How to actually use Twitter for your business…

I’m a big proponent of Social Media – to me it’s pretty clear that it is the wave of the future that will eventually knock down old-school sales and marketing techniques.  In a world of active Social Media, you can’t hide from your customers or prospects – people will say what they think and the best way to generate positive feedback is to deliver quality and value (and isn’t that really the point anyway).

Blogs, professional social media sites and Youtube all have a fairly clear place in an online marketing and Social Media strategy.

However I will admit that to this point I’ve been stumped on how to really view the value of Twitter

I understood that Twitter was huge and growing fast and it’s clear that the people that really buy into it are rabid fans, but I was finding it difficult to explain to other people exactly what the benefit would be from a small business perspective.

That is, until I found the following presentation (ironically from a Twitter post – a tweet…the other day).  Take a look:

If you have trouble with the presentation, you can find it online here.

Depending on the size of your business and the type of your business, a lot of the Twitter strategies outlined may not make sense.  Most really small businesses probably aren’t doing much Crisis Management, but I can imagine some examples where that kind of thing might be necessary.

Where I see some real possibilities include the Customer Relations aspect and Product Promotion and Sales – as with any Social Media, you have to be very careful not to cross the line into spam / selling outright, but it can certainly be a powerful tool for getting the word out about timely sales, new products, how to use new features, etc.

What do you think about Twitter and are you using it with your business?  Share your thoughts below, I’d love to hear them.

Shawn Kinkade  Kansas City Business Coach