In so many ways, the potential of Twitter for business, social CRM and sentiment analysis is obvious. Twitter is, after all, a real-time open system with more than 200m active users and 1bn tweets every two days. It’s a place where people talk about their intentions, interests and planned social engagements, and it’s also where industry experts are continually ready to give information on the latest topics and trends. According to a recent study, however, Twitter all too often fails to convert content into leads, with even such a relatively antiquated option as email marketing proving to be of greater value. So, how can businesses use the information garnered from Twitter for lead generation, while avoiding spamming?
Determining the best way to do lead generation
The good news for struggling social media marketers is that various Twitter tools exist with sentiment, location and social influence filters, which when used along with keywords, can filter the right people. Filtering people based on location, sentiments and social influence, then only on keywords, can be done via Twitter’s own Advanced Search page or with Tweepforce. A company specialising in holidays, for example, may need to find people who are looking for a holidays package to the place for which they sell packages, rather than all holiday seekers or those who have already bought packages.
Engaging with the right people, but not spamming
The key, therefore, is to engage with the right people in a non-spammy fashion. Once you find the right people, you should try to engage them depending on their social profile, or in other words, attempt to get their attention. For example, for those users who have only recently adopted Twitter or who are unfamiliar with Twitter other than tweeting, you may simply use the @ symbol, paired with their username, to respond to them.
In the case of more experienced users, more opportunities exist to engage them, as these users check their @ connection tabs more often, alongside other Twitter activities. You could therefore favourite their tweet, follow them, add them to a public list, retweet them or accompany a retweet with a quote. Don’t forget, either, the great power of geo indexing, which allows you to determine where tweets are sent from – a technology that only becomes even more powerful when automated.
In Tweepforce, for example, an advanced location identifier option allows you to detect location within tweet text, tweet geo location or user’s location. By adopting these methods, your business will attract attention, but not at the cost of appearing to be a spammer. However, you will also need to make sure that the profile or tweet is very precise after you have performed any of the aforementioned actions, so that the target customer only needs to take one quick look to ascertain what exactly you do, and how you can cater to their interests.
Introduce an automation element to lead generation
However, it also makes sense to introduce an automation element to your lead generation from Twitter CRM. After all, with 1bn tweets being made every two days, you don’t have any hope of manually tracking enough of them. What you can do, however, is use certain social CRM tools in order to fully or semi automate this process. Tools exist that can filter keywords based on such parameters as social keywords, social influence, locations and sentiments, in addition to setting appropriate actions against each tweet found in this process. For instance, if someone is looking for a holiday package to Greece, you could automatically send them a tweet with a link to a page on your website for a Greek holiday package, possibly with a discount code included. For automation, you could use Hootsuite search, the Buffer app or the Tweepforce lead generation tool. Indeed, there is a very advanced search option in Tweepforce that enables you to filter tweets based on location, sentiments, social profile and keywords. On the basis of the subsequent sentiment analysis, businesses can set an appropriate response, ensuring the high conversion statistics that only precise action can bring.
Twitter: the economical and very high conversion lead generation tool
Twitter is open to all of the means by which a business can filter the right tweets or people to find leads, and with the use of some smart technology such as engaging people with a response to their tweets, endorsing or appreciating their thoughts, those leads can also be converted into business. Such personal and precise ways of engaging with target customers ensures a very high conversion rate, and guess what? This particular lead generation process is also far cheaper than running Pay-Per-Click or social ads. By making use of Hootsuite search, Buffer app or Tweepforce for the automation of lead generation, you can achieve so many more conversions and generate more revenue from your social CRM campaign.
