Twitter for business
Businesses now use the Twitter to pre-announce new products, get feedback, share upcoming deals or for tracking buzz around their products and services.
For instance, the Dell Outlet uses Twitter to announce deals and discounts on refurbished Dell computers. JetBlue Airways and Southwest Airlines use Twitter to let customers know about new routes and fare discounts. News sites like BBC and The New York Times publish breaking new stories on Twitter thus replacing the traditional email alerts.
Twitter, it is one of those “web 2.0” phenomenon that’s got everyone excited, even those who don’t really understand it. Many of my clients and colleagues have come to me and simply put, say “I don’t get it”. They’ve heard something that makes them think they should know what Twitter is about; but everything inside of them is telling them it is irrelevant. So, what is Twitter? Is it relevant to business and why don’t people get it?
Twitter is a communication tool. It has been called a micro-blogging platform.
If our instant messaging clients let us create groups and send one IM that hit the entire group – that would be like Twitter. If cell phone providers let us group our phonebook contacts and send an SMS to that group – that would be like Twitter. However, someone came along and did something similar to both of these things and that actually is Twitter. Current estimates of total users using twitter top out around 5 million. That’s a lot of opportunity.
Twitter allows you to post updates (called Tweets) as often as you want (and limited to 140 characters). When you follow other people on Twitter, you see their tweets. When they follow you, they see your tweets. It’s a constant stream of communication. 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 Twitter Search.
We all know that person who fills our inbox with junk or leaves unbearably long voice-mails – but Twitter etiquette is defined by the user and their relationship with their user group. You can be as annoying or informative as you please – Twitters (or Tweets) are opt-in. You decide to receive these communications; unlike e-mail, IM, SMS and phone calls which are directed towards you and you receive regardless of your desire (you can opt to ignore, but even that can be annoying).
Practical Ways Twitter Can Help Your Business
- Getting Traffic and Leads
If you are in a lead generation business, Twitter can help you locate and communicate with people who can use your product or service. Links to examples of people making use of Twitter to meet people and start a sales process. Plus additional Twitter tools to help you with lead generation. - E-commerce leads
What if you sell a widget or have some other business method that doesn’t require an exceptionally deep relationship with your customer? Perhaps you’ll find Twitter to be useful for promoting sales or making limited offers. - Here what they say about your brand
Individuals are using Twitter to talk about things they love and hate. If they love your brand it’s good to know. If they hate it, perhaps you can find out why and fix it. Links to examples of people using Twitter to hear what others are saying about them… and then taking action to improve any bad experiences. Plus software that helps you monitor and listen to Twitter conversations. - Customer Service
People are talking and describing their experiences on Twitter. Their experience with your business might be a topic of conversation. Be pro-active and use Twitter as a genuine customer service channel. These are articles about how to use Twitter to improve your customers’ experience with your product and/or service. - Trend Watching
Perhaps there are general topics and conversations that are relevant to your business. Twitter makes a great tool for watching what sort of new buzz is being generated online. These are examples of tools and techniques to identify rising trends via Twitter.
Tools to help you manage Twitter
One thing I am big on when I Consultant with a Business Owners is maximizing their time and doing things smart. So when I recommend this communication tool to a business owner I want to give them the tools they need to be successful at it. I don’t want to see a business owner struggle to figure this out and spend countless hours. So here are some of the tools to put in your Business Twitter tool box so that you can focus on your business and not spend time finding the best tools to do so.
Warning there are many out there and these are just a few. My professional Business Consulting advice is to pick the ones that work for you and your business. Some tools may work for others but you have to find the ones that work for you.
If you also own a product or a service, here are some essential tools to help you harness the full power of Twitter without making any dent in your existing marketing budget because these tools are completely free:
- TweetLater: This powerful service allows you to schedule tweets (much like you would schedule emails). Say if you are announcing a new product at 10 AM EST tomorrow, write a message through TweetLater and it will automatically get published to your Twitter status exactly at the time you want. You need not be texting at the time of actual launch.Another very powerful feature 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.
- Twitter for Facebook: If you are on Facebook, this application forwards your Twitter updates directly to Facebook as status updates.
- Twitter Feed – This service fetches new content from your blog (or any site that supports RSS feeds ) and publishes a link in your twitter account. It will help your existing customers stay updated about news related to products they already own.
- Tweet Scan - This is like Google for Twitter. It will solve two problems:a) Tweet Scan is great for monitoring feedback about your product from conversations happening in the Twitter universe. And they provide RSS feeds so you’ll automatically know when people tweet about products.b) With Tweet Scan, you can find existing customers who are already on Twitter and follow them so they come to know about your existence. Or you may search for the name of your competing products and track potential customers.
- Twitter PollDaddy - This service lets you use Twitter for getting opinions or for asking questions through polls. Type your question with a list of potential answers and post it to your Twitter account.So if you are nearing a product release and only one of the two features can make it to the final product, use Twitter PollDaddy service to learn from customers which of the two features they think is more important to them.
- Quotably - This is another quintessential twitter service that makes it easy for you to follow conversations happening around your tweets. It arranges replies to all your tweets in a threaded form much like the way you see discussions on usenet groups.
- TwitterReply - With Twitter, your customers get an alternate way to get in touch with you through public tweets or even direct messages. They may want to know the contact number of your support team or they could be looking for a manual which can they can’t locate on your website.TwitterReply sends you an instant email whenever there’s a new tweet for you in the Twitter universe. You need it because customers contacting you through Twitter may be looking for instant answers.
- We Follow ( http://wefollow.com/ )
A user powered Twitter directory. Add yourself to categories that are relevant to your social media persona. - FriendFeed http://www.friendfeed.com
FriendFeed is a web service that allows you to add all your updates from social media websites, social networks, blogs and social bookmarking and micro-blogging services into one place, along with the more common feed types like RSS and Atom.FriendFeed also allows you to subscribe to the streams of other people, such as family members, friends and work colleagues. Currently, there’s support for fifty nine different feed source. - Twitangle
Manage your friends and followers with tags ( http://www.twittangle.com/ )
This tool lets you rate and tag your friends and filter them on a timeline! You can also create custom groups of your followers and filter you timeline by that group. - Twitalyzer ( http://www.twitalyzer.com/twitalyzer/index.asp )
Evaluate the activity of any Twitter user and report on relative influence, signal-to-noise ratio, generosity, velocity, clout, and other useful measures of success in social media. - ReTweet Rank ( http://www.retweetrank.com/ )
Find out how popular your tweets are. - Mr. Tweeep ( http://mrtweet.net/ )
Find relevant and interesting Twitter users to follow. - Twitscoop ( http://www.twitscoop.com/snapshot/2008/12/9/2245.html )
Stay on top of twitter’s hot topics or discussions in real time. - Untweeps ( http://untweeps.mobeezy.mobi )
Unfollow people who have not updated within “X” amount of days
Find out the tweeps out of your followers who have not updated within a specified number of days (you can decide how many days is it) and lets you unfollow them - Twitalert ( http://www.twilert.com/ )
Receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service, well any keyword you like really. - Ping.fm ( http://splitweet.com/ )
Update over 30 social networking sites at once (including: linkedin, facebook, Twitter). - SEOtrack ( http://seotrackonline.com/ )
Maximize your social media traffic & optimize your website, blog etc for search & social media ? Audit your website’s architecture with this free site tool: http://seotrackonline.com/
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Laura Gonzalez President of Virtual Business Solutions, providing Business and Website Consultant and Coach. Specializing in teaching professionals how to leverage the internet and their website as a tool to generate new customers, increase sales and be more productive.
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© 2009 Laura Gonzalez & Virtual Business Solutions
