Here’s a post I used to help people with their Twitter marketing. The lesson from Twitter can be expanded to any social media site.
One way of building potential business relationships on Twitter is to use a technique good sales copy has been using for year-identifying the pain.
Reducing or eliminating the “pain” is one of the great motivators to stir people to take action. Good sales copy will identify the pain or problems people are having; intensity the pain; and then offer their product or service as a way of reducing or eliminating the pain. Sales copy has the luxury of using long copy to get this process done.
Here’s how to use this technique on Twitter
Spend time reading the Tweets that come down your Twitter stream. Look for the Tweets where people express frustration, disappointment, pain, worry, discomfort or other problem areas that pertain to your products or services. When you find people who express the appropriate pains, you want do to a direct Tweet to them using the @ sign before their name.
Here comes the tricky part
If you meet a stranger on the street and they mentioned one or more of these appropriate pains, would you immediately jump in and say to them, “I can solve your problem!”
I don’t think so. This would immediately turn off the other person. At this point in the conversation, they wouldn’t have the confidence that you really understand their problem or pain.  Instead you would probably ask more questions or share with them a story about another person or even yourself who had the same problem or pain. (In direct sales, this is called rapport building).
Only after some conversation would you offer solutions you think would be helpful to them. If the other person now feels you really understand their problem, they become more open to your potential solutions.
Your Tweets
Use your Twitter stream to identify potential customers whose problems you can solve.  Then engage them in Tweet conversations that build a trust level that you really do understand their problem. It could be asking questions. It could be telling stories of people with the same problem. It could be sharing how you had the same problem and overcame it.
At first, this will be challenging because you only have 140 characters to move the conversation forward. After several times, you will develop key Tweets that you can use to explore the problem areas so that you can build rapport with different followers. You can use these key Tweets over and over again.
Conclusion
Use your Twitter stream to identify potential customers and your Tweets to show them you understand their problems or pain. Once the relationship or rapport has been established, you can begin offering your business solutions.
To be continued, your comments are welcomed…
Al Hanzal
