Business & Twitter, hand in hand or foot in mouth

So, you’ve been told that Twitter is a great way of marketing your small business on an even smaller budget… but when you log on it all looks like gibberish. As a relative newbie to Twitter myself, I thought I’d jot down what I’ve learnt so far to help you make the most of this powerful communications channel.

Twitter is a Social Media website, where you ‘follow’ people in order to see their Tweets. You see the Tweets of all the people you follow in a chronological stream, and they will see yours if they follow you. The tricky thing is that a Tweet is restricted to just 140 characters, so a kind of short hand has emerged that helps people to communicate rather a lot, in this very small space.

Our site exists in order to provide the interested with all the resources, information and related links available on the internet regarding Doing Business on Twitter. The social media platform known as Twitter is not just a place where people got to chat and interact with their friends and with their favourite celebrities.

It is also a realm full of professional possibilities, and there are a variety of ways in which you can use it to increase visibility and direct traffic to your business website. The number of SEO methods used to do so are simple enough once you have understood the logic that drives them, and are guaranteed, once implemented, to deliver fantastic traffic results for your website, increasing the number of people that visit it daily, and consequently the number of people aware of your product or service, and finally, the number of people who then choose to become paying customers of yours.

There are many forms of internet marketing but the popularity of Twitter is unprecedented and its demographic covers a broad spectrum of people.

You can use the types of accounts that people follow to determine what their interests are and can then define your own target audience far easier, allowing you to focus your efforts on people most likely to be interested in your product or service, and most likely to want to do business with you. If you would like to comment on our Doing Business on Twitter website, feel free to do so.


Whether or not you tweet...

@Tweeting (touting) for business

Whether or not you tweet, Twitter is an online phenomenon all business people need to be clued up about – especially in the world of commerce where you're judged on your expertise. So, here's a useful little diagram that should get you right to the top of the Twitter learning curve – and in next to no time... http://visual.ly/how-use-twitter-business

What is a Podcast?

A podcast, or podcasting, refers to the activity in which people create a series of digital media files and broadcast it online though internet streaming or by making it available for easy download as an audio file. Podcasting has developed since its inception with people now operating podcasts within a video format, commonly known as a vodcast.

A blog (sometimes referred to as a weblog) relates to a form of website that is maintained by either an individual or a group or people that offer regular commentary, pictures and video content to their readers. The majority of blogs cover a specific category such as Gadgets. Generally speaking a blog is made up of text, images, video content and links to other blogs, related websites. 

Set up a profile!

This is the first thing you should do when you start a Twitter account. If you have the default Twitter profile photo, you are immediately identified as a newbie and people may suspect that your account is a bot account. Some people on Twitter do not even follow you without a profile picture. Photos are more memorable and engaging but you can use your business logo if you prefer: I do to keep my business account and personal account separate.

Making Money

Imagine sitting in your office, and posting “Just finished optimising a client’s website for higher Google listings” on Twitter. 2 minutes later you get a direct message saying “We need some help getting Google listings – can you help?” A few emails back and forth, a quick phone call and £3000 of business is done.

Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? It did to me.

Other posts you may be interested in:

Have you decided to make the leap and get onto Twitter in 2011?
Softly, softly or hardly, hardly?
How should I mix the personal and professional on Twitter?
Twitter: where’s it going? – Guest Blog By Jackie Barrie
Why should I use a hashtag in a conversation?
Why I love Twitter by a self confessed Twitterholic
A Twitter Interview with Karen Plane of Your Admin
Recruiters and recruitment companies on Twitter
The trouble with people who tweet is…
What should you use for your Twitter name or ‘handle’?