short-term campaign to a narrow audience of 1,000 people or less.
That’s when it’s worth sacrificing a little marketing cash for the maximum number of impressions you can get within that short-term sale period. Beyond that, always set your own bids for ad space and don’t get suckered by auto-bidding.
Step 6: Pull Your Analytics Data And Determine Your Next Steps
Upon completion of your lead generation campaign, you are ready to pull your report and see what ROI you’ve pulled from all this hard work. Pay attention to what drew the most conversions, as well as what content had the lowest cost-to-conversion ratio. All that remains to be done is to make adjustments to your content and ideal customer persona profile before running the next campaign to attract leads and new customers.
Final Thoughts on Twitter Lead Generation Optimization
Ultimately, optimizing your Twitter account for lead generation is equal parts preparation and execution. You must ensure your account is properly configured to draw leads and conversions before conducting a lead generation campaign. Simultaneously, your campaigns need to be run with a strong focus on lead capture and conversion. Get together with your digital marketing team to brainstorm ideas to start the optimization process and build momentum. With the right planning and execution, you should soon see an uptick in sales leads and revenue.
Are you looking to make the most of your Twitter account’s lead generation potential? Selling Revolution has the know-how and skillset to make your Twitter account drive additional new business daily. Contact us today for more information.