Find New Customers Using Twitter Search
Most people think of Twitter as a place others post what they ate for breakfast or tweeting ones every move. Millions of people send tweets every day and tweet about everything from an experience with a company, complaints or even a request for information. Twitter Search is a powerful tool you can use to connect with potential customers.
Perform your search depending on the type of business you own. If you own an online flower shop type in “flowers” to see all tweets where the word “flowers” appears. If it’s a web hosting business enter “web hosting” to display all tweets mentioning web hosting.
Just typing in a search term like “web hosting” could possibly yield several hundred tweets. You might have a flower shop business located in Boise, ID and only interested in local customer. With advanced Twitter search you can plug in your search term, specify a location and the distance from that location. You even have the option to filter tweets by specific dates or even someone’s attitude (smiley face or a frown in the tweet).
Now that you have your list of potential customers you can consider sending them a tweet or put in a request to follow them. Below each tweet is the option to reply to the sender or view just that tweet. Just hit reply and start typing your tweet right after the @username. You might consider posting a link (use a URL shortener like bit.ly) to a special offer for Twitter users or recommend your business. Be careful not to make it look like you are spamming them. But most people looking for information will welcome your tweet. If you entice them with the right offer you might find some new clients. Keep in mind that you need to have a Twitter account to reply to or send tweets.
The other advantage of using Twitter search is finding dissatisfied customers. Finding those who are unhappy with your business can save you heartache. Major companies like Qwest and HP are using this to connect with those who might be unhappy but don’t contact the company. Instead they post their displeasure with a company in the form of a tweet. Do a search of your company’s name to see what others might be saying. It might save you from losing a customer or a chance to correct a bad situation.
You don’t need a Twitter account to perform a search so check it out today. How have you used Twitter Search to promote your business? Happy searching!