Small business can reap Twitter rewards too
Many of our small business customers have yet to try Twitter. Although this micro-blogging technology offers some useful tools for companies of all sizes, some stay away because of the strange, silly name or because they just can not find the time to learn more. There are benefits for small business to reap with Twitter. Not all companies use it the same way. Let’s see what it offers small biz — one-man shows to companies too small to carry a marketing director or department.
Once you sign up for your free Twitter account (using your business name), you create a profile with links to your company website, description, and contact information. You can search other businesses or people across the Internet who are also using Twitter. You can follow them — meaning you receive every tweet they send on your Twitter home page or your mobile phone. Follow the Wall Street Journal, your home town Chamber of Commerce, competitors, partners, your vendors, manufacturers and other business professionals.. almost anything you can imagine. Conversely, people interested in you and your business will click to follow you and your regular posts. Twitter quickly creates a community related to your business. Here are our four reasons we believe you should consider adding Twitter to your array of small business communication tools.
1. Push your message — Companies can use Twitter to publish timely company news and important announcements. You are limited in your posts, called “tweets”, to only 140 characters, so these are short, simple, brief messages or you can post links to longer articles or news items from your company blog, Facebook business account or any other website. Linking to a longer article on another site is called a “retweet”. Cute but easy to figure out in short order. This is a great way to expand your brand presence online as other people follow you. Use Twitter to manage your company brand and reputation online. Think of it as PR on a small business budget. If using Twitter for business, be careful to avoid letting your personal life get in the way. Business associates might not care that you shot a 76 on the golf course Saturday or that your four-year-old lost a tooth. There is place for personal info among family and friends, but your Twitter business account is not it.
2. Information collection — as I said above, Twitter can serve as a one-stop clearing house for all of your incoming business information. You do not have to write articles and participate in tweets. Some companies are active “listeners”. They keep track of trends in their industry and among other industry organizations, or companies.You can use your Twitter business account to receive updates from the various websites and news sources you follow regularly. You can even receive tweets on your mobile phone. With less than 10% of us using RSS aggregators, Twitter has become a faster, easier alternative for small business types short on time and patience.
3. Customer support — in August our web hosting server was hacked and it took my support team 30 hours to reload software and reinstall customer accounts from backups. During this harrowing experience, we had 100+ customers without their business email. What was wrong? When will it be fixed, damnit?! Patience was short for some and communication on the latest developments were extremely difficult.
That’s when I realized that if more clients were using Twitter and following www.MH1webdesign.com, they could have been updated on the latest progress. No email necessary. Now the task of informing our small business clients about Twitter begins. If they see value in it, they will come along for the ride.
Futher Reading
Twitter’s take on business use
16 examples of huge brands using Twitter
50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business
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