I'm sure you've heard of Twitter before…

Without spending too much time on what Twitter is, let's just say that Twitter is a place where people describe what they're doing at any point in their day.

But few business owners have a clear understanding of how they could actually find customers using Twitter.

This tactic can apply to almost any business. I'm going to use an example of a wedding planner, wedding photographer, or anyone else that is involved in the running of a wedding.

In this example, we want to be able to connect with people that are going to be married at some point in the near future. These are our prospective customers that could utilize our services.

We want to find people that:
-are getting married in the near future
-are probably planning a wedding
-and are located within 30 miles from San Diego, CA (in this particular example)

But how do you find these people?

Using search features of Twitter, I'm able to search through all of Twitter and find people based on what they've said, where they're located, etc.

For example, if someone says the word fiance, then they're going to be getting married at some point in the near future. If someone says "spent a relaxing afternoon with my fiance at home", then they are someone we want to reach (assuming they're located in San Diego).

The way that I do this is by typing the following words into Search.Twitter.com.

"fiance" near:92109 within:30miles

This will produce a list of people that have said the word fiance on their twitter account and are located within 30 miles of the 92109 zipcode (in San Diego).

But Everyone Isn't a Prospect

At that point, you would want to sort through the results Twitter provides to find people that fit your target market. For example, not everyone that says "fiance" is someone that you want to contact. As you read through the Twitter results, you'll realize that some people are talking about friends' fiances or completely unrelated topics.

Go to search.twitter.com and start browsing around to find people that are related to your business based on various things that they say.

I'll be showing you how to actually market effectively to these prospects in a future blog post, but you can contact me here with questions. I'd be happy to discuss this with you.