The answer is yes… BUT, not in the way most people think it can.
If you do it the wrong way, you risk getting branded a slimy spammer.
Twitter is about conversations and people don’t want to have conversations about giving you money. Certainly not when they hardly know you… If/when they DO want to have that conversation THEY want to be the ones to initiate it.
Instead, they want to have conversations about things that interest them… or, problems they are trying to solve… or, goals they are striving towards.
One of the best things you can do is get REAL clear on how your company makes a person’s life better, what area(s) it helps them improve.
I mentioned in an earlier post “7 Ways to Sell More Software (or anything else) Using Web2.0, Social Media and Direct Response Principles” the importance of developing your Positioning statement.
Does it help them save time?
Do better work?
Play harder?
Save money?
Make them a lot more money?
Smarter?
Getting clear on this will help you, and others in your company, start and participate in VALUABLE and meaningful conversations with your followers, many of whom are also prospects.
If your product helps people create better logos then tweet:
- links to the creation of logos
- interviews with top designers
- case studies of how your software has helped designers produce better logos, and
- valuable videos that show logo design techniques (using your software of course BUT applicable to logo design in general).
Give. Give. Give.
They’ll love you for it. They’ll follow your tweets more closely. They’ll click those links. They’ll read those resources.
Then, when they realize all the good you’ve done them, they’ll feel great about giving you money.
They’ll also feel great about recommending you to others. Retweeting you. Talking about your blog posts. Talking about your brand.
The result: More sales. Good karma.
Jason
P.S. Here are some excellent blog posts on this very subject.
One is by a software company owner who started off direct messaging others to buy his software but then learned to use Twitter as a tool for conversations and has profited in more ways than one: 999 Followers, or How my Twittering Has Changed. A very honest and candid post by someone who now “gets it” and is doing very well.
The other is by Chris Brogan, a Social Media Expert… “50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business”