Our clients often ask us if they are using Twitter correctly for their business and wonder how they can best leverage this technology. Is it even worth being on Twitter? Can Twitter win you business? Dell recently revealed that they made over $1 million in revenue from their ‘tweets’. The fact is that Twitter is a great medium to reach lots of new people who are interested in your business.

 

As you Tweet on Twitter, ask yourself - what are my Twitter goals? You might want to simply have a presence for your business on Twitter for branding reasons. You might want to actively use Twitter to make sales, or simply use it to keep your customers informed about your industry and become an authority.

 

The only way to accomplish these goals on Twitter is to get your message to users who become your followers. Once a Twitter user is following you they will see all your updates. The best way to get followers is to follow other people - in general, if you follow someone then they will follow you too.

 

It is important that you find people who would be interested in your business. You can do this by using the Twitter search feature to find people who are Twittering about issues that are relevant to your business. Its then as simple as following them and seeing if they follow you back.

 

Of course, you still need to use conventional methods to alert people to your Twittering. This could include putting your Twitter url in your email signature, blog or website contact details. 

 

Don’t forget that Twitter isn’t just a broadcast medium. You can and should reply to other people’s Tweets in order to be an active participant in the community and also to open yourself up to more followers. Each time you reply to a Tweet you give yourself the potential to be exposed to the other Twitter user’s entire base of contacts.

 

In short, Twitter is valuable because it gives you a chance to communicate your business messages to an entirely new audience of interested people. This could be a valuable source of new business and well worth the small investment of time it takes to maintain a Twitter acccount.

 

 

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To get your own Twitter account head to www.twitter.com