Many many years ago people probably thought having a phone wasn’t necessary for business. However, the same thought today would sound silly. The same happened with the advent of the Internet. However, companies gradually embraced the idea of having a web site as an essential part of being in business. Now it is happening again with social media. Businesses are quickly learning that social media is becoming the new way to reach customers. One of the social sites leading the pack is Twitter. Twitter is now essential to business. If governments in Africa and middle east can be brought down by it, then realize how powerful it can be if harnessed for your business.
So why do businesses need Twitter?
Twitter is for the most part just another means to communicate. The difference is that unlike the telephone where it is a conversation between usually two people, Twitter allows you to converse with thousands (if not millions of people) at once.
How can your business use Twitter?
This can be done in several ways on Twitter. First is through building a following, where people are tuning in to your message by following the Tweets you make. This following you can think of as a client list or prospect list. They are people who might represent business today or in the future. If you give out the right information, then they will become clients/customers sooner rather than later. The second method of reaching these people and the more than 200 million people on Twitter is done via hashtags. For businesses hashtags represent conversations on a topic. A hashtag could be your product name or service. For example #microsoft or #seo. The hashtag could have been started by a competitor or customer, but how you engage using these tags can impact your success with Twitter. Unlike traditional means of marketing, Twitter only costs time and the reward for the time spent is the ability to reach out to more people than was ever possible before these social networks existed.
So is your business on Twitter? My next post will explain the pitfalls of Twitter and show how to get the most out of it. Please feel free to comment or ask questions. Or better yet Tweet your question to me.
