The Importance of Twitter for Small Businesses
Although communicating in 140 characters may not sound convincing but with about 200 million users sending out the same number of Microblogs (approximately) every day, Twitter is assuredly a powerful channel for communication and Business. Twitter is not just another social networking site and is not just for teenagers or celebrities expressing by tweeting about their daily activities. If you own a small business, then Twitter is the best platform that gives you the multiple opportunities to connect and communicate with customers, and you can also keep an eye on your competitors.
Few statistics to reinstate your belief in this platform and why you should leverage it:
There are now over 500 Million users on Twitter and counting 34% of marketing experts use Twitter to generate leads 208 is the average number of tweets per account.
The potential of Twitter as a marketing tool has realized by many small business owners, and they are using it to help their businesses grow. Considering that it is very cheap to market a product on Twitter, small businesses should definitely use this tool for boosting their internet marketing activities. If you’re operating a small business, here are some reasons – why you should use Twitter and incorporate it in your marketing or social media strategy without failure.
How Twitter can help small businesses
Here are a few factors that emphasize why Twitter is important for small businesses and how they can benefit from it.
Connect to users
Twitter has millions of users, and numerous people are entering it every day, which makes it one of the greatest places to look for potential consumers. Small businesses catering to a niche market or people from a specific location can use Twitter to connect with them. That’s not it; business owners can also connect with their existent customers and communicate with them to understand further about how the business or brand is being perceived in the market and what the feedback of its customers is.
Build relationships with customers
Once you grew popular and gained good followers on Twitter, you should develop a positive relationship with them to improve and grow your business. You should make an effort to post updates and tweets that your consumers find appealing and useful. Keep your direct marketing posts about a sale or promotion to a least, as too many marketing ads, can hamper your attempts to build a positive image and leave the consumer uninterested. Avoid sending out too many tweets in a particular span, as such activity could be considered as spam.
Create brand awareness
Big brands don’t need promotions to get followers. But the small businesses, which require more people to identify about their product line or brand, should utilize Twitter to increase their brand awareness. People prefer to communicate with a person than with a logo unless it is popular. So, if you own a small business that is yet in its immature stages, it is better to create a personal profile first and then design a profile for your company. Once you earn the confidence of your followers, you could introduce them to your brand and create a profile to build awareness about it.
Promoting new products
The foremost reason that businesses should adopt Twitter is to connect with potential consumers and market their products. Once you have created a profile for your company, you can easily use the Twitter account to launch new products under your brand or product line. New products, particularly those that your customers find appealing, gain more repute through such social networking sites than they would through the traditional advertising channels.
Provide information
News spreads faster online than radio or TV. You can use your Twitter account to make relevant announcements and share any news or information that your customers ought to know. Twitter helps you to reach the mass audience. While a TV or radio advertisement can do the same job for you, Twitter is cheaper and affordable than these means and the message will get carried to millions of people in little time.
Survey and feedback
Twitter is an excellent tool for communicating with customers and market your products and it is an equally effective tool for assembling customer feedback and their opinions about the products and services of your company. You need to follow the conversations about your company products, and you will get your answers easily. If you want to learn anything specific you can do so by asking the customers directly or by conducting a poll through your account. You can use Twitter to monitor what is being said about your products and company in general.
Promote your company blog
To have a company blog as a part of your SEO strategies is the best way of promotion. You can easily promote it through Twitter. If you feel that your followers would appreciate the information provided in the blog, just tweet the link to share the blog. This promotion not only diverts traffic to your blog but also makes your message viral if your customers find the content useful.
You should always make sure that you use Twitter in the right manner as it is the ideal marketing solution for small businesses. The best part is that Twitter is free, and you can use it to promote, advertise and boost your businesses.