3 Ways to Use Your Tweets To Increase Your Influence

Here are three ways to increase your influence by using your tweets.

1. Keep positive tweets about your business public

Image by Bern@t via Flickr

If someone tweets something positive about your business, service, or product, keep that conversation public. Sometimes a person may DM you with a positive tweet. DM him or her back and ask if he will make the same tweet public. If so, you can also thank this person for the positive feedback.

2. RT positive tweets about your business

When a positive tweet about your business is posted, simply thank the person and retweet it. People forget that your followers will not see that positive tweet about you from a third party, unless they also follow him. By RT'ing you are providing a great way to reinforce your positive image to your followers.

3. Develop a bulletin board of positive testimonials and tweet about them.

If people are happy with your product or service, they will let you know with positive feedback. Turn those into a stream of testimonials. Tweet one of these testimonials every so often and link it to a bulletin board of positive testimonials.

Twitter For Business: What To Avoid

Here are three things your business must avoid doing on Twitter.

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1. Avoid all those offers to buy a product that gets you followers.

Products like Social Blaster are just a waste of your money. The tweeterer is simply trying to make some money as an affiliate. Do not buy. If you get a tweet from someone who links to these products, he or she is a spammer. Simply block these people.

2. Avoid signing up to use auto-DMs.

Some third party applications offer you a service where you can automatically post a tweet to a person who follows you for the first time. Do not do it. Do not auto-DM people who follow you. This is simply not social. This makes you look like an idiot to many people; yeah, it really does. No one wants to do business with an idiot; yeah, really that's true.

3. Avoid anything that has you cluttering up your followers with a stream of tweets only seconds or a few minutes apart.

While you can hold conversations on Twitter, do not have one where there is a long list of tweets back and forth over a few minutes. You are being inconsiderate to your other followers as it takes up too much space on their home page. After a couple of tweets back and forth, either take your conversation to DM or email.

There is also a service, twitterfeed, which is a great concept but one which I do not recommend. Twitterfeed allows you to have your posts from your blog feed into your twitter account automatically. Unfortunately, the service is not reliable. Your followers will suddenly get a week or more of your blog posts at the same time; again, no one wants their Twitter account to be spammed in that way.

I hope you avoid using these things on Twitter. Of course, I didn't mention using a hard sell approach with your tweets because by now you know that is totally wrong.

Twitter for Business: 3 Ways To Tweet The Latest & Greatest Content

One key question to ask yourself everyday is "What value can I offer my followers today?" One answer: Content that relates to your business and content that is just popular.

Here are 3 ways to tweet the latest and greatest content to your followers. They will also save you a lot of time on Twitter so you can enjoy other activities.

1. Google Alerts

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To quote the Google Alert home page:

"Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

Some handy uses of Google Alerts include:

* monitoring a developing news story
* keeping current on a competitor or industry
* getting the latest on a celebrity or event
* keeping tabs on your favorite sports teams"

For Twitter, simply put in one or more keywords and let Google email you the results daily or weekly. From those results you will find all kinds of the latest content to tweet about.

2. Stufftotweet.com

This is a great site because it provides you with the most popular news, articles, videos and even tweets. On the home page, you will find a list of the most popular items on Amazon, CNN, Craigslist, Digg, Mashable, New York Times, TMZ, Twitter, Wikihow, Youtube, and more.

You don't always have to tweet about topics related to your business. You can also tweet about things that interest you.

3. Alltop

Alltop considers itself the “online magazine rack” of the web as it provides you with the top headlines from the web. While they have subscribed to thousands of websites, they allow you to find what you want in very little time.

All you have to do is search by category and you will get the latest, relevant information. If there is a headline you find interesting, just click on it.

You can use this site to tweet about your business or on what interests you. As Alltop explains it is “aggregation without aggravation.”

Overall, I have used all three of these sources and they are easy to use and a big help when looking for content to tweet.

