Twitter Your Way to New Clients, Part Two

You’ve decided to open a Twitter account.  You’ve found some interesting people to follow and a few people have followed you in return.  So now what?  What do you say to your followers to keep them interested and entice other Twitterers to follow you? It’s time to learn the art of the tweet.

Business vs. Personal Tweets
If you are using Twitter to build your business, and I assume you are since you are reading a marketing blog, you’ll want to keep the majority of your tweets business related.  However, you’ll also want to include personal messages so that your followers begin to feel a personal connection with you. I’ve been told that the percentage of business to personal tweets should be 70% / 30%.  This seems to be a good rule of thumb, though I think as long as the majority of your tweets are business oriented, you are in good shape.  Once you have established your strategy, it is time to starting tweeting.  Before you post your first tweet, please consult your compliance department.  Twitter falls under the advertising rules of FINRA and the SEC so you will want to be sure you aren’t violating any of the rules.  Once you have received the okay from your compliance department, feel free to start tweeting.

Add Value
It’s time to send your first Tweet.  What will you send?  Remember that social media is all about adding value and creating relationships.  DO NOT ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS.  I can’t stress this enough.  Do not post something like, “If you are in the San Diego area, have $500,000 in investable assets, over the age of 55 and need financial planning, call me at 555-1234.“  This is a quick way to turn people off.  Always think about adding value.  For example, suppose you are looking to reach your CPA followers, you may want to post an article you recently read on year-end tax strategies. In this example, your tweet would be “Just read great article on year-end tax planning strategies [Include Link].”  This will pique the interest of your CPA audience.  Hopefully some followers will even respond or retweet (forward) the message which will help start a dialogue with the CPA or increase your following.

Adding value can also come in the form of information you have personally produced.  If you have an article you wrote that is posted on your website, feel free to tweet about it.  Posting links to valuable information you created is one of the key ways to use Twitter to market yourself.  Use Twitter as a way to direct your followers to more information about you and your services.  One example of this is to include links to webinars or workshops you are hosting.  For example, you could tweet the following message “I’m hosting a webinar next Thursday on ‘The 10 Things to Look for When Choosing a Financial Advisor.’ Find out more here: [Include Link]“.  This will direct your followers to a call to action and this is how you will ultimately see business come from Twitter.  Offer a variety of ways for people to experience your business - promote your blog, newsletter, video blog, radio show, podcast, and workshops just to name a few. 

As you can see, Twitter can be used to promote almost anything.  Spread these types of promotional tweets out with other non-marketing and personal messages in between.  No one wants to be sold, but they don’t mind you promoting yourself from time to time.  Treat people how you would want to be treated.  You wouldn’t want someone advertising their business to you non-stop.  You’d lose interest pretty quickly.  The same is true for your followers. 

Coming up with valuable information can sometimes be time consuming, so consider retweeting messages posted by other people.  If you find a tweet you like that someone else posted, copy and paste it and put “RT” at the beginning of the message.  Include the @ sign in front of the tweeter’s name.  For example, “RT @kristenluke Just read great article on year-end tax planning strategies [Include Link].”  By doing this, you are providing value to your followers without very much effort.  In addition, you have made the original person who posted the tweet happy because you are promoting his or her name to your network.  You may even spark a conversation with the person who sent the original tweet since he or she will probably thank you for the RT (retweet).  In just one tweet you have added value and established a new relationship.  Not bad for 10 seconds worth of work.

Build Relationships
If you are providing valuable content, most likely your followers will start to reply to you.  You will find these on the @Replies and Direct Messages pages.  It is good practice to respond back to people who send you a message.  Remember, you are on Twitter to create relationships.  This is not a one way communication feed where you just broadcast your message.  It is a two way communication tool.  If someone is interested enough in what you have to say and takes the time to respond to you, it is only polite for you to respond back.  There is an exception!  You will start to find you get marketing messages from some twitterers.  Feel free to ignore these messages, but respond to everyone who is genuinely interested in what you have to say.  The goodwill will go far and you never know who that person may know.   

Personal Tweets
In between all of your business tweets, you’ll want to include some personal tweets.  You can talk about your family, about a book you are reading, a recommendation for a restaurant you just tried, anything that makes you seem human.    This is a key part of what will connect you to your prospective clients and strategic partners.  For example, if you run marathons, tweet about training for a race next month.  You will connect with other marathon runners, some of whom might fit your ideal client profile.  It can’t hurt as long as you are maintaining a professional tone. 

Conclusion
If you are building your business based on developing solid relationships, you know there is no quick way to attract clients.  Twitter is no different.  The site will expose you to people you never would have met otherwise, but you will not see instant results.  In order for Twitter to work, you must be genuine and you must put in the effort.  If you are finding that Twitter is a chore and not a joy after a couple of weeks, it probably isn’t the marketing tool for you.  Your followers will be able to quickly pick up on your lack of enthusiasm and your efforts will prove fruitless.  Twitter is just one marketing strategy you can use to build your business.  If you don’t love it, try something else.  But if you do love it, it can be a powerful tool to generate new clients and strategic partners.

Kristen Luke is the Principal of Wealth Management Marketing, a consulting firm specializing in marketing solutions for independent financial advisors. She works with advisors to develop and implement strategies like the ones mentioned in this article. You can follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/kristenluke. Visit www.WealthManagementMarketing.net for more information.