The 6-Step Process to Nurture Targeted Twitter Leads Into Closed Deals

Can you really find leads on Twitter?

There’s a lot of skepticism towards Twitter’s ability to generate leads for B2B companies. And, I get it: 

Compared to the career/business-oriented interactions on the likes of LinkedIn, Twitter’s ping-ponged personal exchanges seem too “light” to substantiate B2B lead generation. 

However, after following a business on Twitter, 69 percent of people have made a purchase and 93 percent plan to make a purchase 

Twitter still has a place for B2B marketing. 

Sure, it differs from a business-focused platform like LinkedIn, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be used to find leads.

Twitter’s quick and personal pace suits it to the early curiosity-driven stages of the buyer journey. 

This has a powerful carryover to social selling. 

Ahead, you’ll learn how to use Twitter to find leads, win their attention, and nurture them while they’re open to interaction. 

Note: Use Leadfeeder’s to see which companies are visiting your website and improve outreach. You can try Leadfeeder free for 14 days here.

1. Kickstart Twitter lead generation with social selling KPIs 

With the rise of social selling, social media platforms like Twitter have gone beyond generating brand awareness or “B2C-style” customer service.

They’ve transformed into mediums for meaningful, brand-to-buyer interactions that generate high-quality leads. 

But, in order to justify social selling and optimize your results, lead with the right data. 

While vanity metrics like follows and likes sound good on paper, they fail to provide the insights you need to generate leads with social selling. 

Before you go any further, scrap the fluff metrics and start by identifying strong key performance indicators (KPIs). This means tracking:

• The number of visitors coming from Twitter

• The ratio of impressions to engagements on your content

• How many sign-ups and conversions come from Twitter leads

• The number of leads from Twitter that become Marketing Qualified Leads

By tracking the KPIs above, you force your data to explain how your social selling activities feed your sales funnel. 

2. Let B2B leads fall in love through your Twitter profile

160 characters isn’t a lot, but your Twitter profile is prime digital real estate for attracting targeted followers and leads.

A branded header, tight copy, and relevant hashtags and keywords make it easier for Twitter leads to find you. 

SEMrush’s Twitter profile page is a great example of what an attractive profile looks like: 

They immediately identify their “digital marketing rockstar” audience , and then invite them to chat with leading influencers.

Here’s another example from our integration partner, Pipedrive:

Based on the branded header image and profile bio, it's clear that their mission is to support salespeople and sales teams. 

To make your Twitter profile more attractive to leads: 

• Display a prominent and branded header image. This makes you more memorable. 

• Provide a call-to-action that offers value. Can leads use your tool, engage in a chat, or download a free resource? Let them know. 

• Include Hashtags and keywords related to your main topic (don’t stuff your bio with them, however). 

• Use the extension ClickableNow to make your Twitter profile background links and calls-to-action clickable 

3. Conduct tactical Twitter espionage

As of October 2019, there were 6,000 tweets generated every second — that’s 350,000 tweets per minute, or 500 million tweets sent each day. 

That’s a lot of content. 

You’ll be 500 million years old if you try and sift through it manually to find relevant conversations and accounts. 

Luckily, with Twitter's advanced search function, you can search for leads, high-value accounts, hashtags, and conversations relevant to your industry. 

You’re also able to filter through exact keywords, engagement levels, and even location. Some key conversations to look out for are:

• Tweets that request recommendations.

• Tweets that ask questions related to your industry

• Tweets about your competitors (so you can add value to the conversation)

Start broad and narrow your search as you confirm the hashtags and keywords that interest your leads.

In my search below, for example, I’m looking for B2B sales reps that are “near me” in Southern Finland, so I’ve used the keywords “B2B sales rep” and excluded “B2C”.

Another way to find targeted leads on Twitter is to use the Tweepi app. 

Tweepi monitors Twitter for the most active users following the hashtags and keywords you provide.

