How to use Twitter to Really Improve your Business
- By Vernon Riley
- Published 05/13/2009
- Tools and Resources
- Unrated
Twitter has certainly gained significantly in popularity over recent months. It has moved from being a "for those in the know" tool to something that practically every business is now trying their hand at.
Whilst that might be good news for Twitter, it isn't always good news for its users. One of the biggest issues I see with this population explosion of people all jumping on the Twitter bandwagon is the complete misuse of it.
I hear the mantra "use Twitter for Business" over and over again. However I rarely see anyone using it sensibly in a way that will actually benefit their business.
In my view there are two very good reasons for using Twitter for business. One is to be heard (ie: to get your message our quickly to a large audience) and the second is to listen to your market place.
Most people seem to be stuck in the "I want to be heard" mode. They constantly spend their time on Twitter just trying to push their message. A lot of them do that very badly as well with just constant "read me, read me" type message that have completely the opposite effect.
However I don't want to talk about this particular aspect as I actually want to focus you on the equally valuable and completely ignored other reason for using Twitter for business. I'm talking about using it to listen.
You see, Twitter is a goldmine of searchable, up to the minute information in easy, bite sized chunks. Lots of people
are posting incredibly useful links that you would probably struggle to find using Google or any other means. This entire goldmine goes untapped by many businesses simply because they just do not know it is there and they are so focused on sending Tweets that they forget to read them.
The trick is that once you understand how to use the search features in Twitter you can start to gather some very useful information from your market place and the great thing is that it is going to be very up to date information.
How many times have you searched for information on Google and then realised that the page you are reading was written two or three years ago? With Twitter, your searches throw out information that was only posted in the last few days. So you can really stay on the pulse with your chosen market place.
For example, my area of business is Adwords and I constant search Twitter for anyone posting with the keyword Adwords in their Tweets. Often I will find valuable links to recent articles or blog posts that allow me to understand recent experiences or changes within my Adwords market.
Also, just reading the Tweets of Adwords users helps me gain an insight into the problems they are having and importantly the language they are using to express those problems. That is very useful information because I prefer to write my website using their language as it helps me connect better with my customers.
So next time you go onto Twitter, why not make it a purely listening experience. You will be amazed at what you hear. I was.
Whilst that might be good news for Twitter, it isn't always good news for its users. One of the biggest issues I see with this population explosion of people all jumping on the Twitter bandwagon is the complete misuse of it.
I hear the mantra "use Twitter for Business" over and over again. However I rarely see anyone using it sensibly in a way that will actually benefit their business.
In my view there are two very good reasons for using Twitter for business. One is to be heard (ie: to get your message our quickly to a large audience) and the second is to listen to your market place.
Most people seem to be stuck in the "I want to be heard" mode. They constantly spend their time on Twitter just trying to push their message. A lot of them do that very badly as well with just constant "read me, read me" type message that have completely the opposite effect.
However I don't want to talk about this particular aspect as I actually want to focus you on the equally valuable and completely ignored other reason for using Twitter for business. I'm talking about using it to listen.
You see, Twitter is a goldmine of searchable, up to the minute information in easy, bite sized chunks. Lots of people
The trick is that once you understand how to use the search features in Twitter you can start to gather some very useful information from your market place and the great thing is that it is going to be very up to date information.
How many times have you searched for information on Google and then realised that the page you are reading was written two or three years ago? With Twitter, your searches throw out information that was only posted in the last few days. So you can really stay on the pulse with your chosen market place.
For example, my area of business is Adwords and I constant search Twitter for anyone posting with the keyword Adwords in their Tweets. Often I will find valuable links to recent articles or blog posts that allow me to understand recent experiences or changes within my Adwords market.
Also, just reading the Tweets of Adwords users helps me gain an insight into the problems they are having and importantly the language they are using to express those problems. That is very useful information because I prefer to write my website using their language as it helps me connect better with my customers.
So next time you go onto Twitter, why not make it a purely listening experience. You will be amazed at what you hear. I was.
Vernon Riley
Vernon Riley is a founder of KKSmarts. KKSmarts makes the internet work harder for its customers and covers all aspects of Website Promotion. You can read more here about Using Twitter as a Serious Business Tool and watch a video with search technique tips.
View all articles by Vernon Riley