Friday 24 July 2009

What's the point of Twitter


We all know that Twitter’s popularity has grown enormously over the last year. Everyone seems to be on it. “I don’t get it – what’s the point?” – our customers ask us. Well, from a business perspective, there are two very good reasons why you would use Twitter – to get more traffic to your website and to find the right people.

The reason why it’s so difficult for our customers to understand why Twitter is so popular is because our customers do not have the time to deal with it. Twitter requires effort, time and consistent maintenance, that is why many companies might need to use personal assistance services to look after their Twitter profile. To the naked eye it looks like a large amount of unrelated, useless chatter with quite a lot of promotion, that, frankly you don’t need. However, if you will look more closely, you will see that after about a month at least 30% of your traffic will come from Twitter. Furthermore, most of those will actually be customers, not just people who are casually browsing.

But how can that be, considering that people who chat on it look like the type of people who have too much time on their hands (and hence probably have no real spending power). Well, that’s the interesting part of the Twitter world. Twitter is a 21st century answer to traditional “buzz marketing”. If you want the news to spread – you need to be on Twitter – because, guess what? That’s where the journalists, researchers and PR get their news from. However, there is one catch: the content needs to be good. The beauty about Twitter is that if you are not a good Twitterer – no one will be reading your profile. You might have followers, but the buzz marketing effect will not take place.

I have been on Twitter since March 2009, and own around 20 profiles. The reason is simple – each profile reflects my audience. Hence, this allows me to message information that is relevant and therefore the traffic I get is very high. Furthermore, I do not work very hard at getting followers – they all come to me, as people keep recommending their friends to follow my profiles. My work is in providing the content that will be of interest in just 140 characters. For example, look at the following profile: http://twitter.com/portnik I use this for Virtual Blue Bird. However, most of my content are jokes, why? Because that’s what time-expensive individuals will actually read if they come to Twitter and want to take a break from their busy lives. My other profiles have completely different content.

Give us a call and I will be happy to put a strategy together for you on how to use Twitter effectively for your business. Our virtual assistants can do all of the maintenance for you (including the design of your profile background).

Kind regards,

Anya Portnik

2 comments:

  1. I am very glad you posted this. I live in Harrisburg, PA, USA. My husband and I just moved back to the area. There are lots of things to do in the area, live music, restaurants, coffee shops. I have noticed that only a handful have a Twitter presense and I think they are missing out big time in reaching a broader audience quicker. Many places have daily specials and different live music nightly. I was thinking about offering to local stores and such to create and manage a Twitter account for them. But how do I figur out what I charge them? WHy would they want to pay me when they could probably do it themselves. Also, they have websites and I know Twitter could get them even more traffic. Any advice would be great! You can email me at marielmoore@hotmail.com or just respond here. I would love some advice.

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  2. Hey Marie, thanks for the message. I think that’s a great idea, especially if their customers are on Twitter already. Even if they are not, posting links on Twitter will do wonders to their traffic (and google presence). Correct pricing is essential. This will depend on your audience. How much do they value their online presence? Are their customers loyal enough? How do they communicate with their customers at the moment? If this has not been done before in your town, test the pricing first. Start low, see what the results will be and then either increase or decrease the prices, depending on whether the results will suit your customers. Of course, you could always speak to a pricing specialist, but, at the beginning, I think it’s an unnecessary cost. Hope this helps!

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