How to use Twitter to bring in more business?

[Darren House]

Make Twittering work for your business.....

While Twitter has primarily been used for social networking, it can
also have its uses in business to share ideas, keep in touch with
customers and find new ones. The freedom of access – from the web
sites and via instant messaging and mobile phones, means you can use
it just about any time and any where and the ability to broadcast
messages or keep them to a defined group means you can Twitter with
whoever you want to.

Below we have outlined some hints for using Twitter to keep in touch
with customers and in your own every-day business…

Get the message out fast – Twitter is a great way to communicate
information about a new product, service or development, to scores or
hundreds of users immediately. If you can, get people to sign-up to
accept your Twitter communications.

Make customers feel more valued – Twitter is a great way to leak out a
story. Customers may feel that they are part of a more exclusive
community if they are amongst a select group chosen to receive
information or communications first

Keep your Finger on the pulse – you can run quick-fire straw polls on
Twitter and get an almost instant response to ‘what if…’ propositions
and ideas

Have drop-in ability – you can send Twitter messages to anyone in a
selected geographic area so if you are in the locality, you could let
customers and contacts in the vicinity know you are passing near-by
and get a swift response.

Remember it’s a two-way street– you should always look to elicit a
response from your messages. Twitter also gives people an opportunity
to ask you questions. A good message to send to a group after
launching a new service might be: “Any questions?”

Keep it short and sweet – you can only use 140 characters anyway, but
as rule, the shorter the better. Use clickable links to direct people
to relevant web pages for more information.

Enable remote teams – people who work at distance from each other can
keep in touch with each other and collaborate on jobs using Twitter

Keep employees in touch – you can keep staff informed and give them
the opportunity to response straight away – to you or to everyone –
using Twitter. You can communicate with the whole company or specific
groups or teams of people.