Twitter: Who cares, right? Wrong!

Alright, so let’s get this out in the open.

You’ve heard about it, you’ve even signed up and started following some people, maybe some of your friends. But let’s face it, you don’t really care that they missed the bus, ate a turkey sandwich for lunch or had to take their car into the garage that morning.

“I don’t have time” and “I don’t get why people want to talk about random things”, most of you would probably say.

Do you go to networking events? 5 a 7’s? Business meet-ups? Most of you could probably answer yes to this. How do you normally start a relationship? General conversation? Asking the basics? Talking about the weather?? Discussing last night’s hockey/football game? The great restaurant you went to that just opened up in your neighborhood? These seemingly random things form the beginning of relationships.

Sound familiar?

What if you could walk into that same networking event/5 a 7/business meet-up and know which people might be interested in your services? “Yes, of course!”, you say.

Welcome to Twitter.

The above exchange is similar to what I’ve had with so many professionals who have heard the buzz about Twitter but just don’t know how to apply it to business.

One of the best ways to get started with ‘Listening’ is to use the ‘Twitter Search’ feature. Simply go to search.twitter.com and click on ‘Advanced’. You will see the screen below:

What if you could know exactly which people in your area looking for a new house? Or looking for a gift for their husband’s birthday? Or a new yoga class? You can!

Simply start by entering some of the key words related to the problem you’re trying to solve. Then enter your postal (zip) code in the “Near this place” field and adjust the radius distance as you like. Then just click search.

You may have to try several experiments to find the tweets you are looking for but once you figure out the tweets that you are looking for, you can then subscribe to the feed of the search. Now you have a list of relevant tweets delivered to your RSS reader as they come.

There are several ways that you can start. Some businesses opt to take a direct approach by replying with a tweet referring to their solution, with a special offer or even discount. Others work indirectly and will start by following these potentials and start building a relationship. It will take practice and some experimenting but eventually you will get the hang of it!

It’s worth trying out-where else can you find a real-time, no-cost solution providing you access to an abundance of people who just may be looking for your solution.