Tweet Your Way to Insanely Valuable Market Research

Tweet Your Way to Insanely Valuable Market Research:from Business 2 Community by C-Payne
If you haven’t already read my post about an unbelievably easy way to conduct market research and how it boosted my selling overnight, you may want to check it out. It covers a fair amount of background on using LinkedIn to learn customers’ buying habits. This post will be short and sweet and will focus on a simple Twitter tip that you can use to get inside their head.
As most of you know, Twitter is a.w.e.s.o.m.e! It’s a 24/7 real-time public broadcasting system and it can be used in a multitude of effective ways for businesses. In the case of conducting stellar market research, we’re going to focus on a proven, fundamental concept that’s used with a Twitter twist.If you’re thinking about selling a product or service, or if you’re already selling a product or service, you had better be taking time to speak with real customers! I’m sick and tired of hearing about new business owners who “think” they’ve got a great idea because their friends and confidants tell them they’re so smart. Every business is judged by one metric—its ability to make a profit by offering a product or service of value to a willing consumer. I can’t overemphasis the importance of learning about your customer’s needs, desires, expectations, and pain points up front. This can only be truly accomplished by having multiple real-life conversations with them. This is particularly important for those who are in the process of launching a business or those who’ve recently launched. Conducting market research will save you a lot of pain, time and money.
The goal here is simple. Find targeted, potential customers. Ask them questions about your business, products and services. Quantify and analyze the data. Make sound marketing decisions based on the data.
Here’s how to conduct market research in Twitter.
Once you’re logged in, do a keyword search for potential customers that are talking or asking questions about the types of products/services that you offer. As mentioned earlier, Twitter is a 24/7 public broadcast platform so nearly everything that people say on Twitter, you can find and capitalize on. For help better understanding the use of Twitter Search to find targeted, potential customers, see my Week 2 Millionaire Marketing Recap video. I break it down step-by-step there.
Once you have a list of potential customers staring you in the face, talk to them. Yep, here’s where the “Social” in social media kicks in. Ask them questions that will help you make better business decisions. Here are some examples:
“@TwitterUser Hey I noticed that you were talking about product/service…”
-       I agree/disagree because..… What do you think?
-       Why do you feel that way?
-       Care to answer 1 question to help a small business owner?
-       I’m a new entrepreneur and your feedback on 2 questions would mean the world to me. Can you spare a 5-minute phone call?
-       Would you choose feature X, feature Y, or feature Z if you were buying this
By asking these questions to targeted, potential customers, you’re pulling out valuable data that you can use to make better business decisions. For instance, if you uncover a common pain point that customers struggle with when using your product, you can plan a feature enhancement for the next iteration of that product. Or maybe potential customers get really excited about certain things that your competitor does… Why not incorporate their strategy into your own? You can even use the data and rewrite your marketing copy (website, Facebook page, handouts, etc.) to maximize your business’ ability to catch potential customers attention and convert them into paying customers!
Now, for those of you who feel that this is intrusive or imposing, it’s not. Since these people are already talking about your topic (i.e. products/services your company offers) in a forum that they know is 100% public, it’s understood that people will see it and strike up a conversation. Besides, those people who don’t want to be bothered will simply ignore your tweet and not respond. No worries though, because a respectable amount of people willwant to have a dialogue and help you out.
Hopefully, you recognize the power of Twitter and will begin using it to get feedback and other helpful information to grow your business. Happy researching!