The Local Online Marketing Guy

Can Twitter actually help my business or is it a complete waste of my valuable time? This was the very question I had asked myself, perhaps you’ve asked the same. When people I respect started singing the praises of Twitter, I decided to give it a go. At first I just didn’t get it. However, after a short while I was shocked at the level of access to high profile individuals I was able to achieve.

What is Twitter?

“Twitter is instant messaging made available to the public,” stated talk show host and author Hugh Hewitt. That’s a pretty fair assessment and a great place to start. Hugh tends to have a really good grasp on the advancement of technology and its influence as was evidenced in his book Blogger. In fact, I’ve heard others call Twitter a micro-blogging platform.

Here’s what you need to know: According to a report entitled the State of the Twittersphere, each and every day 5 to 10 thousand new people join Twitter. The current estimates of total users top out around 5 million. Just think of the opportunity. Within that 5 million are your customers, clients and prospects.

Twitter allows you to post updates affectionately called “Tweets.” These tweets can be posted as frequent or infrequent as you like with one catch: you are limited to 140 characters. That’s it. So be creative in how you tailor your messages.

While on Twitter, you have the chance to “follow” people. When you follow people on Twitter, you see their tweets. When they follow you, they see yours. Do you see how this translates into a messaging or micro-blogging platform? It creates a constant stream of communication between you, those you follow, and those that follow you. The good news is you can turn it on or off as often as you like. Twitter also keeps a public record of all updates, which can be mined with a free tool on there site called Twitter Search.

High-Profile People and Twitter

Although there have been claims to the contrary, Twitter is not just a fad. In fact, I was one of those in the beginning that believed that Twitter would never finds its legs. Boy was I wrong. When very high profile people began to evangelize Twitter, it was worth a closer examination. Here’s what some of those high profile people have said about this rather simplistic but powerful Social Media Platform:

Duct Tape Marketing founder John Jantsch identified three big advantages of Twitter, “(1) I get great insight when I ask questions, (2) let’s face it, I get terrific traffic to my website and (3) people on Twitter spread my thoughts to new places.”

CEO of Zappos.com Tony Hsieh said, “We’ve found that Twitter has been a great way for us to connect on a more personal level with our employees and customers. We use it to help build our brand, not drive direct sales. It’d be like asking how does providing a telephone number for customer service translate into new business when they are mostly non-sales-related calls. In the long term, Twitter helps drive repeat customers and word of mouth, but we’re not looking to it as a way of driving immediate sales.”

Bestselling author David Meerman Scott stated, “I have personally connected with hundreds of people I otherwise wouldn’t have, and I booked an interview on NPR and a big daily newspaper using Twitter.”

Copyblogger’s own Brian Clark said, “Twitter Search is an amazing way to see what people are saying about your products or services. For example, I’ll do searches for Thesis Theme and people will be asking questions about our WordPress Theme. I’ll use the reply function to answer the question, which has led to direct sales. Plus, my answer creates awareness of Thesis for others that follow me. It’s a form of constructive promotion.”

Here are a Few Tools to Help Your Twitter Experience

To help you make the most of your tweeting campaigns, Twitter has a world of available support applications you can employ to gain the most of this social platform for your business. Here a just a few of my favorites:

TwitterFox: This Firefox web browser plugin allows you to view Tweets within your web browser (in a popup menu). This is very handy and eliminates the need to constantly return and login to Twitter.com.
TweetLater: This powerful service allows you to schedule tweets (much like you would schedule emails). A powerful feature of this tool is the ability to receive email digests of keyword activity in the “Tweetosphere.” This allows you to join a conversation or track topics and trends.
Ping.fm: If you have accounts with many services, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, this amazing site allows you to post updates across ALL of your social media profiles in one single step eliminating the need to log into each and every account to update your status.
Twitter for Facebook: If you are on Facebook (Which you need to be), this application forwards your Twitter updates directly to Facebook as status updates.

The information provided above should get the wheels turning as to how you and your business can implement and use a Twitter campaign of your very own. Should you have any questions feel free to give me a call or submit your question via the contact us page. I will gladly point you in the right direction. �