To Tweet or not to Tweet? What’s good for your business?

Can you believe that it’s only since the beginning of this year that Twitter has grown increasingly popular?  People were using it to update their friends and family members with 140-word messages (tweets) about what was going on.  A tweet is basically an instant message being broadcast publicly.  Now businesses have moved more to the Twitter mainstream.  According to this article, Starbucks posts new incentives and offers, Whole Foods invites customers to events and asks customers what they think.  So is Twitter right for your business?

First of all, you have to commit.  You can’t just tweet once every 5 months and hope for the best.  If you want to have active conversations with customers and they follow you, they’re going to expect to hear from you.  You don’t have to tweet multiple times a day, but a few times a week makes sense. If you’re billing clients for time and you’re tweeting all day long, you can have problems for that, too.

Twitter can be an easy way to broadcast a message about your company that followers, friends, and fans can replicate on other sites.  So word can get out a lot faster than just by you sending an e-mail message.  In fact, the application TweetLater lets you schedules tweets in the future like you would schedule an e-mail to go out at a certain time.  If you’re on Facebook, you can set Twitter up so that your tweets automatically appear as status updates on your Facebook page.  Now you’ve just killed two birds with one stone.

Author Chris Brogan wrote this article on 50 ideas of using Twitter for your business. Some of his great suggestions include using TwitterSearch to listen for your name or those of your competitor to find out what’s going on in your industry.  You could gain valuable insight that way.

Don’t oversell your business or yourself.  People get bored of that very quickly.  Instead, provide links to other useful sites.  Give tips on when to check back when you’ll post information on sales or how to earn something free.  Talk about non-business activities.  But don’t talk about how drunk you got at that last kegger.  Too much information for your customers.  Mention a charity event you attended instead.

Chris also recommends asking questions.  He thinks Twitter can be great for obtaining opinions.  Instead of tweeting about what you’re doing now, tweet about what you’re thinking about or what’s in the news.  He also mentions that Twitter and other social media sites do not replace direct marketing.  You could use a piece to publish your name or how to access you on those sites, but you still have to do direct marketing pieces for all of those people who don’t use Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.  Definitely view his article for more great tips.

So if you need help coming up with a direct marketing piece, be sure to visit us online.