Two Secrets About DM's on Twitter

1. Do not auto-DM (Direct Message) when someone follows you.

Image via Wikipedia

Twitter is a social network. If someone follows you, the last thing they want to get is some impersonal message from you. It is even more phony since it seems that people who auto-DM try to make these messages appear authentic and personal. Please, stop it!

Examples abound:

"I am looking forward to your tweets."

"Thanks for following me. I hope we can share some valuable messages."

"I hope to inspire you. Have a great day."

2. To stop these auto-DM's from swamping your account sign up with SocialOomph. (formerly Tweetlater)

Go to SocialOomph. On the right column, and near the top, you will see the text "DM Opt-Out." Select this link and follow the steps to eliminate those annoying auto-DM's.

It is free to use.

It will eliminate 90% of these auto-DM's.

It will not eliminate genuine DM's--those that are not automated.

I hope this helps you.

3 Free Ways to Get Quality Followers: Not An Affiliate Post!

I know that I used the word "follower" in my tweet, so you may think this is one of those spam posts. It is not.

It is just the opposite. This is how to get quality followers for free.

There are Twitter rules to getting followers. You are free to follow up to 2,000 without any limitation. However, once you reach 2,000 people that you are following, you can only follow 10% more than the number of followers that already follow you. For example, if you have 3,000 followers, you can not follow more than 3,300 people on Twitter (10%) more. If you try to follow more people, the Twitter api will just make sure your click to follow won't work.

Background

Image via Wikipedia

First, you need to understand that quality starts with understanding your keywords. What are keywords? Keywords are the text your customer would put into a Google search box to find products or services you provide.

For example, let's say you sell antique watches. Your customer may type in watches in Google search, but it may be better to narrow it down to antique watches.

If you are not sure what keywords to select, you can go to the Google Keyword Tool. This tool will help you identify your keywords.

Now that you have some keywords, you can begin to identify quality followers.

Second, in order to get followers you need to first do the following. The people you follow will decide if they want to follow you back.

Finally, you should follow both leaders in your industry and potential customers.

Here are 3 Free Ways to Get Quality Followers

1. Use Twitter Search

Put in the Twitter search bar one of your keywords. A list of Twitter users that have used your keyword in their tweet will appear.

Read the tweets and find one person that connects for you. Click on their name, and follow them.

But, don't leave them yet.

2. Use that Twitter User's Followers and Following

Once you have identified a follower, you may want to follow who they are following and/or the people who are following him. Again, followers tend to have shared interests. The easiest way to follow these people is click on the following or followers tab, and just follow people right on that page. It's that simple.

3. Use Twitter Directories

There are directors of users based on interest--which again, can be your keywords. My favorite is twellow. Find a category, select, and there will hundreds, if not thousands of users you can follow. Just go down the list and follow.

Another favorite of mine is wefollow.

I have not tried justtweetit. or many others. However, if you do a Google search on Twitter directories you will find a dozen or more Twitter directories to find people to follow.

There are additional free ways to add followers. But for now, this will keep you busy.

A Key Tip:

Don't forget to put those keywords in your Twitter bio and register with one or more directories. People want to find you--so it make it easy for them to do so.

If you have any questions, please let me know. Thanks.

3 Ways Using Twitter Has Consumers Buying From You Sooner Rather Than Later

The Communications Funnel

There is a classic funnel in marketing which represents the consumer's decision making process. It looks like an upside down triangle. The top of the triangle is the widest and represents the largest number of consumers. As you move down the triangle it narrows, representing fewer and fewer consumers. The stages that a consumer moves through from the top to the bottom of the funnel are awareness, interest, desire, and action. The action stage is the time the consumer is ready to make a purchase.

Twitter speeds up this decision making process in three ways:

1. Twitter speeds up the decision to buy from you.

When people engage you on Twitter they are often at the action stage. They are telling you that they are ready to buy. But, before they finalize their decision, they have questions. They can do more research and ask friends. However, if you are using Twitter the right way, you will be perceived as a friend by your followers. You have the ability to influence them, and engage them with tailored responses to their questions, at precisely the right moment in time.

