Business owners need to evaluate any new technology that comes down the pike, assessing its pros and cons. Useful new technologies are adopted, others without applications for their business are passed by. Twitter is one of the newer developments in communications; but is it useful to businesses?
There are some positives to using Twitter in your business. Twitter provides a quick and easy way to get in touch with your customers.
You can use Twitter as part of your customer service strategy, allowing for very quick receipt of and response to customer concerns. There are Twitter desktop applications which notify users when a new tweet has been made so it can be looked at immediately.
Twitter can also be a useful way for staff to interact and collaborate on projects even if they’re not working in the same building; or even the same country! Twitter can be used as a tool for collaborative idea generation which is not limited by physical proximity.
Twitter can be used to quickly notify customers who follow your business’ tweets about new products and important information. You won’t have to rely on email being opened by your customers – they’ll see your messages as part of their Twitter messages; and you’ll only receive tweets from fellow users whose feeds you subscribe to – so there’s no spam!
What Are The Negatives?
There are some downsides to using Twitter in your business as well. It’s a new service, but is already notorious as a time-waster. People will get caught up in twittering when they should be working. While it’s certainly valuable to stay in touch with colleagues and customers, there’s more to running your business than communication.
You may be losing money because of Twitter; each tweet can draw your attention away from what you’re working on. This reduces productivity and can be an annoyance.
If you are planning to use Twitter for your business, remember not to flood users. Tweet only when you have something interesting to say; this will get people interested in subscribing to your feed. Use keywords which people will notice in your tweets.
Twitter can be a useful marketing tool for announcing promotions, notices and can integrate well into your customer service functions. However, there are also downsides to this popular communication service and don’t let yourself get bogged down endlessly sending and responding to tweets. Focus on your business first.