Courtesy Twitter Wiki
What every business needs to know about Twitter is a list of the most important strategies and facts. Although many businesses have yet to adopt Twitter, unmoved by the paradigm shift in communications or frozen in fear of making mistakes that would be seen by their audience, Twitter is not going away. In fact those naysayers who are still unsure if social media, and Twitter in particular, is a passing fad are losing market share to their competitors in the new media space–the one replacing the old world of print advertising.
Strategies and Facts Every Business Needs to Know About Twitter
- Microblogging: Twitter is the most powerful micro-blogging platform in the world. As such each tweet is a mini version of a blog post
- New Channel: Twitter is the new sales channel much like what businesses are used to in old school channels like email, mailers, and print advertising
- Lead Generation: Twitter is a powerful lead generation tool
- Delivery System: Twitter allows companies to deliver their messages of value via shortened url’s to their strategically targeted audience(s)
- Listening Tool: Twitter allows companies to ease drop and listen to conversations about their brand, company, products, or services
- Mobile: Mobile phone communications will dominate the way we communicate and Twitter is the perfect application for this real time sharing of information
- Customer Service: Twitter is being used successfully by companies to solve customer service issues and maintain customer loyalty. Frank at Comcastcares is a fantastic example of how to use Twitter in this capacity
- Search: Twitter is on the cutting edge of “real time” search. This is the added value of people searching and finding live conversations in progress about a brand. This methodology is seen as the next progression of Google search
- Networking: Twitter allows professionals to network within their niche from the comfort of their home, office, laptop, or mobile device
- Broadcasting: In a brilliant use of Twitter, the Scottsdale Police Dept. uses Twitter to broadcast APB, amber alerts, traffic news, tips on safety, homeowner association tips, local events, and community building events
- Cog: Twitter is the lead generation “cog” in a well rounded social media marketing platform that includes a blog (centerpiece of all messages), Facebook (Customer Relationship Management) and Twitter
- Reputation Management: Twitter, when monitored properly, will reveal instances where companies can step in with correct information or suggests that challenge erroneous information or reviews.
- Caring: A company’s Twitter participation and engagement with consumers shows their audience that the company cares about them enough to engage with them on “their” system of choice for communications–not the company’s old channel
- Growth: According to Techcrunch.com in June 2009 Twitter received 44.5 million unique visits to the site with 20 million of the visits coming from the United States. Estimates range from 18 million to 20 million registered users by the end of 2009
- Research: Twitter is a vast and vibrant research go-to source for information. The information links to articles is amazing and not to be dismissed
- Internal Communications: Companies can use Twitter as an internal communications tool by locking their account through the “Protected Tweets” option. This environment could be utilized as a more vibrant version of email that is much quicker and able to host real time conversations. The goal is to save time and employee productivity by eliminating unwanted meetings
- Crowdsourcing: Twitter allows companies to ask their consumers what they want in service, product, or policy changes. It also allows companies to mine their audience for new ideas
- Competition: Twitter allows companies to monitor their competition by utilizing Twitter search of keywords relevant to their niche. Once the correct conversations are found, companies can RSS subscribe to these conversations and be notified of new developments
- Tone & Etiquette: The tone of social media was built upon the idea that the hard sell sales tactics are dead. The best strategy for companies to sell their products is to stop selling their products, listen to conversations, and become the reliable trustworthy go-to source of important information to their audience of consumers
- Case Study: Case studies are indicating that Twitter is a robust and viable channel for marketing and sales of products and services. The most impressive case study to date is Dell Computer’s DellOutlet which claims $3 million in sales from it’s Twitter efforts and a following (9-21-09) of 1,228,233 consumers