2. Twitter quickens the movement to the next stage of decision making.

Prospects listen to the conversations you are having on Twitter with your followers. While these consumers may never engage you, they are being influenced by what is being tweeted. That is why understanding Twitter etiquette is so important. If you engage in conversations on Twitter as a trusted friend, you will get potential customers to move from awareness to interest, or interest to desire, or even desire to action.

3. Twitter lets you turn your buyers into advocates, who in turn influence their followers on your behalf.

When a person buys from you on Twitter, they can become an advocate if they are happy with their purchase. These Twitter buyers have followers who not only listen to what they tweet about you, but will often ask for their opinion about your product. Opinions and recommendations from friends, even Twitter friends, is more trusted than any company message. Turning buyers into your advocates also helps to speed along this decision making process.

Overall, in today's economy, you want your potential customers to buy from you sooner rather than later. Twitter can help make that happen.

5 Reasons Why Twitter is a Waste of Time For My Business

1. My business doesn't need a presence on another social media network.

Image by *spo0ky* via Flickr

2. We don't need to connect with Twitter users; they are not our customers.

3. I really don't have the time to learn another way to market our products.

4. Twitter doesn't work to sell products and services like mine anyway.

5. Who cares what you are doing--no one.

Reasons to Explore Twitter for your Business

If you believe that any of these are good reasons to avoid using the power of Twitter for your business, then you are suffering from "excuse-itis." Did you know:

1. Twitter is the fastest growing social media network with over 15 million users.

2. Twitter users are adults 18-49, a prime market for many companies.

3. It doesn't take a lot of time to learn about how to use Twitter for your business, test it, or to manage and use Twitter on-going.

4. There are numerous business success stories on Twitter. It may be that you can learn from these companies. It may even be that your competition is using Twitter.

5. Twitter users are about more than what anyone is doing today. It is about building a community, adding value, and having conversations with your followers.

It's time to take advantage of this new social media network. Twitter works to sell products, improve customer service, provide real-time research, and much more.

7 Things Twitter Needs To Fix

Twitter is a fantastic social media network that I recommend all of the time. Still I hear comments like "Twitter is a waste of my time," "I don't get it," and "I tried it, but didn't get anything from it." As a Twitter evangelist, I think Twitter the company needs to work a lot harder at improving their service so these opinions go away.

Here are 7 things I believe Twitter needs to fix.

Image by davis.jacque via Flickr

1. The Twitter home page needs to help users who come to the site for the first time.

This home page needs to address key topics like how to use Twitter, why use Twitter, and most importantly, the benefits of using Twitter. It's reported that Twitter loses 60% of their new users after one month. Why? I know that it's not because the service is too expensive.

2. Get rid of spammers ASAP.

Maybe the new policy will help to get rid of all the spammers, but I doubt it. There are way too many of these losers, and they are always coming up with new ways to spam. While you should report the spam to @spam, I'm sure these folks are overwhelmed. Guess what--so are Twitter users.

3. Trending Topics have become virtually useless.

This was a great idea when it started but now there is no reason to go beyond the list that appears on your home page. If you click on a topic you get so much spam, you don't who to believe and where a link is going to take you. What a waste! The new policy should have stated that if you abuse the trending topics section, as Heidi Klum says on Project Runway, "You are out!"

4. Fix both the Twitter people search and main search features so people who join get listed and their tweets will appear.

The Twitter search features are excellent concepts but they do not work flawlessly. I have had friends complain about it, and now I am suffering the same problems. Try to find this blog by searching for it on people search. Try to find my tweets by using some of the keywords in Twitter's main search area. It's not going to happen. Twitter search tools are great but they need to work.

