How to Leverage Twitter to Grow Your Brand and Find New Clients

Twitter may not have the reputation for being as business-focused as LinkedIn or have the audience size of Facebook, but it's one of the most underrated and misunderstood social networks among professionals and businesses. Anyone looking to grow their brand and find new clients should be able to get value out of Twitter.

Gil Media Co.

In particular, the following two overlooked aspects of Twitter help make it one of the best platforms for any type of company to improve their marketing:

1. Twitter is a real-time search engine.

Perhaps more than any other platform, Twitter is plugged into the present. The short-form, written nature of the content on Twitter means that people are constantly sharing what they think about TV shows, conferences, product launches, etc., literally as they are happening.

From a marketing point of view, you can use Twitter to gauge market sentiment and find new clients by searching for keywords and phrases relevant to your brand or industry. For example, if you're a real estate agent, you can search for phrases like "moving to (insert your city or neighborhood here)" or "looking for a realtor in (insert your city or neighborhood here)."

You can also see what customers have to say about your brand or competitors and use that information to grow. For example, if you see someone complain about a competitor on Twitter, you can swoop in to offer a way to remedy the situation for that client.

2. You don't need a large following to be effective.

The real-time nature of Twitter, along with the fact that you can see and respond to any public conversations, means that you don't need a large (or any) following to be effective. On LinkedIn and Facebook, your ability to interact with others through a brand channel is limited, whereas on Twitter you can more easily engage directly with potential clients you find when searching for relevant conversations.

Your content can also be discovered by anyone if you use the right keywords and hashtags. And all it takes is one retweet or response from someone with a significant following in order for your post to quickly be seen by a far larger audience than your follower count might indicate.

So instead of aiming to rack up followers, focus on being present and active in conversations where you can demonstrate your thought leadership, provide value to potential clients, and ultimately improve your brand reputation and awareness.

These are just a few of the many ways that Twitter can be a gold mine for marketers and other professionals looking to grow their brands.

On November 11, at 12:00 PM ET, I'll be hosting a 60-minute virtual workshop on Entrepreneur about how you can boost your business using Twitter. The workshop will dive more into these overlooked aspects of Twitter, along with other key insights such as:

• How to get more reach by selling less and engaging more
• How to use Twitter in tandem with LinkedIn to more effectively reach relevant decision-makers
• How to more easily discover what's being said about your brand, competitors and industry
• How to thrive in the Wild Wild West of social media by becoming a digital savage

You'll also have the chance to ask me questions directly about how to improve your social media marketing. Save your spot now, complimentary with an Entrepreneur Insider subscription or available for a one-time fee of $19.