6 Most Effective Ways To Engage On Twitter

To really use Twitter as your strongest lead generation tool, you need to be ready to reach out and engage others.

This is the same philosophy and method you would use in real life at any networking function. If you go to a conference or chamber mixer and stand against the wall avoiding eye contact with anyone, I think you’d agree, the whole thing was a waste of time. You need to smile, shake hands, make a little chit-chat and get to know who’s who.

Of course, Twitter is vaster and faster!

The first step is so obvious, I won’t even count it as a tip! But you absolutely need to have your account setup completely, and totally reflective of what you are trying to project. Here’s a quick read to make sure you’ve gotten your foundation ready before you start engaging: What You Can Do In the Next 10 Minutes To Get More Twitter Followers

Spreading Your Wings

1. Find key people to follow.

What does that mean? Find people that are likely to be interested in your product or service. If your audience is likely to be local, be sure to read Looking For Local Customers?

2. Once you’ve found several key people to follow, put them in a list.

No, not the same list you have your neighbor that wakes you up with his power tools every Saturday morning. A Twitter list – find out more here: Twitter Lists Make Twitter Amazing!

3. Go through the list of followers

Go to the accounts of  your key people and follow their followers, but only the ones you think are a good fit for your type of account.

4. Engage

Once you start engaging with these key people, if you’re also engaging with people they know, they will be more comfortable with engaging with you when you reach out and also reaching out to you without prompting in the future.

5. Retweet

Retweet something from your key people list once or twice a week by scrolling through their Twitter Home feed. Once you’ve found something to retweet, be sure to add a thoughtful question or comment to it. Questions are obviously best because it creates an opportunity to begin a discussion.

6. Share

Always be on the lookout for posts or articles to share with your key people that they would find helpful or interesting. Be sure to add the @theirnamehere in your tweet, or they are unlikely to see it.
Share one of their blog posts from their website and add a nice comment or intro to it in your tweet. Be sure to tag them by adding @theirnamehere [their actual Twitter name] so they can find your tweet under their Notifications tab.

The steps above are powerful and simple, but not always as easy as you might think. You need to devote a certain amount of time daily, or near daily, to make progress, but once you do, it really does snowball. Remember that when you’re talking (or tweeting) to people online, people that you aren’t even aware are watching you are paying attention.

If you’re wondering why Twitter is the best place to really grow your business, I’ve got a lot more detail here:  Why Twitter? Why Twitter is the best place to start with all of your marketing.

Reaching out and being consistent will definitely result in leads and referrals. If you need more help on feeling comfortable expanding your reach and your engagement on Twitter, check out Conversational Twitter. It’s my newest course and a live Twitter workshop where I tweet right along with you publicly and give you tips to expand your business privately.

Get more Twitter tips and hacks by clicking here.

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