5. Twitter needs someone in charge of customer experience.

I believe that users get frustrated by Twitter and their experience on Twitter. But is there anyone at Twitter in charge of researching these issues and fixing them? If so, this person needs a lot more help to make changes needed. If Twitter doesn't improve, customers are going to seek out alternative networks.

6. When it comes to customer service, Twitter doesn't seem to really care all that much.

I know it's free to use Twitter, but customer service is paramount for any business. While they have a Twitter support section, this is level web 0.5. Twitter should have a customer service account on Twitter, like Best Buy and Comcast, where people can get their questions and problems answered promptly. Yes, you can contact @twitterapi but I believe it's run by only three guys who are probably engineers.

7. Twitter needs to generate revenue so they can fix their product sooner rather than later.

I know that Twitter received over $50 million in their last round of funding. That money is great but it's not recurring revenue. Twitter needs to put in place a revenue model that will work. It will give them the funds to fix things and improve their operations.

Can you think of other things Twitter needs to fix? Please let me know.

Thanks!

Twitter Marketing Plan Template and Sample Plan

Twitter Marketing Plan Template

Image by ATIS547 via Flickr

1. What is my business objective?

The objective should be specific, meaningful and measurable.

2. What is my strategy to achieve this business objective?

Describe how you plan on using Twitter.

3. What tactics do I need to follow through with this strategy?

These include all the activities that you need to take including the third party applications that you will use in your Twitter marketing.

4. How will I measure results?

Be specific on how results will be tracked and measured. Set up any benchmarks and be consistent with your measurement tools.

5. What other areas do I need to address to make my Twitter plan successful?

This includes all things Twitter such as: who has access to the Twitter account, Company guidelines on what can be tweeted, how to tweet, how to streamline the process to save money, and more.


Sample Plan
Twitter Marketing Plan For Just Blue Stuff


1. What is the Just Blue Stuff business objective on Twitter?

To increase sales of our Just Blue Stuff products over 25% in the first 3 months from using Twitter

2. What is the Just Blue Stuff strategy to achieve this business objective?

To generate awareness, interest, positive-word-of mouth, advocates and ultimately sales for our Just Blue Stuff product line among Twitter users who follow us.

3. What tactics do we need to execute for this strategy?

We need to set up an account on Twitter and attract followers. The ways we will attract followers include: Twitter search using our keywords, setting up an auto-follow/unfollow system based on keywords, and using Twitter directories to find followers based on our customer data on buyers of our products.

In addition, we will need to do the following:

A. Listen to what Twitter users are saying about our products
-Thanks consumers who like our products
-Answer questions posted by consumers
-Alleviate any customer issues by answering questions or comments in an appropriate way.

B. Listen to what Twitter users are saying about our competition
-Learn from the positive comments and try to induce unhappy users to try our products.

C. Broadcast product news and promotions
-We will track sales by offering a 10% discount when the user puts in “Twitter” in the bonus code on checkout.
-We will also test a Twitter bird promotion, where everyone who answers a few questions about our business, gets a Just Blue Stuff Twitter bird.
-We are also going to tweet and link to the content we have on our website that will be valuable to our followers, such as consumer testimonials, why blue is the “in” color, and all the ingenious ways our consumers are using our products.

D. Engage Twitter users
-We will follow best practices for using Twitter.
-We will obey Twitter etiquette.
-We will be friends to Twitter users and not hard sell our products.

4. How will we measure results?

We are going to track sales using a code on check-out. In addition, we are going to use Google analytics to see if there is any increase in the number of visitors to our website.

5. What other areas do we need to address to make the Just Blue Stuff Twitter marketing plan successful?

Since we do not have the time to figure all of this out and we are concerned about the time cost to get all of this done, we have hired Mitchell Cogert at www.Twit-streams.com.

Contact him now at mcogert@twit-streams.com or call at 877-27-tweet. He provides a Twitter training and strategy workshop, and/or a customized Twitter marketing plan for your business, and/or his company can be your Twitter manager and they do just about all of the work for you.

