Set Goals for Your Twitter Journey Part 2

Now, let’s take a look at these goals more in depth:

1. Connecting with Customers

Before you started your business, you should have done a ton of market research. At this point, you should know who your target market is, what their needs are related to what you offer and how you can meet those needs.

For example, if you are a baby sling seller, your research may indicate that really short, petite women need a sling that will fit them without hurting their backs. So your business has created a solution to this problem.

When you’re on Twitter, you want to find those women who are having issues with slings that don’t fit right because of their size. Once you find them, you’ll want to offer advice that might help with their existing slings, or suggest tips for making sure they buy the right size in the future. Notice, I didn’t say “send them a link to your website.”

Twitter is not the place for a hard sell. Once your potential customer sees that you care about her problem, she’s going to want to know who you are and what you can do for her.

2. Networking with Industry Leaders

Twitter is a unique place where you can follow, and be followed by, people who are leaders in your industry around the globe. You can keep up with what they’re tweeting about and interact with them. For example, if you’re a virtual assistant, and you see a colleague has won an award, you can publicly congratulate her by using @herTwitterName in your tweet. She’ll see this – and you.

You can also offer advice to your colleagues, share information and discuss issues in your industry. By doing so, you will be seen as someone who is an expert in your field. In some cases, this has lead potential clients to hire you over others without the social proof, or may lead to your colleagues outsourcing work to you. In some situations, this could lead to you getting hired as a subcontractor for a project, because of your Twitter connection.

3. Driving Traffic to Your Website

Now, as I mentioned before, this should never be your primary goal on Twitter. Tweeting nothing but links to your website, or simply way too many tweets will make you look like a spammer.

So, put this goal in the backseat and focus your efforts on your first two goals, as we discussed above. Once you’ve taken care of those two goals and are consistently providing value to your customers and colleagues, the traffic will take care of itself.

Once you have a plan and you know where you’re going, getting there will be much easier, cost effective and measurable.

In the next post we will be talking about how to plan your Twitter journey.