FUEL LINES Fueling Ad Agency New Business Through Social Media

Many ad agencies that are finally jumping into social media have no strategy.  A good number seemingly are checking off a list of social media tools they have subscribed to show their participation. What’s is more telling is their lack of credibility and comprehension of how to use social media to generate new business for themselves.

Twitter is one of the social media tools that can be used as tool for your agency’s social media marketing strategy to generate online traffic and a pipeline for new business leads. It is the leading traffic generator to my Fuel Lines’ blog.

Here are ten mistakes agencies should  avoid if they want to generate new business through Twitter:

1. Signing up then not participate. A tell-tale sign that Twitter is nothing more than a check-off on your social media check-list. When you rarely post to Twitter it will show.
2. Self Promotional Tweets. Agencies that sound more like cars salesmen, constantly using promotional Tweets to tout their agency’s new hires, new business acquisitions, awards, etc.
3. Hiding behind the agency’s veil. Using your agency’s name as the Twitter account without revealing who is doing the Tweeting. Even Ford Motor Company gets this right, having allowing @ScottMonty to be their social media spokesperson under his own Twitter name rather than through the company’s name. It’s awkward to try and engage with a company. Social media is about people. A lot of the same principals of face-to-face networking applies to social media networks such as Twitter.
4. Auto Responses. These drive not only me but will drive your prospects crazy. They are impersonal, and usually contain no value other than to clog up your Direct Message box forcing you to scan through dozens and dozens to reach those who have sent you a personal one.
5. Little if any value to your Tweets. 80 to 90% of my tweets are resources for my audience to help them with their new business challenges. They are a combination of posts from my blog and other resources that I usually find and pass on in my morning ritual of reading my RSS feeds in Google Reader. I use a tool call bit.ly to post an article, along with a shortened URL to Twitter.
6. Fail to generate Twitter traffic ‘to anything”. I have recommended that to agencies that they have a blog that becomes the “gateway” to the agency and generate traffic to the blog through tools such as Twitter. The blog serves as the central component to your social media strategy.
7. Failing to use 3rd party Twitter tools. These can tools help you identify your best target audience and build your Twitter account’s data base of followers within the ratios mandated by Twitter. Your agency’s blog content can stay fresh with new postings but older posts have a very long shelf life from not only SEO but also through repurposing posts to Twitter using some third party Twitter Tools such as SocialOomph. You can create a Twitter schedule as you would any other type of media schedule. It’s naive  to think if you have written a post that everyone has read it.
8. Using the reply function when you should use a direct message. Not every reply needs to be share with your entire Twitter audience. Almost all replies should probably be sent by Direct Message to the person.
9. Failing to engage in the conversation. It amazes me that most agency principals have reservations about engaging with their prospective client audience.  Social media and tools such as Twitter, provide the most efficient means of creating personal network with your agencies best prospects. I have over 30,000 followers on Twitter alone and it is easy to stay engaged and be part of the conversations without it requiring an undue amount of time. I probably spend no more than 15 minutes a day responding through Twitter.
10. Allowing the early adopters of Twitter to mandate how your agency should use it. Face it, Twitter has superseded anything envisioned by its creators or early adopters “way back in 2006.”  It’s amazing that it was the celebrities, not ad agencies, that first figured out the value and potential of Twitter.

Here are 20+ additional Twitter articles, specifically for ad agencies that can help you take advantage of Twitter’s growth for new business:

1. To Get the Most Out of Twitter Be a Maverick
2. How to take advantage of Twitter’s growth for ad agency new business
3. A Great Ad Agency New Business Tool to Optimize Twitter
4. How to Generate Traffic to Your Ad Agency’s Blog with Repeat Tweets
   
5. Twitter 101 for Ad Agency New Business
6. Ad Agencies: Useful In-Depth Data on How Twitter is Being Used
7. Study: Fortune 100 companies using Twitter more than any other social media platform
8. A Simple Twitter Formula for Ad Agency New Business
9. Ad Agencies: 5 Ways to Find Prospects on Twitter
10. 5 Ways I Use Twitter to Help Ad Agency New Business
11. Edward Boches, CCO for the Mullen Agency: What Twitter Can Do For You
12. Ad Agency CEOs Should Use Twitter
13. Twitter Traffic Explosion Being Led By 45-54 Year Olds
14. 3 Ways Twitter Can Make You A Better Writer
15. Tweetlater A Great Ad Agency New Business Tool
16. Ad Agencies: Top 10 Articles for Twitter Search
17. A Twitter Business Model Contest is Won by an Ad Agency
18. Socially Benefitting from My Twitter Habits
19. Today’s Top 10 Twitter Post for Ad Agency New Business
20. List of C Suite Executives Using Twitter
21. Top 5 Twitter Tools for Ad Agency New Business
22. Promoting Your Ad Agency Using Twitter?
23. Twitter List: 500+ Advertising Agencies on Twitter