Twitter for Business: 11 Best Practices To Follow

Best Practices

Here are 11 best practices your business should follow when it comes to Twitter:

1. Decide on a business objective.

Image by Amy Dianna via Flickr

2. Develop a strategy and plan.

3. Build a community of followers that will benefit what you offer. Think quality over quantity.

4. Listen to what people are tweeting about your business.

5. Broadcast valuable content you have on your site/blog.

6. Engage with people who are tweeting you.

7. Be real and credible in your tweets.

8. Provide value to your followers. What can you today to provide value for your community of followers?

9. Measure results against a benchmark.

10. Use third party applications to save you time and money in using Twitter.

11. Have fun. Twitter is social.

Twitter for Business: "It's the trust, stupid."

"It's the trust, stupid."

I have spent most of my career working with top notch companies that sell brand name products. The great thing about a brand name is that you know your product performs as promised, and it has already established trust with customers. The messaging requires defining your target audience, delivering one focused message, and to do so in a provocative, engaging and creative way.

Granted, that simplifies things, but it works time and time again. And I have worked on top brands from consumer products like LUVS diaper, Bounty paper towels and Tyson foods to technology like Quicken, HP LaserJets, and Barra.

While the specific strategies for these brands are different, these brands have one common theme; they want the character of their brand to be seen as a trusted, friend. It is all about the trust.

Image via Wikipedia

While big corporations have the luxury of big budgets, other businesses must use less costly marketing tactics, which means using the internet. But the internet is a jungle when it comes to figuring out who to trust.

The Internet: Who do you trust?

When it comes to getting reliable information to help make a purchase, the number one challenge for a prospect (consumer or business) is "Who do I trust?"

The answer: Develop a website. Not! Every company has a website with pages and pages of biased, corporate speak.

The answer: Add in positive testimonials and customer reviews. Not! No one is going to post a negative testimonial and those positive reviews can be be added by anyone.

The answer: A blog. Not! A corporate blog is just going to give the company-line and the major blogs are being paid by companies to post positive articles for them.

So who can you trust online?

The answer: Friends. Yes! 90% of consumers trust recommendations from people they know.
(Source: Nielsen Global Online Consumer Survey of over 25,000 Internet consumers from 50 countries April 2009).

Twitter Friends = Trust

If you go about your business on Twitter the right way, other users will follow you and see you as a friend. You need to follow the right Twitter etiquette. You need to provide value to your followers. You need to make an effort not to go into marketing speak and a hard-sell.

On Twitter, one essential part of your strategy is to to be perceived as a trusted, friend. It works for major brands and it will work for you. You are the brand in a friendly, social media network. Twitter is social. Be social. Be a friend.

The advantages of being a friend is that it makes it easier for your followers to buy from you. People buy from those they know, they like and they trust. And the bonus is that friends who buy from you will often become advocates for you as well.

As a next step, list all the ways you are going to do to be a trusted, friend to your followers on Twitter (you do have a written plan, don't you?). Because yes, it's all about the trust.

Fast Tweeting Advice: Do's and Don'ts

Image by swєєt єscαpє via Flickr

Tweeting

Four Tweeting Do’s

1. Tweet to add value.

You have an opportunity to maximize the content that sits in your website and/or blog. Link to content that is helpful, interesting, and/or funny.

2. Tweet to engage people socially.

Be real. Don't do a hard sell of your products or services.

3. Test different copy approaches for your tweets.

Writing tweets is often like writing effective headlines. Some tricks are using tweets that start with, "How to..," or "7 Ways to...," or "The secret to..." Track each tweet and learn what does and does not work.

4. Demonstrate you are part of the social community.

Link to sites other than your own site in your tweets. Provide your followers with important information. Twitter is a social network. Think about what you can do everyday to add value for your target.


Six Tweeting Don’ts

1. Never tweet something that you will regret. Rule: If you wouldn't want your boss or Mom to read the tweet, don't tweet it.

