Business Tools: How to use Twitter for Business
When I first heard about Twitter I was told that it’s great for business. Then, thanks to Ashton Kutcher and Oprah and the mass awareness of Twitter, I have had a number of people ask me about Twitter over the last couple of weeks. What is it? What are the business uses? Is it just another waste of time? So, I have decided to dedicate this post to answering these questions as best as I can.
What Is Twitter? According to the definition on Wikipedia, Twitter is ‘a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as ‘tweets’. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length which are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have subscribed to them (known as followers).’ Once your Twitter account is setup you can nominate to ‘follow’ people (following) and people can nominate to ‘follow’ you (followers). Twitter is available via the web, SMS and instant messaging or emails, and users of Twitter update their posts by answering, “What are you doing now?”. The cross platform functionality and the ability to update on iPhone, Blackberry and mobile devices is very powerful as it allows users to communicate what they are doing, without cost, from anywhere. What are the Business Uses? It took me a while to get an understanding for how Twitter can be used for business but here are some suggestions that small businesses can benefit from:
- Twitter Search: Twitter has a really powerful search application (http://search.twitter.com/) that allows you to search for people or topics in real time. This provides a useful tool to listen to your customers, prospects or target demographic. Use Twitter Search by typing in your business name and see if anyone is commenting on you, or search for your products by name to identify opportunities around those products.
- Blog Post Tweets: If your small business has a blog Twitter is a great way to inform your followers about new posts. Using relevant keywords in your Twitter post will result in people searching Twitter potentially following you and getting to know you and your business.
- Promote Specials: If I’m following a business on Twitter there is a good chance that I’m interested in specials they are promoting. Catalogue specials and promotions that you update on your site could be the subject of your Tweets. Click here for an example of Twitter uses for Restaurants.
- Mentoring/Networking: Search for and follow the experts, authors and trade publications in your industry. Most will have a Twitter page by now, and by following them you can be the first to find out about new innovations or trends. This can be more valuable than ‘reader feeds’ because the expert you are following will tweet their articles as well as 3rd party articles or information that appeals to them.
Is Twitter A Waste Of Time? Twitter can be a waste of time if it isn’t used properly. Following too many people with countless ‘tweets’ about every passing moment would drive me mad. I follow people I’m interested in and I enjoy their updates due to the value of their tweets and what I can learn from their activity. I prefer to limit the number of people I follow because I couldn’t possibly ‘listen’ to hundreds of people. I think Twitter is a wonderful tool and welcome your feedback about the way you have used Twitter for business. If you like what I have to say you can also follow me on Twitter @sladesherman.
May 12th, 2009 at 4:39 am
A very nice post. I liked the way you have presented the business uses of Twitter which will prove very helpful for the new Twitter users. Thanks for posting these uses.
Regards,
Priyanka
http://www.deskaway.com/blog/
May 12th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Nice article. Twitter search is very helpful but I also find I use http://monitter.com/ a lot – you can put in multiple keywords and watch tweets real time & reply to them. I find it very useful for promoting certain things as well as finding potential followers (post useful replies to their questions and odds are they will follow you). I find it’s the quality, on topic follows that ae the best. I monitor (no pun intended) keywords at different times of the day for different accounts (tricky part is making sure you are logged into the *right* twitter account when you have multiples! lol)
May 12th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Hey ,
Thanks for this gr8 post . I have never realized the full potentials of twitter uptill now , but now i can understand it from a business point of view .
Regards
Sudeep
May 12th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Very helpful explanation and easy to understand. I’m discovering that Twitter can be a very useful marketing tool. Thanks for the post.
May 13th, 2009 at 12:46 am
Twitter is a sound business target. This article addressed it well. Smart people will put in the learning curve to “Get” and utilize Twitter to it’s max.
May 13th, 2009 at 3:31 pm
Thanks for the article. I recently embraced Twitter into my Social Media marketing plan, and have had some success for the purpose of advising the followers of specials.
It was nice to read your perspectives on this.
May 13th, 2009 at 8:02 pm
Well written and very informative! Thank you and Thanks to Lori for the tip on monitter.com
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May 21st, 2009 at 3:45 am
Hello, it was a pleasure reading these posts. They helped me to create interest in Jeff Paul’s money-making techniques. I was a jobless person, but today I’m running my own small internet business. Thanks for the post