In yesterday’s post we were all negative on Twitter, trying to make sure you think about whether you really need a Twitter account for your business. Today we’ll talk about some of the benefits of using Twitter in your business, as well as some of the tools available for managing a Twitter account for your business.
Communicating With Your Clients
Twitter can be a great communication tool for getting feedback from your customers. Posting some news about your business, a new product or a special and if people think it’s great – you’ll hear it. Or if people don’t like the direction you’re headed, they’ll be sure to let you know as well. If you keep a running search on your business’ name on Twitter, you’ll be able to find out if people are talking (good or bad) about your company and at least be aware of the conversation. Then you can decide if you want to respond.
Learning From Others in Your Industry
Twitter is a great place to find others who work in the same industry as you, only in a different location. Or keep up on industry trends and changes by being involved in the conversation going on in your industry. Follow some key leaders within your industry and you’ll learn a ton about how they work and new practices you could apply to your business.
Promotion
Another way to use Twitter in a business is for promotion. Sales, specials, contests are all perfect for Twitter. But, and it’s a big but, you can’t be all promo, all the time. You have to figure out your audience, but it’s probably safe to assume that 25% – 50% of your Tweets can be of the promo variety. If your Twitter account is for your business, people following you are doing so because they want to know about your business – including promotions. The great thing about Twitter is that people will let you know pretty quickly if you’re blasting them with too much promotion.
Tools for Twittering
At YasTech we use CoTweet to manage our @yastech account. It allows multiple people to manage a multiple Twitter accounts much more easily than logging directly into twitter.com. You could setup a @yourservice account alongside a @yoursales account and have different parts of your company post and respond to customers.
There are plenty of Twitter clients for iPhone, Android, Blackberry and desktop/laptop use. Here’s a few of our favourites:
- Twitter for iPhone/iPad/iPod touch – the official app is the way to go on iOS
- Twitter for Mac – Again, the official app is our recommendation on the Mac desktop/laptop
- Ubersocial for Blackberry – There’s an official app out now, but we still like Ubersocial.
- Twidroyd – According to reviews, this is one of the best for Android. Your mileage may vary.
To Tweet Or Not to Tweet
So that’s a quick look at some of the benefits of Twitter, as well as a couple of the apps we use to check up on Twitter. If you’d like a bit more discussion on whether Twitter is right for your business, send us an email or call us and we’d be happy to walk you through specifics in your industry.
