Blog & Company News
Feb 5, 2015
The Importance of Twitter for Small Businesses
Despite its growing relevance, many small businesses still aren’t using Twitter to its full potential. But with around 232 million active daily users, business owners need to embrace Twitter as a highly effective, real-time tool for communication. Twitter's importance goes beyond the global exposure it offers to people and brands. It's also a listening tool and a means for building community.
Here are a few factors that emphasize why Twitter is important for small businesses and how they can benefit from it:
Twitter’s community is active. More than 100 million daily active Twitter users post 500 million tweets a day. That means the average Twitter user posts five times a day, compared to Facebook users who post less than once a day.
Direct connection to customers. As mentioned, Twitter has millions of users and more people are joining it every day, which makes it one of the best places to look for potential customers. Small businesses catering to a niche market, or people from a certain location can use Twitter to connect with them. Further, businesses can also connect with their existing customers and interact with them to know more about how the business or brand is performing in the market.
Twitter reaches a different demographic. Although Facebook is growing in population with users over the age of 25, younger social media users prefer Twitter to Facebook or Instagram.
Twitter gives you more for your money. Thanks to a decline in Facebook’s organic reach, brands’ presence on Facebook is beginning to depend on just how much they’re willing to spend. Meanwhile, Twitter drives more clicks than Facebook and routinely outperforms Facebook ads.
Market new products. The main reason that businesses should use Twitter is to connect with potential customers and market their products. Once you have created a profile for your company, you can use the Twitter account to introduce new products under that brand or product line. New products, especially those that your customers find interesting, gain more popularity through such social networking sites than they would through the traditional advertising channels.
Provide information. News travels faster online than it does through radio or TV. You can use your Twitter account to make important announcements and share any news that your customers ought to know. While a TV or radio announcement can do the same job for you, Twitter is cheaper and the message will get carried to millions of people in little time.
Manage online reputation. Besides gaining customer feedback, you can also use Twitter to learn and monitor what is being said about your products and company in general. Many people use Twitter to communicate what they do and how they feel about everything and anything. So there is every possibility that a dissatisfied customer or a competitor could be using the micro-blogging site to create negative publicity for your products. Keeping a tab on Twitter conversations involving your brand can help you tackle such situations and manage your online reputation in a professional manner.
Boost sales with special offers and discounts. Whether you are a big brand or a small company, free discount coupon or freebie always attract more people. One of the best ways to tell your customers about any special discounts and promotional offers being run by your company is to post a tweet about it. Giving away coupon codes and special deals to users following your profile can also be a great way to attract more customers and build an online reputation for your brand.
Promote your company blog. If you have a company blog as a part of your SEO strategies, the best way to promote it is through Twitter. If you feel that the information provided in the blog would be appreciated by your followers, just tweet the link to share the blog. This not only diverts traffic to your blog, but also makes your message viral if your customers find the content useful.
Useful Insight. Outside of the interaction between your brand and your current/potential clients, Twitter helps businesses to better understand their competition. By observing competitors' activity, you'll gain insight into business and market trends, and learn more about what you can do to distinguish your company from the rest. You may also gain insight into the missteps of others, which could help you from making similar mistakes.
The best part about Twitter is that it is free, which makes it the ideal marketing solution for small businesses!
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