It is no secret that Twitter can help you interact with customers and expose your business to potential clients, but how do you connect with the right people? Directly connecting with customers in your area of business is crucial, since you will most likely benefit more from these people than those from Bangkok, Thailand, 8263 miles away.
In Charlene Kingston’s article, “5 ways to use Twitter to Connect With Local Customers,” she suggests five different ways to help you pinpoint people who are in your neighborhood, allowing you to penetrate your target market. Listed are some of these techniques.
1. Find local people using Tweets near you
You can search Twitter for your city name and it will locate Tweets about your location. After you search for your city, simply press the “Tweets near you” tab and it will show a list of tweets that matched your search criteria in most recent order. Once you identify those who are in your area, click on the account name. This will allow you to view their information and if they check out, follow them.
2. Find local people with your city name in their profile
You could also find people close to you by searching for the city name in their profiles; however, Twitter does not show everyone near or in your city. After you search for your city, press the “people” tab which is located to the right of the “tweets near you” tab. View their profile. If they seem like someone that could be a potential customer, add them.
3. Find people using Twitter Grader or Twellowhood
There are websites out there that can help you locate those near your location, such as Twitter Grader and Twellowhood. Twitter Grader is a nifty tool in which it searches the tweet stream and Twitter profiles and generates a list of the top 50 people in each city. Much like the Twitter site, you can view their account summary and follow them if they check out. Twellowhood can also come in handy. Twellowhood serves as a public directory for Twitter. It will search for Twitter users in your city and display a list of users, in which you could pick and choose from.
Following and interacting with a large number of Twitter users is great. Following those that are located near your location is even better, especially if your business operations do not extend far from your vicinity. It also comes in handy if you are targeting a specific group of people who may not necessarily be in your location. For example, if you make surf boards and you are located in Alaska, it may be smart to follow and interact with those who are located near the beach like Santa Barbara. As you can see, these techniques will come in handy when location is a key factor.
