I ran into a friend of mine at lunch today who asked me several good questions about Twitter and how it might help in his business. As we talked, I realized that there was a good blog post in the questions and the answers.
First off, it’s really important to know what Twitter is and what it can be for you and your small business. I highly recommend reading all of the Twitter related pages in my article, email is so 20th century. Twitter is like a lot of things you already use. It’s like email and it’s like instant messaging and it’s like texting, but it’s not exactly any of those things.
It’s sort of like email
Twitter lets you communicate with many people quickly in the same way that you might CC or BCC many people in an email message. You send one message and many people receive it. You don’t know for sure if anyone reads the message, but those who do can optionally respond to your message, contact you privately or forward the message (re-tweet). Twitter is different from email in that you don’t manage a list of addresses. You simply post a message and all of your followers get your message. You don’t have to manage a list at all, you just send messages.
It’s sort of like instant messaging or texting
If you download one of the many desktop tools for Twitter, your experience with Twitter can be a little like using instant messaging. The main difference is that as messages arrive, they’re not always personal and there is little expectation for a direct response. However, there is an expectation that the Twitter stream (the collection of messages) is a conversation. If you’re only talking, but not responding or forwarding, you’re not fully participating in the Twitter ecosystem.
Getting started
I highly recommend getting a personal Twitter account today to start connecting with personal friends, coworkers and associates. Twitter will help you find your friends after you sign up. Get an application like Twhirl to help you use Twitter and just see what happens.
Next steps
Once you’re comfortable with the concept of Twitter, it makes sense to figure out how to use it in your small business. For many people, the person and the business are a single brand — such as Robert Scoble (@scobelizer*) or Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki). If you are trying to build yourself as a brand — maybe you’re a network marketer, life coach, consultant or contractor — then using your personal Twitter account for your business efforts is the right idea.
If you have a small business that isn’t just you, it’s probably a good idea to create another Twitter account for your business. Yes, you can have more than one Twitter account. This strategy provides you a simple way to differentiate your professional brand from your personal interests, just as would would do with your email accounts, web sites and blogs. Using Twitter this way ensures that people who are following your professional brand (because you regularly tweet* about the stock market, for example) aren’t distracted by the personal tweets you provide your friends (what you had for lunch).
No matter what approach to take, it’s important to realize that being an active Twitter user requires effort and time. In the same way that you maintain your web site, write new blog posts, send emails to clients and customers, you will need to maintain the relationships you develop through Twitter. The great news is that this can be very straightforward. If you blog, make sure you tweet the title and URL of your blog post. If you update your web site, tweet the news with the URL. If you send out an email newsletter, post the message to your web site or blog and tweet it. Explore the available Twitter tools to make sure you get the most out of your Twitter experience.
Even more…
Once you’re comfortable with the integration of Twitter into your existing business practices, it’s time to take it to the next level. Twitter allows you to make quick, tiny announcements any time without the need to necessarily update your web site or add a new blog post. If it’s relevant to your audience, tweet it. If you’re an insurance company, your tweets can include information about rate changes or new coverage options. If you’re a mortgage broker, you tweets can include mortgage rates. You should tweet new product offerings, new service terms, updated office hours, updated contact information. These aren’t the kinds of things you would necessarily prepare an entire newsletter for, so you simply tweet them today and update them in your monthly newsletter at the appropriate time.
Incoming tweets
Twitter users expect a two-way conversation. Expect to receive direct messages requesting support or offering suggestions. If your service is great, people will tweet about it. If it’s bad, expect the same. The key to succeeding with Twitter is the same as with any communications tool — you really need to be there. If you don’t want or expect to have conversations, Twitter will be as useful as spamming.
Dell case study
Dell has used Twitter very effectively in their corporate strategy. Some of the keys to their success are discussed in the following video.
Remember when you’re watching the above video that Dell wasn’t always so involved in new media. Even the biggest companies are new to new technology trends. It takes some time to become comfortable and to integrate what’s happening, but Twitter is definitely happening and you have the opportunity to participate.
* Some terms and conventions
- Twitter is the name of the service, the act of sending a message is sending a tweet or tweeting
- A tweet is a message sent through Twitter
- A twitter account is often displayed as @username with a link to the user page on Twitter, for example, my account is displayed as @RealNerd
Comments:
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Great article! I need to forward this onto my clients, many of whom say “I don’t get it” whenever I broach the subject of them using Twitter.
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