The best thing about Twitter is also the worst thing. It’s quick and easy to use! Why is that bad? Because like many other online marketing tools and social networking apps, the risk of lost productivity can offset any gains achieved through the visibility.
If you let it. It’s also an incredibly effective tool not only for brand building, but for functional application of ideas that have always worked well offline.
Self-discipline online is up to each individual and company. Speaking as an easily-distracted self-employed business owner, I know the traps after a dozen years working online. Every day something new and exciting hits the web, and some are destined to truly change business and society. Well, maybe 1% of them. The other 99% are super-crackers, bursting on to the dark stage of the web with a crash of cymbals and lights, and their goal – whether by design or a changed trajectory of ambition – is to capture as much market share and $$$ as they can manage in the short window the flavor-of-the-day environment offers. In that funnel is the lost productivity of workers, at a scale impossible to calculate.
That’s the downside.
The upside is that Twitter, used properly in the business setting, is incredibly effective at building brand, communicating with customers, and even driving immediate sales.
For example… let’s say you’re a brick-and-mortar real world business renting kayaks and selling outdoor marine gear. How can you use Twitter effectively in your company?
Firstly, post your twitter link everywhere you go online, with a “Follow Me On Twitter” tagline that takes visitors to your twitter page where a one-click push gets them in your ‘twitter list’ – or twist, as I call it. Now you’re building your list.
What do Twitter users want when they follow someone?
NEED: A feeling of direct relationship with your company. As fast as you can get news out, they care enough to be the first to receive it. GET: instant information and being part of the ‘inside crowd’ for your business – a friend, even, of your company, often with the loyalty friendship suggests.
NEED: First mover advantage. GET: Blast a Tweet to a group you designate your best customers and let them know first about the launch of a new product, and perhaps even combine it with a real-time social networking wine & cheese after hours for your Twitter followers only.
NEED: You need to move product to make room for this season’s incoming items arriving this afternoon. GET: Run a timed sale… give a start and end time, with discount and what items are covered and send it to your tweet list.
NEED: Your mailing list to grow. GET: Start or grow your list by offering a service like weather tweets, guide tweets out on the water, or discounts if someone brings a friend into twitter who buys something.
So you can see how powerful Twitter can be in comparison to traditional methods of communication such as newspaper advertising (do you really want to wait until Friday to start your sale?) or email newsletters (are they checking their mail? did you get caught in their spam folder?).
So think hard about how YOU can use social networking in your business and then build it into your schedule responsibly (I twitter once a day, on my coffee break and have alerts about who has joined my list turned off on my phone to minimize distractions).
Related post: Twitter Add-Ons
