Twitter is a mysterious animal. People use it daily to interact with so many other people. It is really baffling. If you run a BPO, Data Entry company or Call Center, you will be equally baffled at the daunting task of finding customers on any medium. It is possible to find customers on Twitter, but it’s not how you think it is.
Don’t sell
Don’t use Twitter to sell. This might be a hard concept to grasp as someone struggling to get your fledgling business going. You use Twitter to network, not sell. So, how do you get clients if you don’t sell? You mingle with them. Get them to feel comfortable with you, and get them to know you. Ask them if you have any questions about your industry.
Give, but don’t ask for anything in return
By answering their questions rather than selling you are being a valuable resource rather than a desperate and pestilent salesperson! Get others to value you by being nice, helpful and a source of reliable knowledge. If they have lots of questions about the technical support industry and you are the smartest person they have talked to in conjunction that industry, they will be likely to buy your services in the future. Maybe not tomorrow, but they will not forget you if you are the most helpful person in the world who gives, but asks for nothing in return.
Indians often feel that you get by pulling
Many people in India feel that the way to get more is to grab, and pull, and use force. This unfortunately has an opposite effect with Americans. If an Indian cab driver says, “Come with me,” and grabs our bag without permission, this is upsetting to us. If the same guy said, “Would you like a ride anywhere or some travel tips for Pune?” I would be much more likely to hire that cab driver because he was polite and helpful unlike the other pushy nitwits. The more sophisticated crowd in India has learned that you get by giving, not by grabbing. Sophisticated Indians have helpful blogs, and will talk to you about their service without being desperate to make a sale. They give, without asking in return.
How do you know if you have a contact person?
If you network, it doesn’t do much good if you’re not networking with a decision maker. It is hard to know who the decision makers are in the sea of hundreds of millions of Twitterers. My suggestion is to find either business owners or managers in large businesses. They will either need similar services in one form or another, or have friends that need those services. They might be doing their call work in-house, but they will have call work that needs doing. If you “get in good” with these people by making friends, they will be likely to use you when they have a need, or refer their friends to you. It is hit and miss finding the right people, but at least start with the right crowd.
Where do you find such people?
There are large Twitter accounts for business oriented people such as Forbes, Harvard Business Review, Entrepreneur, and others. These accounts have over a million followers each. if you look through their followers, you can find lots of great entrepreneurs and decision makers. After mingling with many of them, and you will have to mingle a lot, you will eventually meet some of the right people.
Twitter takes time, and grammar
If you want Twitter to be quick, it is not for you. I think that Twitter is exciting and fun. It’s fun to meet new people and fun to watch your number of followers go up. It is like an addiction in many ways. You also need to make your interactions in clear, and grammatically correct English which will be hard if English is not your native language. If your English is less than perfect, it is always a good idea to take writing lessons. Good communication skills translate into higher incomes statistically, so instead of wishing you made more money — learn to communicate like a polished professional and the money will come more easily.
What is step 1?
Create a Twitter account. Get an attractive picture for your icon, and another attractive picture for you top of page image. If your tweets have beautiful photos attached to them, that helps too. Photos are time consuming and can be expensive, so choose your battles wisely.
Step 2… Be a follower
The next step on Twitter is to start following people. Don’t follow more than a few dozen people per day. If they don’t follow you back after a few days, you should unfollow them. Twitter doesn’t like it if you follow substantially more people than follow you, so be mindful about your number of followers.
Step 3… Be an unfollower — and a leader!
Tweet about interesting things. Don’t just tweet about your services. 95% of your tweets should be valuable information about your industry, and other interesting stuff. Only 5% of your tweets should be about special offers that your company has.
Keep tweeting good stuff and people will follow you. You can retweet valuable information that others post as well.
Happy tweeting and good luck.