Is Twitter Good for Business?
You don't have much to lose from starting up a Twitter account for your business; after all, it's a free service. It can be difficult to quantify how your social media presence affects sales, but if you use it to improve customer service and interaction, you'll likely gain at least a few loyal followers -- both of your tweets and your brand -- from your efforts.
Other People Are Reading
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Connecting with Customers
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In many cases, creating a Twitter account may be a way to alert people to the fact that your business exists in the first place. Twitter sends its users an email when they get a new follower, and most people will check out those new followers' profile pages to determine if they want to follow the accounts back. With fewer people tuning in to TV, radio and print advertising these days than in the past, Twitter is one way to inform potential customers of your presence.
Interaction
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Put a human face on your brand by interacting with your Twitter followers. If you just use your Twitter account to promote your business and never say "hello" to favorite customers or reply to inquiries, you're not as likely to gain a large Twitter following. "Business Week" magazine recommends limiting your promotional tweets to 20 percent of your overall feed, using the other 80 percent to share interesting content with and answer questions from your followers.
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Customer Service
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When someone has a bad experience with a company nowadays, he may turn to social media to air his frustrations. By using Twitter to track mentions of your brand, you can get instant feedback on how you're doing with your service and contact frustrated customers directly to address their concerns. Turning a negative experience into a positive one can make a customer more loyal to you.
Deals
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You can also use your Twitter page to offer special deals or coupons to your followers. You could say something like, "Mention the Twitter discount at checkout for 10 percent off." Then, when a customer mentions it, use that opportunity to introduce yourself to the customer face-to-face. When customers can associate a friendly face -- one that knows them by name -- with a business, they may be more likely to visit you again.
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References
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