Once it narrows down your target audience, the AI presents the most probable to engage users and suggests whether you should reply, follow, like, or retweet to engage them. 

Whether you’re using advanced search or getting help from an app, place leads into Twitter lists so you can track conversations and engage with ease. 

This will prove invaluable for the next step...

4. Use Twitter to deliver terrific Trojan-style content 

Trojan-style content is content that is so overwhelmingly tailored and bespoke, that it instantly earns the attention of decision-makers. 

Ben Plomion, CMO of GumGum, definitely knows how to use its power. 

While researching the T-mobile accounts his team was targeting, he used Twitter to form his Trojan piece of content.

Through Twitter, Ben discovered that T-mobile CEO, John Legere, is a big Batman fan.

With this little insight, the GumGum team formed a plan to produce unignorable content.

Working with a team of editors, writers, and illustrators, they created a custom comic book called T-Man and Gums.

Copies of the comic were then shipped to T-Mobile and its agencies of record. After a short wait, they won a meeting with T-mobile and landed them as a client. 

Gary Vaynerchuk also followed a similar process to land a $4 million deal on Twitter in 17 minutes. 

The important lesson here is to use Twitter’s social landscape to your advantage. Think about it: Are you more likely to see a passionate tweet about Batman on Linked, or Twitter? 

Absorb the personal interests of your decision-makers, listen to their exchanges, and tie what you learn to personalized content or outreach. 

You don't have to be outrageously creative; you just have to be outrageously specific and relevant in your approach. 

5. Optimize content for curious buyers 

While providing value upfront isn’t a groundbreaking B2B marketing tactic, it’s a critical part of finding leads on Twitter. 

Buyers who are asking questions, sharing resources, or commenting on a competitor’s tweets are often at the discovery/research stage of their journey. 

They are not ready for a “hard-sell”, yet.

To capture their interest, apply the 80/20 rule to the content you post on Twitter.  

80 percent of your posts should provide value, while the remaining 20 percent should include direct promotion. 

Forrester is a perfect example of value-driven content for curious buyers:

As well as their own research, they share any emerging news that is relevant to their audience of business and tech leaders. 

By consistently Tweeting valuable posts, they reinforce their position as an authority. This makes it easier for leads to trust in their products and services. 

6.  Turn fleeting Twitter followers into permanent leads 

With new product lines launched, Matt Machado, VP of Demand Gen at Kaseya, needed to reach and retain warm leads in new vertices. 

To generate sales for new products, marketing set up several campaigns to connect with Twitter leads. 

When a follower mentioned a specific IT technology, topic, or influencer, they’d send them personalized content that led back to their funnel.

“For example, an IT Director following @CIOMagazine would receive a DM that recommends a whitepaper showing relevant benchmarking data about IT Operations” 

After downloading content, the lead was then added to Kaseya’s marketing database and nurtured until hitting the Marketing Qualified Lead threshold.  

Within a year, Kaseya’s Twitter followers grew from 18,800 to over 29,000 followers, it also generated over 2,000 targeted leads for marketing.

To actually turn Twitter followers into permanent leads, nudge them along your sales funnel and into your email list with gated content. 

This could be an upcoming webinar, a report, or a useful guide. The more relevant the offer, the higher your Twitter-to-lead conversion rate. 

Tailor Twitter to leads for effective social selling

Finding leads on Twitter isn’t just about hitting the viral content jackpot or scoring a lucky retweet from an influencer. 

It’s about respecting leads at the buying stage they’re at, and nurturing them in the right way.

Sure, Twitter differs from the dominant B2B social channel — LinkedIn. However, this difference doesn’t make it any less effective. 

It just requires a more social and personalized approach. 

By focusing on sharing relevant content and adding a personal touch to your outreach, you can make Twitter a powerful tool in your social selling repertoire. 

Note: Use Leadfeeder’s to see which companies are visiting your website and improve outreach. You can try Leadfeeder free for 14 days here.