 | Twittering for success
2 April, 2009
By Steve Wexler |
According to a new report from Forrester Research, the social media market may be miniscule today, but it is growing and this economy could be just the incentive for accelerating that growth. Certainly the number of people networking, blogging and Twittering is skyrocketing and the channel must ensure that it stays on top of developments and is prepared to participate in this revolution.
Robert Cohen, president and business editor of Integrated mar.com Corporation, threw out the following request on the
Trusted Business Advisor Group on LinkedIn.
"I am on Twitter. I understand and appreciate the value of social marketing and social networking. I am having trouble following the business value of being on Twitter. Can someone, anyone, everyone help set me straight on this?"
Like most of us, Mike Weaner, president of Comprehensive Data Services, has been trying to figure this out as well. On Twitter as 'VigilanceMike', for 'IT Vigilance', the branding of his managed services offering, he's been somewhat disappointed with his experience.
"(I) have to say that a good opt-in email list seems to accomplish the same thing with more opportunity to deliver more information than you can jam into a 'tweet'. Many, if not most, of my clients these days are available 'immediately' by email or text on their phones....just as reachable, if not more, than if I tweet them. I suppose the short burst/blast nature of a tweet offers some immediacy there that's better than email (not much formatting / proofing that you're going to do in 140 characters)."
Like Cohen, he doesn't understand what it might mean in terms of greater benefit to his clients, and in turn, more profitability. "I'd also like for someone who's seeing some business value from this explain to me how....because for now, I don't get it."
Enter Gregor Rohda, owner of InfoEdge.com, who has a lot of thoughts about the business value of Twitter and wanted to get into the discussion. In short, he sees Twitter as a great tool for 'micro press releases', i.e. 'We just got a great new report about the value of social networking - check it out! http://bit.ly/2GxT.'
"Of course the efficacy depends on having a good network of followers, and not abusing the feed, but there is good potential here."
Weaner countered that the space constraints, and low usage by his targeted audience, less than 25 percent, work against micro releases. "Short of tweeting a URL where people could go find the same thing we emailed (like Gregor was explaining above), Twitter doesn't do it."
He's also tried getting people to follow him on Twitter with limited success& "and what it boils down to is an attitude on the part of the prospective follower that Twitter doesn't solve a problem that they have (and it doesn't solve a problem that I have)."
For those of you who want to Twitter, Stuart Crawford is a confirmed fan. He said it has an active role for all small business firms and must be part of their overall marketing strategy. "Twitter is playing an active role in the online strategies for many business owners."
He recommends three tools for everybody's Twitter arsenal.
Twitterfeed - Twitterfeed.com is an online solution that provides a mechanism to take your blog posts or any other RSS service and broadcast it out to your Twitter followers and social networking websites including Facebook. If your business has a blog, writes articles or submits news stories to online services, then you must have this solution running to promote the work you are already doing to a bigger audience.
Tweetlater - This nifty application is a handy service for the busy business owner or entrepreneur. With Tweetlater you can leverage this online web solution to schedule your tweets. Simply do up a series of tweets and then have Tweetlater send them out. Tweetlater also allows you to set up policies that allow you to automatically follow those that follow you. It is a karma thing and karma goes a long way in the Twitter world.
TweetBeep - Don't have time to watch Twitter all day or how keeping on top of the people that you follow. With TweetBeep you now can monitor Twitter for keywords and when an item of interest is tweeted it appears in your Inbox. This service even works with shortened URLs. Watch your domain names. Keep an eye on what your competitors are doing. Stay on top of industry trends and so much more.
"There are many great online applications available to enhance your Twitter experience," he adds, so find the one that meets your business needs. "Twitter can become very noisy and you will need to find tools that will provide a filter to limit the noise and bring the messages that you want to the foreground."
But the bottom line, said Crawford, is that when leveraged correctly, Twitter "can bring amazing new business results, connect you with the industry leaders and provide a conduit to share your experiences."
Stuart Crawford, Bulletproof InfoTech, is on the board of the IAMCP Canada Chapter, and facilitates HTG Canada, the 10th group in the Heartland Technology Groups, and can be contacted through his blog at http://blog.itsuccessmentor.com or at 403.206.2233.
Previous Trusted Business Advisor articles by this author:
07/30/09 The gray market (Part 2)
07/23/09 The black market and counterfeiting
06/11/09 Education key to reducing channel mistrust
05/29/09 Speed up your sales
05/15/09 Software piracy costs everybody
04/24/09 GTDC: Selling direct doesn't work
04/08/09 Is there a need for vendor-neutral education?
03/25/09 Companies need to think smarter
03/04/09 Social media the new 'big thing'
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