Can Any Business Use Twitter?

Heard all about Twitter? Joined up but couldn't see the point? The purpose of this article is to help you get to grips with twitter and make it work for you. I didn't learn it all by myself, I was given advice and asked questions and now I have 10,000 tweets under my belt! It really is easy. More to the point each week I regularly win business from twitter. 

What's the point? is a frequent question I see asked, you could ask the same of all social media. My answer is targeted marketing. Where else can I talk to customers, potential customers and our companies drivers with out leaving my desk? I can tweet a traffic update to our drivers within seconds and it costs us nothing, but they are completely up to date and can avoid potential jams and accident hotspots.

The trouble with Twitter is some people get it and some don't. Some people instantly see the potential and others need some help.  I would like to take you through some steps which will help you get more from twitter. I am by no means a twitter expert, just someone who has used it and found it beneficial (and yes, I have had customers from it – in fact I turn down more work than I accept!).

So to start, open your twitter account  with twitter, give yourself a name and add a password and email address and you are done. The registration process is fast and easy – 2 minutes max.

The next step is to find people to follow. To start I suggest you go and find 50 people to follow. You can find them through twitter itself or use a tool such as Nearby Tweets or Tweet Scan.

Why follow local people? You are more likely to meet and build an offline relationship with someone who is nearby to you. Local people recommend local people over people who are much farther way, so use local to your businesses advantage. Talking about local issues will also attract local people to you.

Nearby Tweets will allow you to find and follow people who are local to your location.

Tweet Scan will allow you to search for people with similar interests, same industry or any other reason that you may choose to follow someone.

When you have found 50 people to follow, look at their conversations and reply to some by hitting the arrow key in their response box. @ and their name will appear in the top box, you can type your reply and click update, and you have tweeted! it's that easy. Some people reply, some don't so don't be put off, spend a few more minutes following conversations and then post up what you are doing.

To find your replies, look on the left hand side of the twitter bar and you will see one tab marked '@ replies' here the listing will be sorted so that only your replies show.

So try doing this for a week and see how you go.

You will start to find after a while that using the twitter website page to tweet is a bit inconvenient and awkward as you tab between web pages. So I use the highly recommended <a target="_new" rel="nofollow" href="http://www.tweetdeck.com">TweetDeck</a>, the stream of tweets becomes more manageable when you can sort it into sections such as friends, business, and by social networks. Anything that makes the twitter stream more easily managed which is no bad thing, at times it does seem overwhelming!

As you go along, you can tweet pages from the web that interest you, your thoughts on a news story or a problem that you are looking to resolve and see what comes back. Conversations will start to flow and you will be twittering like a professional! Remember with the conversation comes the business.

Any business can use twitter it just takes practice and understanding that you won't get instant results but you will build long term relationships if you make the effort. I have been told by SMEs that their business won't work on twitter, so far I have seen hoteliers sell rooms, owners rent villas, retailers promoting and selling products as well as usual marketers that sell training, ebooks, and online courses. It's about adapting to your environment! If you are stuck for ideas, call me. I'll see what I can do to help.

Sarah Arrow

PS at some point you will want to make things easier for yourself and automatically tweet your articles from here, your blog and other places of interest. Twitterfeed will help you do that, but how to use that? that's a whole new article in itself

Sarah Arrow is also the author of the twitter guide for couriers as well as articles about same day delivery. She is happy to answer advise couriers and transport companies on how to use twitter. It has been said Twitter for couriers is the best value twitter guide you can get for a fiver! You can find it for sale at The Courier Shop

http://www.TheCouriershop.co.uk is also the home to the Complete Courier Guide, where start up couriers can get excellent advice on how to start and grow their business.

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(c)Sarah Arrow 2009

Edited: November 1st, 2009