Founded in 2006, Twitter is a real-time social networking site that has gone on to draw in over 500 million regular users. Although similar to other popular social media sites, the main attraction that sets Twitter apart is called a “Tweet.”
Tweets are short, public messages limited to 140 characters or less that lets users share updates, ideas, questions, announcements and more. As more and more people go mobile, Twitter is quickly becoming the favorite social media application for smartphone users.
Many companies have already realized the power of Twitter and how beneficial it can be to businesses.
If you are still trying to decide if Twitter is right for your business, consider the following :
1. Twitter helps businesses get exposure in several ways.
Once you start tweeting, your messages have the potential of trending for millions of users to see. If you consistently tweet interesting and authentic information about your business, your tweets may even go viral, meaning other sites will pick up on your information and spread the word about your company. This allows invaluable information about your company and the services you offer to potentially to reach prospective customers quite easily.
2. Twitter is a great way to network with other businesses in your industry and follow their progress.
In other words, Twitter gives you an inside view of how the competition is doing by simply following their tweets. Additionally, you may find different ways to market your products/services by learning what other successful businesses in your industry are doing on Twitter.
3. Twitter is one of the easiest ways to provide customer service.
When your followers ask questions, all it takes is a few minutes to reply. Additionally, tweets are in real-time. Customers and followers will see your message just as soon as it’s posted, and can easily reply back to you with a click of a button.
4. Twitter is one of the most efficient social media websites.
If you are busy, yet need to promote your business effectively, Twitter’s 140 word character limit along with the site’s ease of use will help you quickly say what you need to say within a matter of minutes. If you need more characters, consider using hashtags. Hashtags, words with the # symbol in front, will reduce your character count and put your keywords into Twitter’s search engine. For example, if you’re having a sales promotion, simply tweet #promotion and your keyword will be searchable to other users.
5. Tweets are now starting to show up in most of the major search engines.
For this to happen, however, there is a little bit of work involved on your part. By providing consistent tweets with the proper keywords on a regular basis, your tweets, along with your company website and other social media sites, have a better chance of moving up to the first page of Google, Yahoo!, and other major search engine results. Since most people click on the links that show up on the first page, having your company’s information rank as high as possible is imperative.
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