2. Never go into hard-sell mode.

3. Do not use auto-DM responders. It's not social. It's alienating.

4. Do not have a long public tweet conversation. Take it private to DM or email.

5. Do not broadcast tweets in bunches.

6. Do not become addicted to Twitter.

How to Measure Your Results From Using Twitter

Measure Results

It is important to justify the use of Twitter by planning ahead and measuring results. One of the challenges in all of social media is to prove that it provides added value to a business. A key issue is often ROI, or return on investment.

In order to measure results, you need to develop a meaningful, measurable and specific

Image via Wikipedia

objective. While an objective is often tied to sales gained over a given period of time, there are other ways to measure results in social media including influence, sentiment, share of conversation, and brand mentions.

Of course, while you can measure results it is often difficult to directly link the causes. For example, national advertising campaigns must deliver sales, but other factors will affect results such as promotions, pricing, distribution, and competitive activity. The same is true in using Twitter, especially if you add other social media sites into your marketing plan such as Facebook and Youtube.

There are a number of tools available for measuring results:

Free monitoring and measuring tools:

Measure influence: Klout, Twinfluence, Twitalyzer

Link shortening and/or tracking: Bitl.y, Budurl, Cli.gs, Hootsuite, Trackur, Trendrr, Tweetburner, Twurl.

Fee-based monitoring and measuring tools:

Cymfony, Nielsen BuzzMetrics, Omniture, Radian6, Scout Labs, Techrigy, Webtrends.

Explore the different ways you can measure your results and plan accordingly.

Twitter business tip: Make sure that no matter which ways you plan to measure your results, that you first establish a benchmark and use the same tools to be consistent.

Twitter Is A Waste of Time For Your Business, Right?

Twitter Is A Waste of Time For Your Business, Right?

Wrong!

Image by Candie_N via Flickr

Look at how the Twitter process works will for you:

1. People are joining Twitter at an incredible rate.

Twitter is the fastest growing social network on the internet with over 23 million users today, and an estimated 50 million users by the end of next year. If you think your customers are not on Twitter, think again.

2. People build communities of followers with similar interests.

These communities of followers are built through messages or tweets. People share valuable information every day on Twitter. Find the people who are interested in your products and messages, and their followers are often your potential customers.

3. Twitter users are in a friendly, open, social network, and embrace those who are there to help rather than hard sell them.

A social network is a fun escape for people. On Twitter connections happen and Twitter friendships are made. Provide value in an authentic way and you will be accepted. It doesn't take much to win people over in Twitter.

4. Twitter has marketing power. It is proven to work to sell products, improve customer service, conduct real-time research, create new partnerships, and much more.

Do things the right way and you succeed on Twitter. The key is to understand the Twitter environment, build up a quality following, add value for your followers through your tweets, and engage them as a friend.

Twitter is not a waste of time for business, and yes, even for your business.

Twitter For Business: Why Twitter is Like Television

Twitter and TV

A business can use tweets to listen, broadcast, and engage. The more you engage people on Twitter the more potential you have to influence their perceptions and behavior.

Image via Wikipedia

Here is an analogy to help you understand why Twitter has such marketing potential. Twitter is like TV. Well, not quite. But you know that TV has the potential to influence viewers. Twitter has the potential to influence your target audience.

Take a look at the comparison of Twitter and TV:

TV: 100+ stations that broadcast on your TV set.
Twitter: Millions of potential broadcasters on Twitter. They are the users.

TV: You view the programs you like, usually recorded.
Twitter: You view messages (tweets) from the users you like, in real-time.

TV: A passive, one-way communication appliance.
Twitter: An active, multi-communication application.

Your business can become a broadcaster on Twitter and have influence. But you need to do things the right way! You need to provide valuable and timely information. You need to follow Twitter etiquette. You need to engage your followers in an authentic way.

Use Twitter the right way and your audience will follow you and be influenced by you.

Are you using Twitter the right way?

