There’s no denying it: winning clients is a tough business for recruiters right now. But there’s help to be found in an unexpected place – Twitter. As well as being a great tool to find new candidates it can also be a huge help for gaining new clients.
Here are 5 ways Twitter can help you with your business development:
Twitter can be used for more than just writing about what you or your business is doing. The site has a handy built-in search function which is a great way to have a look at what’s being said by others. This will help with your business development because it allows you to dive straight in to conversations where your agency may be able to help. So, for example, you could search for the term “help with recruiting” in case there’s a company out there asking for advice. Twitter will then display all of the tweets containing that phrase.
Searching also allows you to see what people are saying about you – it really works, go ahead and try it by searching for your company name!
This gives you a good impression of the buzz surrounding your agency, as well as allowing you to identify and address any issues that a client may have in a timely manner. It also gives you a sneak peek at what may be stopping potential new clients from taking the first step to working with you.
Unlike in real life, following someone on Twitter is considered a good thing! It not only means you’ll be updated with what a particular user is saying but it shows them that you’re interested enough to start following them in the first place – and flattery gets you everywhere. Potential clients will often start following you back because you’ve taken the time and initiative to follow them. Even if they start following you first it’s always a good idea to follow back as soon as possible. This starts a positive relationship that paves the way for a later discussion about your services.
Having a presence on Twitter means keeping people up to date on whatever’s happening with your company. Taking on a new recruiter? Won an award? Offering a brand new RPO service? These are things your existing clients will want to know about, and they’ll help draw in new potential clients too.
It’s also a good idea to set up tweet automation as it allows you to write your tweets when it suits you, and then schedule them to go out automatically throughout the day. This will keep your Twitter presence alive, making sure potential clients who are active on Twitter at different times are hearing you. An automation service like the one HootSuite offers is easy, reliable and best of all it’s cheap (or even free for basic users)!
“Trending” shows the most popular topics of conversation at any given moment on Twitter. If enough people tweet a certain word or phrase, it will trend at the left of the Twitter timeline. Check out how it looks:
If enough people are tweeting about your topic it could mean it ends up on the trends section, with a potential audience of over 500 million users.
You can also join in on existing trending topics. Take the “#godigital2013” trend above – it refers to a digital business conference that took place in Lincolnshire. You could dive into the conversation by tweeting using that trend name, letting people know your opinion and sharing useful information. You will get the attention of anyone who was at the conference who’s checking Twitter to see what’s being said about it (just make sure not to spam!).
This is a really easy way to get a potential client’s attention. Why? Well, here’s what the competition is doing with Twitter:
As you can see these kinds of boring tweets aren’t going to win any clients! Writing real updates in a friendly, conversational tone is far more appealing to potential clients than using Twitter as a mini job board. Of course it’s important to remain professional so try to keep spelling and grammar in check but you’re much more likely to win some business if you are approachable, polite and casual on Twitter.