How you can earn money by positioning yourself as a consultant on Twitter

Written by Mojca Marš

You know what was really difficult? Finding clients after losing my job at an advertising agency. Where should I start? Cold-calling? Networking? How do people these days find new clients?

I wish someone had told me sooner about the magical tool called Twitter. I’ve used Twitter before, but never like this. I didn’t know it can bring actual money on the table if done right! I see social media in a totally different light now.

It changed my life and there’s a great chance it can change yours as well.

Where I am now

A funny thing about my clients? My first interaction with all of them happened on Twitter. All of them.

They stumbled upon my profile (from retweets or from replies, I’ll get into details later), checked me out, followed me, read my updates and later converted as my client. All of that because of my Twitter presence.

When you have 0 clients, 0 referrals, no webpage, Twitter is a good place to start.

You can express your thoughts, share your opinion, and if you’re good enough at doing it, people will listen.

Getting the same business results with your Twitter presence isn’t rocket science. All you need is some knowledge from your industry that you already have and some communicational skills that I’ll teach you right now. It’s all about helping people, sharing your knowledge and spreading the word about outstanding results your clients/you achieve. The rest is just improving your strategy and generating even more outstanding results.

3 rules

Here are 3 rules you should follow for creating an appealing Twitter presence and leveraging that to its full potential.

1. Show personality with every tweet you send out

Your tweets are an extension of your personality. Don’t hide it away on Twitter, show it with pride!

Gary Vaynerchuk is loud and has a strong opinion about everything. His powerful persona can be felt throughout all the tweets he sends out. He does not hide his personality. Instead, he proudly flaunts it.

Nothing stands out more on Twitter than a person with a unique personality. When was the last time you were charmed on Twitter by a person’s averageness? Don’t try to blend in with the crowd, stand out from it.

You shouldn’t confuse showing your personality with creating one though. Don’t create a fake persona. People will know and will call you out. The easiest way to success is to be true to yourself and others.

2. Be helpful and create value

You gotta give in order to receive. That goes for Twitter as well.

The best way to establish yourself as a professional and create a doorway for your future clients is to be helpful within the scope of your capabilities.

If you’re a developer, tweet about cool coding solutions you discovered recently. If you’re a designer, help someone who is asking about design tips and advices from a design professional.

Don’t hide away your knowledge. Nobody’s going to steal it. Show people what you’re capable of doing. Give value. Share links. Reply to questions.

Publicly showing your capabilities will attract new people to your profile. If you equip your Twitter profile with an appealing bio that shines your personality and displays your interests throughout and a link to your webpage (if you have it), you can expect amazing results.

If people in need of help don’t pop up on your Twitter feed, go find them! Twitter search can be a great tool for finding these people and even getting new clients!

For instance, when I was was looking for people I could help, I searched for general keywords like “social media” and “help social media”, but I also searched for specific ones like “facebook page new likes”. You’ll definitely need to do some keyword-tweaking from the start, but you’ll get better and reach great results in no time.

Money-making tip: Sharing results you achieved with your past clients (or with work on your own project) can be a great way of boosting your business. I landed multiple big clients just because I openly shared screenshots of great results we achieved with other clients. Speak up about your achievements. You definitely have something great to be proud of.

Share the insights of your industry and you’ll earn respect and money.

3. Engage

Pushing out valuable content is great, but you shouldn’t forget about another vital piece of the puzzle – engaging with other people.

While building up your Twitter presence for the sake of getting new clients is definitely some sort of a sales process, you shouldn’t act like a sales-person. You know, the one who can’t stop talking.

The more you engage with the people you follow (even with your role models!), the more exposure you’ll get. More exposure means bigger potential to get new followers. And not just followers, but new clients as well.

Engaging in general discussions reveals your personality and that acts like a magnet. This action brought many clients my way. After engaging with people I admire for several weeks, I got contacted by them, saying “I love your point of view and what you do. What do you say, can we do something great together?”

Just pushing out content, no matter how valuable, can turn people off. But finding out the perfect balance between posting your tweets and replying to other people’s tweets can do magic!

Engage with at least 3 people a day. It doesn’t have to be a professional discussion. You can hop in and express your opinion about things like travel, pets or coffee as well. Nothing’s off limits on Twitter.

Small investment, big return

Establishing a strong Twitter presence is a small investment which will result in big return if you follow these 3 easy rules.

Make room for Twitter on your calendar. Work on your Twitter presence at least 30 minutes a day. You’re a professional, it’s time to show others what you’re capable of.

If you enjoyed this article, you can tweet, pocket or share it on facebook.

Written by Mojca Marš

Mojca is the founder of Super Spicy Media, a social media agency. She helps companies manage their social media profiles so they can focus on running their business.

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