Twitter for Business: Here Are 10 Common Mistakes to Avoid

Here are 10 Common Mistakes That Business Should Avoid Making on Twitter

1. Thinking that Twitter is not right for them since it's not working.

Image via Wikipedia

It's not that Twitter is not right for them, it's that they are not using Twitter the right way.

2. Not setting up benchmarks before they start using Twitter.

3. Not measuring results in order to test and justify using Twitter
long-term.

4. Not using Twitter to listen to what consumers have to say about their business.

5. Not using Twitter to listen to what consumers have to say about their competition.

6. Only using Twitter as a press release tool for company news.

7. Not engaging with consumers on Twitter.

8. Not using the opportunity to tailor their tweets to what is an effective message to the people they are engaging.

9. Not realizing that hundreds, if not thousands of consumers, listen and get influenced by their conversations on Twitter.

10. Not knowing how to streamline the use of Twitter in order to save their business time and money.

Are you using Twitter the right way?

Three Key Marketing Tactics To Use on Twitter

There is so much more going on in the world of marketing today. There are traditional media approaches such as TV, radio, print, direct mail and newspaper. There is Internet marketing with banner ads, display ads, search engine marketing, email, online videos, widgets, and more.

Now with social media networks, it's time to take that next step. With Twitter, you need to take one step beyond where you've ever been before. Don't be afraid. It's simple to understand. It's where your business needs to be an active participant.




There are essentially three marketing tactics to use on Tactics:

1. Listen

To listen with Twitter means that you are tracking what other users are saying in their tweets about your business. Now you can determine if your new product is getting positive or negative word-of-mouth, if your customer service is excellent or not, and even get an overall impression of what people think about your business. Wouldn’t it be great to know what your customers are saying about you? Wouldn't it be great to know what your customers are saying about your competition?

2. Broadcast

To broadcast are to send one sided tweets. Those are the messages that alert your followers to any information you believe is valuable for them. It can be a company press release or a link to an article on your blog or website. Twitter gives you a great opportunity to maximize the value of your content on your website by broadcasting.

3. Engage

To engage is to have a conversation with other users on Twitter. While we all know that salespeople think ABC means “always be closing,” it is different on Twitter. With Twitter, ABC means “always be conversing.” That is because the more you converse and engage with followers, the more potential you have to influence their decisions, at the right time with the right message.

You can do just one of these marketing tactics, two of them, or all of them. Ideally, you should be using all three of these tactics to fully take advantage of the power of Twitter.

Is Twitter Right For Your Business?

When I talk to marketing people who are not using Twitter, there are two general reactions:

One group says: "I know I should check it out, but I'm too busy to learn about it right now."

The second group states, "I've been to Twitter, and the question 'what are you doing" has nothing to do with my business. Who cares? Twitter is a waste of time."

I am here to tell you that Twitter is not a waste of your time!



Twitter is proven to be an effective marketing tool for business. When used the right way, Twitter can help you to sell products, improve customer service, conduct real-time research, build new partnerships, and much more.

Twitter is a free social networking service that lets users send and receive short text messages of up to 140 characters called tweets, in real-time using the web and mobile devices. It sounds so simple, and yet, it is the fastest growing social media site with over 23 million users, with an estimated 50 million by end of next year.

While Twitter adds another marketing tool to learn in your already complex set of media vehicles, it is one that you should consider. The reason is the following:

Twitter provides your business an opportunity to connect, converse and influence the behavior of consumers one-on-one at the right time with a tailored message. If you use Twitter the right way, these consumers can turn into your advocates. These conversations also have the potential to reach and influence thousands of other Twitter users who listen in.

Twitter works for business because you can:

1. Connect with consumers in a friendly, social, open environment

2. Converse with consumers with a message that answers their questions at the time they are making purchasing decisions about your products.

3. Bond with your customers so they become advocates of your products; there is no source of information more trusted than a friend.

Stop wondering if Twitter is right for your business because it is!