Every day over 100 million people log into their twitter accounts, 52.7 million of these people being American, and every second over 5,000 tweets are posted online.  Twitter has grown to be enormous in the social media world and has proven to be very effective in the business world.  More and more companies have begun using Twitter as a marketing tool as it continues to demonstrate its success.  Twitter can help grow a business by providing a leeway so businesses can connect to customers on a personal level.  Additionally, Twitter helps create brand awareness and allows companies to market new products easily.   Aside from these direct benefits, Twitter allows you to keep an eye on your competition and see what they are up to so that you never fall behind the game.

Here is a list of four ways to optimize your presence on Twitter to generate more leads:

1.  Build your profile

In order to be successful on Twitter you must build your followers.  In order to get followers you must follow people, so try following colleagues, customers and potential customers.  Additionally you should optimize your presence on Twitter by using keywords on your profile that describe your business and what you do so that a greater number of people will be able to find you, and of these new people, more of them will truly be interested in what you have to say.  It is also important that you use hash tags.  Hash tags are the staple of Twitter and by using hash tags everyone is able to see your post, even people you don’t follow you.  This will allow you to continue to grow your profile and attract new clients. 

2.  Tweet consistently and regularly

In order to build trust and a healthy relationship with your followers you need to be reliable and consistent with your tweets.  You must spend time on your account and use it daily so that your customers know that you really do care about them and your Twitter presence.  Twitter is a high volume channel so Tweeting twice a week wont cut it, you need to make sure your are tweeting daily and surveys have proven that customers ideally like to see between 2-5 tweets a day. 

3.  Make your content valuable

You need to make sure that you tweet information that your customers and potential customers will be interested in as this will allow you to create a personal relationship with them.  There is nothing worse then scrolling through your Twitter feed and only seeing irrelevant posts that your are not interested in.  If a customer notices that your company is constantly posting irrelevant information it is likely that they will just unfollow you.  With this being said, posting valuable content will attract not only your current followers but also new users and hopefully create more leads.  Your content doesn’t always have to be your own, yes you should share your blog on your Twitter account, but it is also important you share information from other sources that will attract potential clients.  

4.  Use Twitter lead generation cards

Last, but certainly not least, it is important that your company begins to use Twitter cards.  Twitter cards are essentially mini landing pages, which will tell your customers what to do next and point them in the right direction.  Twitter cards are persuasive and are essential for generating new leads.  By simply pressing, “submit” a customer can sign up for an offer and their user information (name, email address, and Twitter username) is already pre-populated in the card, so it is automatically sent to your marketing automation system on Twitter.  Twitter lead generation cards have statistically proven their success and are an important tool for businesses to make sure they are utilizing.  Twitter recently released a study that showed that lead generation cards have allowed for a 996% acceleration in lead acquisition.  This study clearly proves the vast success of lead generation cards, making it clear that these cards should be an essential part of your businesses Twitter profile.