Wow! Within 30 days of setting up a social media campaign from scratch and ghostwriting all my client’s messages, they got their first big lead from Twitter on Wednesday.

If the lead comes off then it could deliver a massive, and I mean massive, return on investment for the client where the average order value of each sale is around £100,000.

Given the circumstances of how the lead came via Twitter I’d like to modestly think that it came about because of the reasons outlined below and not merely by chance.

We had a plan for using Twitter
From the outset, we knew exactly why we were doing it, who we wanted to build relationships with and what we wanted to say to them.

We focused solely on our target audience and haven’t followed celebs, followed Tweet-tarts, or encouraged our mates to follow us to artificially swell our follower figures (at the time the lead came in we only had 160 followers and this was done organically rather than using an automated programme).

We also drew up a communications schedule which identified the purpose of each tweet and this fell into three main categories: being sociable, driving traffic to the client’s site or asking questions pertinent to the client’s industry which could be retweeted to a wider audience.

We clearly identified what we were going to offer our audience
We wanted to stimulate debate about a specific issue within the client’s industry and become the go-to-guys on that issue – with the aim that over time we will become perceived as the industry experts.

We’ve asked questions. We’ve started discussions. We’ve commented on the latest pertinent industry news. We’ve blogged ideas and then encouraged our audience to read the blogs and comment.

And what we offer our audience is the knowledge and expertise on the issue which paves the way for a face-to-face appointment to showcase the client’s proposition. And at that point I have every faith the client will do their bit and convert every appointment into a sale.

Don’t sell, sell, sell on Twitter
Of the 150-odd tweets in the first month, there hasn’t been one (obvious) sell message. There’s nothing more off-putting than businesses that use platforms such as Twitter to push offer after offer. It becomes tiresome very quickly and is a surefire way to alienate your audience.

We see asking questions as a better way to educate about our proposition.

Be courteous
We made sure we were courteous to our growing band of followers.
We thanked people for following us. We read what other people were tweeting about and joined the conversation where it was appropriate.
We retweeted other people’s tweets and made a point of recommending people on Follow Friday.

Converting a tweet into a lead
The lead came as a result of someone commenting on the first of a two-part blog we posted last week. At the time I posted a thank you to that person for their complimentary tweet about the content of the blog.

When the second part of that blog was posted this week I made a point of tweeting that person to tell them that the second part was now available to read.

And bingo! Within half an hour not only had she read it but had come back and requested an appointment to discuss our proposition in more detail.

Great result huh?

If you have any thoughts or comments on this then I’d love to hear them. And if you like what you’ve read then please share this with other people you think will enjoy this simple example.