Although Twitter is still working on a way to profit from their free service, there is a way for your business to use it for driving sales.  For those who have never used Twitter, the service is a form of micro-blogging.  It allows a person to post small 140 character message that populate a twitter page (example: http://twitter.com/krefting).  These entries, known as tweets, are viewed by other people who visit the twitter page or subscribe to the person’s account.

Twitter is a great way for businesses to market products and services to interested followers, but what if they want to reach new potential customers?  At first glance this seems impossible because tweets are only viewable if the user searches for them or follows the company.  With this being a passive way of interacting with customers, it may not produce the results a business needs.

To take an active stance on marketing with Twitter, a company should find customers that may be interested in its products.  This can be done by searching the Twitter world for tweets that pertain to the company’s product or service.  If a person is tweeting about a problem he is having with a widget, and I sell widgets, he may be a perfect sales lead for me to pursue.

With this valuable subset of potential customers to contact, a business can send direct messages to advertise the product or service it is trying to sell.  @replies can also be used to communicate with the customer, but be aware that they will be publicly viewable.

For easy searching of tweets check out search.twitter.com or tweetgrid.com.