Twitter can be a robust means of connecting with new audiences, but these visitors will need a lot of persistent attention in order to become meaningful contributors to your bottom-line. The key to this is ensuring that you have a proper lead nurturing process in place, which will take them from Twitter followers to paying customers in a defined chain of action.

Remember that most Twitter users are typically in the early discovery stages, and will need a lot of time and convincing before they convert. Simplifying the path, with a focus on maintaining contact, and then providing additional education-rich content, will help nurture trust, and push that contact closer to your desired business goal.

To help with this, here are some actionable tips and tools on making the most of Twitter to generate more leads and discover new opportunities.

Firstly, increase the click-through

It is generally very difficult to gauge which Tweets turn into leads because conversion is an on-page issue. However, Tweets with the highest click-through rates will give your brand the opportunity to convert social media traffic into leads, generally include the following elements:

• Pictures or images attached
• 1-2 hashtags of trending or popular industry topics
• A link to a valuable free resource
• A link near the beginning of the tweet to catch the user’s attention

By combining all of these tactics, businesses significantly increase the chances of a click-through, and the rest is then a matter of conversion optimisation.

Post consistently

Because the lifespan of a tweet is only around 20 minutes, tweeting consistently is critical.

Social media leads are not “searching” for a solution the way organic search users are, so there’s a longer buying cycle involved. You can share your latest blog post on Twitter, for example, when someone clicks through, capture their email address with a great offer. You can then follow-up with more content, and eventually, offers can convert to sales.

One of the best ways to get more attention on Twitter is to experiment with asking questions. People have a natural instinct to look for an answer whenever they are confronted with a question, so asking a question is a great way to generate engagement – this nurtures leads.

Use Direct Message Cards

If you have a sizable following on Twitter, using Twitter Direct Message Cards can be an effective technique to build leads. In order to make use of Twitter’s Direct Message Cards you need to be a Twitter Advertiser – i.e. you must have input your credit card information.

These ads are Twitter’s effort to move away from lead generation campaigns and encourage advertisers to keep using Twitter – and they can be particularly effective in some niches, including the B2B sector.

Engage with Your Promoters

This is something we greatly encourage – whenever someone shares your content via tweet, go ahead and like, retweet, thank them for doing so.

Try to retweet tweets promoting your articles, which helps those shares to spread even further. This also helps to generate more interactions and followers, which in turn, increases the reach again, whenever they re-share the link.

It’s that mutual collaboration aspect that really makes Twitter marketing success.

There’s a range of ways to use Twitter for lead generation, but as you can see, the key is being active and engaging, and going about your interactions in structured, targeted way where possible.

Font: Social Media Today