Twitter for business: To tweet or not to tweet?
Posted by Brian Snider
Twitter blew onto the scene with its 140 character limit to messages, offering a succinct way to stream information to anyone who chooses to read them. On the surface it seems inane. Who wants to hear about what someone fed their dog or how they can make $1000 a day by paying $39.95 to buy into someone else's system? And yes, there are loads of inspiring quotes from famous and non-famous people. These sorts of things are on Twitter, but how can they help your business?
In most cases, they won't, at least not directly. But neither will a lot of traditional media, which costs much more money. One beautiful thing about Twitter is that it only costs time. You can have someone send out a tweet once or twice a day and go on to other tasks. Once you get a feel for how it can help you and your business, Twitter can become an invaluable tool.
Here are a few suggestions about what you can do with it:
- Use Twitter to create a list of potential clients. Tweeting only about your business, however, won't usually get you too many followers. Many of the top tweeters have quotes or a catchy phrase followed by a link that encourages someone to visit a website and in turn buy a product or service.
2. Develop relationships with customers. The brevity of tweets means people have to cut to the heart of a matter, or else lose the interest of other tweople (yes, that will be a word one day). It allows you to share information about your products or services and allows customers to briefly tell you what they like (or don't like) about them.
3. Share information. It is excellent for engaging people in this digital age, and if you want to share more information, just Twit it, which will create a tinyurl out of any domain that will fit neatly into a Tweet. Thus with the push of a button you can share information directly with hundreds or thousands of people. An additional bonus is if others distribute your message for you by re-tweeting it.
4. Use it for market research. You can see what other words people are using to find out information about your area of business, which helps with choosing SEO words for websites or blogs.
5. Networking. By building a network of people in your industry, you will expand where and to whom you market. Say your business involves roofing. A sizable construction company that's been following you (perhaps even without your knowledge) sees your tweet and asks you to bid on a project. So all that time you were wasting Twittering wasn't really a waste after all.
There are numerous strategies and sub-strategies that can help grow your business, and these are but a few. The main thing is you keep at it, tweet several times a day and keep it interesting for your audience.
