One of the reasons Twitter is a great network for sales is because you can connect with anyone without waiting for a follow, friend request, or like. No matter what business you are in, if you are selling something, you can utilize Twitter to help you connect with more clients and customers.

Let's take a look at using Twitter for sales through the lens of a real estate agent.

1. Sell with Your Profile

When people visit your profile, they should know exactly what you do, what you have to offer, and how to contact you for more information. This is why you need to use the following key areas to ensure that potential clients will get the best first impression.

Fill Out Your Bio

You have 160 characters to describe yourself on Twitter. Be sure to do so and use the same keyword rules that you would with your website. If you are a realtor in Charlottesville, Va., then that should be in your Twitter bio.

Link to a Landing Page

Create a landing page just for people who visit your website from Twitter to give followers a full summary of what you do, a few of your best testimonials, what you are currently selling, a contact form and phone number to reach your. Or, at bare minimum, link them to your website's homepage.

To create landing pages yourself, check out apps like Unbounce and Lander. New leads from contact forms on those sites can be sent to just about any CRM or email marketing system when you use them in combination with Zapier.

Add Your Location

If you work in a specific region, adding your location is very important for people who might be searching for help in you area.

Make Use of the Header Photo

Twitter now allows you to add a 1,500 pixels wide x 500 pixels high header photo at the top of your Twitter profile. Use this to visually represent yourself or one of the latest properties you are selling. Make sure the images are high-resolution!

Pauline Cabrera, author of the blog TwelveSkip, offers a helpful Twitter header photo design template that she created after testing her design on different screen resolutions and the iOS Twitter app.

Include Photos and Videos in Tweets

Using data on its own tweets last year, Buffer crunched the numbers on the clicks, favoriting and retweeting of tweets with and without images. Of the 100 tweets analyzed, tweets with images performed better than those without, receiving 18% more clicks, 89% more favorites, and 150% more retweets.

In a sales role, especially as a real estate agent, there's another benefit to images, too. The most recent ones get added to the left side of your profile under "Photos and Videos".

So when you list a new property for sale, tweet a photo or video of it along with a link to the property page with your information on it. This way, when people click on one of the photos and videos from your profile, they'll get a link to it, too.

Great listing with numerous upgrades! 21 Erin Ridge Drive $489,900 #remax #lovewhereyoulive pic.twitter.com/bgpBk2G0Cc

— Denise Royer (@royerproperties) June 15, 2014

Pin Your Best Tweets

Have a great tweet that you want to remain at the top of your profile? Be sure to use the pin option to stick it to the top of your Twitter timeline so new visitors to your profile don't miss it.

Engage with Others

Some people are more likely to follow others who have demonstrated that they not only broadcast tweets, but they also engage in conversations with others. So be sure to monitor your mentions and reply to anyone who chats with you. Also, use the next tip to find and connect with more people.

2. Search for People Who Need Help

After talking with friends and using Google search, people will turn to social networks for referrals when they need help. Lots of people, for example, need a realtor.

You can use Twitter search to find these people, using the following search phrase that will find tweets with the exact phrase I need a realtor. The –http –https will remove any tweets that have links in them, which should filter out people who are tweeting an article or other realtors who are tweeting out their website.

Search: "I need a realtor" -http -https

A general Twitter search like this one is perfect for agencies that have realtors across the country. You can also get specific by using Twitter Advanced Search to search for people who tweet from a specific location or by adding a city name to your search query.

Once you find a search that produces quality results, you can save it on Twitter using the "Save" link at the top of the search results page. Then continue trying different phrases that people would use when looking to buy a house, planning to sell a house, and so forth.

Tip: To get alerted to new mentions of your search phrases, use Zapier to receive them via email, get a desktop notification via Signals by HubSpot or log them in a Google Docs spreadsheet. Just copy the search string that you use from the Twitter search box ("I need a realtor" -http -https) when setting up the alerts.

3. Tweet About Your Clients' Interests

People tend to not follow Twitter users who are always tweeting to sell something, so the next best way to attract potential clients to your tweets is to share content about your client's interests. For realtors, this would be content about the area your service covers. Movoto is a real estate service that has found a way to attract the right location-based customers to their Twitter account with content.

While reaching customers organically who are interested in information about the place they live or plan to move to, they can also promote these tweets using Twitter advertising to a highly targeted audience by location. It's perfect because even if a person is not buying or selling their home, they likely know someone who is, and Movoto will be on the top of their mind due to the great content they share.

Tip: Even if you don't create a lot of content, you can still share content from others by following blogs about your region. You can even add automation to the content sharing process with the following Zapier integration that will place new posts from an RSS feed in your Buffer queue, allowing you time to edit tweets before they're posted.

4. Generate Leads

There are two ways to generate leads with Twitter. The first is tweet out a landing page on your own website that encourages people to either subscribe to your mailing list or contact you for more information. To boost the likelihood that people will become a lead, you will want to create something for free. For a realtor, this might be a free guide to buying or selling a house, a free guide to the best places to take kids in your city, or something similar.

The second is to use Twitter Lead Generation Cards. They allow people who view your tweet to quickly submit their contact information using the name and email address they have linked to their account.

Both options allow you to also utilize Twitter advertising to promote either the tweet linking to your landing page or the tweet with your Lead Generation Card to reach a larger audience beyond your followers. The advantage to the Twitter Lead Generation Card is that you don't have to worry about losing the lead somewhere in between clicking on the link to your landing page in the tweet and actually filling out their information.

Tip: As you capture new leads using popular contact forms and email marketing software, you can automate the transfer of those new leads to your CRM with Zapier. For example, if you use Wufoo contact form, you can send new form entries to Salesforce.

In Conclusion

By utilizing your profile, tweets, and lead generation strategies, you can turn Twitter into a new source for sales. Do you use Twitter for sales? What have you found that works or doesn't work?

Credits: Header photo courtesy American Advisors Group via Flickr.