In this #AskEvan video, Evan Carmichael answers a viewer’s question about using Twitter for business. He outlines a three‑part approach: (1) follow and personally engage customers – obtain their Twitter IDs, comment on their posts, and even send small gifts like brownies when an opportunity arises, to build genuine relationships that increase future sales and referrals; (2) share valuable, non‑promotional content such as interesting articles, books, and inspirational entrepreneur quotes, positioning yourself as an expert in your niche and attracting followers; (3) use promotional tweets sparingly – keep the ratio of promotional to value‑adding posts low, promoting contests, coupons, or new blog posts only when you already have an engaged audience. The overarching message is that relationship‑first marketing makes promotional messages more effective. He ends with a call to like, comment, and subscribe.
Questions this video answers
Follow your customers and engage with them personally (comment, congratulate, send small gifts like brownies), share valuable, non‑promotional content to build expertise, and keep promotional tweets infrequent so that when you do promote contests or offers, your audience is more receptive.
Chapters
Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael, and welcome to another video edition of #AskEvan. In today's video, I'm going to answer a question from one of my readers, Jackie, who's struggling to make Twitter work for the business. So here's Jackie's question: We've been trying over and over to make Twitter work for us, but it's been harder than expected. Not quite sure what to do next. So, Jackie, I'm a big fan of Twitter, and I'm gonna share with you some of the ways that I use it, and hopefully there's some lessons there that you can use for your business as well. So the first thing I like to do in Twitter is follow my customers, and as much as possible, we try to get the Twitter IDs of our customers. Now, not everybody will have a Twitter account, but if they do, ask for it and start to follow them. And then we look for ways to get involved in their lives and be meaningful. So, for example, somebody might post an article that they just posted from their blog, potentially, that they're really proud of. So we might write back to them and congratulate them on the great post. We also look for ways to send them stuff wherever possible. We try to actually send our customers brownies every week. So we look for an opportunity through Twitter. So an example, one of our customers posted on Twitter that the air conditioning broke down in her office on a really hot day, so she was working from Starbucks. So we sent her brownies. We said, "We saw your tweet and we wanted to send you some brownies to give you some sweets for the day." And she was over the moon excited, you know, wasn't expecting anything like that. And it's a great way to be able to connect with your customers outside of your regular business operation. So you don't have to actually send anything to people. Even just recognizing them and commenting on some of their tweets helps you build a personal connection with them. And the next time they're interested in buying one of your products or services, they're they're more likely to come to you and spend more money and refer more friends and family because they know and they like you. So it's a great way to start building relationships with customers. So as much as possible, if you can, try to follow your customers. The next thing that I like to use Twitter for is to share content that I find interesting and exciting. So I read a lot of books and blogs and articles, and I'll often post on my Twitter feed information that I find interesting that's helped me grow my business. Or inspirational quotes from famous entrepreneurs that help me, you know, stay motivated and want to continue to drive my business forward. And that's all value-add content that's not necessarily promoting anything on my site. It's just trying to add value to my readers. So things that I find interesting, and then people will start to follow you and you get known as an expert for whatever area you're in. So everything that I post is usually around entrepreneurship, so whatever industry you're in, try to become the expert by posting interesting and relevant content on your Twitter feed. It could be links to content that you've created, but it could also be just other content that you find really interesting and you think your readers would benefit from. Then the last part is we do have some promotional stuff that we'll put on our Twitter feed. If there's a contest we're promoting or a new blog post we put out that we really want to get some attention to, and that's okay to have some promotional content in there. If you have coupons or contests going on, I try to keep the ratio low, so try to add a lot of value and try to connect with your customers as much as possible. And then every now and then when you have important contests or promotions that you really want to get out there, you have a following. If all you're doing is blasting out promo offers, people aren't really going to follow you and pay attention. You're just kind of screaming ads at them. So you want to add value, build a relationship, and then when you do have marketing messages, they're much more likely to want to pay attention to it and find value in it. So I hope that helps. If you have any other specific questions, let me know and I'd be happy to walk you through a little bit more. For anybody who liked the video, please give it a thumbs up. If you do, I'll create more just like it, and I'd also love to hear your thoughts and feedback if you want to leave a comment below. And stay tuned for the next episode.
