SJC Web Design has had a Twitter account since the end of 2008. Our rank is 150,000 out of around 100 million accounts. We average a post a day. We promote our web designs and seminars and we promote other newsworthy items across the globe. So what does that mean and is it working for our business? The bigger question is should a business have a twitter account at all?
Let’s first start off with what is Twitter. Twitter is an online social media venue in which persons post conversations with “tweets.” These tweets can be about anything you or others care to share with the world. Some have used the term “micro blogging” because of the 140 character limitation that Twitter puts on the Tweets. Twitter is ever increasing in popularity and we believe Twitter will continue to evolve and perhaps give Facebook some solid competition.
Here are a few things that we have found works with Twitter for business purposes.
- Socializing with the world. Unlike Facebook,depending on your privacy settings, your Tweets are global
- Asking questions of your followers. We feel this is the biggest gain or pro for you business. You have a global audience, what better way to garner answers to topics or impromptu surveys.
- Twitter search function. Search for the hot topics of the day and using the results posting either a question about it in Twitter or posting an opinion about it on your blog. For example do a search for “bodyguard” or “personal protection” chances are you will have opinions on what is being tweeted.
- Gathering followers. To get followers you log in to Twitter and click the Find People button. Search for people who are interested in the same things you are. For SJC, we used “web design” and “internet marketing.” We recommend you use a program to find and follow people. We use TweetAdder 3, Tweetdeck is another good one. These programs automates the process. There are a couple of Cons to followers and we’ll get to those in a bit.
- Connect your blog to your Twitter account. There are automated programs out there that will automatically post your blog updates directly to Twitter. We use TwitterFeed. On the same note, make sure to post on your blog and website that you are on Twitter and include an easy way for people to follow you.
The more you automate the process the less time it takes to build up your following. However, we do not recommend using automation for your tweets. Keep your tweets personal and useful. You’ll have a hard time obtaining followers if you are considered a spammer.
Let’s move on to the Twitter Cons for your Business.
- Hard to find and keep the right followers. When you first start your search in finding people you are inclined to search for people you know, friends and family, colleagues, and people in the business. When you start asking strangers to follow you it gets a little tougher for obvious reasons. Soon you may find yourself getting followers who have nothing to do with your business. In our case we started getting people following us who are in real estate. Why? Because we searched for web developer – and the word “developer” is also in real estate. But here is the problem, your status/rank in Twitter is how many followers do you have. The higher your following, the higher your Twitter status, the more likely you will get more followers. But now a part of your followers is not interested in your business. So what do you do? Do you remove them as followers? To us this is the biggest problem with Twitter.
- Can be time consuming. Looking for the right people to follow, researching and posting quality tweets, writing to a blog to post to your Twitter account, managing your followers and following lists all takes time. As your lists grow it will take even more time to manage. Yes you can automate some of these functions, but even that takes some time away from other business functions.
- No direct return on investment. Using your time to post tweets about your business and building your list of followers has very little ROI. Direct face to face meetings and conversations, word of mouth marketing, and attending social events like ASIS and various seminars still is the best way to network.
- Spammers. There are ton of spammers on Twitter who do nothing but fill up your Twitter page with nonsense and sales ads. Delete, block, and report these folks right away.
Overall, we do recommend using Twitter. Twitter is a tool to assist in communication of your products and services to others in your business. Use Twitter in moderation and don’t get possessed with garnering as many followers as possible. Think quality over quantity.
If you’d like to learn more about social media and other internet marketing advice we will be conducting a seminar in collaboration with Tony Scotti Associates entitled Business of Protection.
