For those of you not familiar with MiHi Digital or how we came to be, a little over two years ago I made the decision I was more of an employer than an employee, quit my marketing job at a regional law firm and started on my own.

No clients, just an understanding of how and where I would find them.

Fast forward 26 months and we’ve worked with more than 110 businesses operating across three continents; our clients past and present are turning over what is fast approaching a combined half a billion pounds each year.

How has that been achieved?

With a brand new twitter account we’d quoted for more than £70,000 of potential work inside our first six months.  Our business was built with Twitter.

How did we do that?

As much as I would love to claim we have some sort of magic formula for twitter success, what we actually have is a common sense approach to understanding where people are, how they behave, and how they want to be treated.

Let us tell you about some of the principals behind our tweeting philosophy (only some though – the rest are reserved for our clients!)….

How is it you add value?

No matter what you do, whether it’s a service or a product, you need to provide something that adds to the business or individual receiving it.

Gone are the days when this was always paid for.  We’re living in the knowledge economy; trust us, many people will now Google SEO techniques rather than pay an agency to conduct them on their behalf.

So what is it you’re giving people on Twitter? Is it information? Content?

We provide a wide range of articles giving away a lot of information.

Many people will look at this and say, “Why would you tell them all of that? Why wouldn’t you make them pay?”

The truth is that’s the wrong way of looking at it.  In its crudest form, the person reading our blog and trying it for themselves probably wasn’t looking to use us anyway.  The person that is, is the person that gains value from our posts, engages with them, perhaps tries some of the tips, and then understands that we can add value to our business.

That’s when the trigger to use us comes.  They understand we know our onions, and that we can add value.

Work out how you can do this with your twitter account because it’s the key to succeeding and gaining many enquiries.

Forget numbers!

I firmly believe you can generate as many enquires with 500 followers as you can with 2,000.

What is key is the quality of those followers. What defines quality? It’s ultimately linked to whom you want to reach with your product or service.

500 people that will buy from you are worth exactly the same as 2,000 followers, 500 of which will buy from you.

What we can all be lulled into is the ego of twitter; gain as many followers as possible and bow to that big number!

But to what end? The more people you’re following, the more information that passes your screen each and every minute.

Our success was borne out of setting criteria for the people we follow and sticking to it. Everyone that we follow could be a potential client for that reason, meaning that no tweets on our timeline are a waste; each and everyone is an opportunity to interact.

Start viewing life as a pipeline!

Sounds a strange thing to say, doesn’t it? However, if you think of the people that might buy your product or service they’re all at a point in your pipeline.

At one end you have those that would buy from you but don’t yet know you exist.

The other end is the holy grail; those that use you, and sing your praises because they know what you want the other end to know – that is that you’re good!

Think of Twitter of a way of reaching all of these people – and particularly moving those at the wrong end toward the right end.

When we first started nobody knew about us. Adding value (point one) and focusing on the right accounts (point two) meant we were able to move those at one end of our pipeline to another; they’re now our clients!

Engage, engage and engage

You’ll hear this from anyone on social media; get off the sales soapbox and engage with people.  If you follow this article, you should be sharing content of value to the right people you want to reach, meaning they’re moving nicely through your pipeline.

Engage with them, build that relationship so that when a procurement decision is there to be made, you’re the one they’re calling when they make it!

Remember this isn’t instantaneous; might not be today, might not be tomorrow, but when they need your help it’ll be you that seals the deal!

It takes time!

All things in life worth having are worth trying for.

You get out what you put in.

There are a multitude of cliché’s we could hit you here with, but ultimately, if you don’t spend a sufficient amount of time on Twitter you won’t get the results you want.  For all the strategic help we can give you, if you don’t put the hard yards in, you’ll always fall short of your Twitter dreams!

For information on how we can help you build a content strategy that brings home the bacon please give us a call on 01566 232323 or email hello@mihidigital.co.uk