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.

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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.

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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!