Social media has opened up your access to millions of people who are potential leads for your business. All you have to do is to connect with them and develop a relationship that may lead to doing business together in the future. There’s definitely a right and a wrong way to go about this process, so stick to these best practices for generating leads with Twitter.

1. Identify and Follow Potential Leads:

You have to give a little to get something back, so start by following people or companies who you think may be interested in your products or services. Search for people tweeting about your industry, or for known brands, companies, and individuals you would like to sell to. Once you follow them, spend some time each day reading their tweets to understand more about what they care about and are looking for.

2. Post Relevant Content:

Nobody is going to follow you back if you aren’t tweeting, so schedule at least one tweet each day that contains content that’s relevant to your potential leads. Don’t just push your products, and in fact, it’s best if you don’t even talk about your products at all. Instead, link to interesting articles in your industry, ask thought-provoking questions about the problems your products solve, and start conversations about industry issues.

3. Retweet to Engage in Conversations:

When there’s a particular prospect you want to nurture, retweet one of that person or company’s tweets to help get yourself noticed. Add a brief idea or comment of your own to the tweet to demonstrate that you want to engage in a conversation. If one starts, use it as an opportunity to build trust rather than jumping to your attempted sale right away. Remember, you’re generating leads with Twitter, not engaging in direct marketing.

4. Gather Contact Information to Build Lists:

Sales don’t ultimately happen on Twitter, so you’ll need to take things to the next level at some point if your lead is going to become a customer. One of the best ways to do this is to offer something on Twitter, like a free ebook or a white paper, and link to a landing page on your website. Capture the lead’s information before giving the content away so you’ll be better able to market directly to this lead to generate a sale.