Charlie Grant, New Media Executive
Twitter still seems to be the word on everybody’s lips as a new survey by O2 has revealed that over 6000 UK small businesses are now signing up to the site every day.
As the social networking phenomenon continues to flourish Twitter is fast becoming a mainstream media outlet with consumers, celebrities, global companies and politicians all regularly ‘tweeting’.
Twitter can be an invaluable networking tool as well as a place to publish stories, exchange ideas and track news. The fact that it’s becoming so widely accessible, for example from mobile devices, means that potential audiences and opportunities are endless.
O2 is a fantastic example of a company that is utilising Twitter to really engage with customers. An O2 representative seems to be constantly on hand to answer customer queries ranging from problems with mobile phones, to complaints about stores. In this way Twitter can make companies more ‘human’.
But although Twitter is being branded as a cost-effective way for small businesses to communicate with target audiences, using it wrongly could alienate potential customers.
So what are the do’s and don’ts’ of micro-blogging?
In order to maintain a strong business identity on Twitter, it’s important to regularly post interesting links to relevant news and websites as well as your own website in order to show you as experts. If people comment on any of your tweets, follow and write back whenever you can. This way you are able to have a direct conversation with potential customers and can demonstrate that their opinions do matter. Also, the fact that so many businesses are now using Twitter means that you can monitor your competitors’ online activity.
To ensure your followers don’t tune out, make sure your tweets are regular, interesting and worth reading, but at the same time don’t bombard your audience. Purely pushing your own business via your tweets will also put people off, no one will follow you if all your links are just to your own website.
Sticking to these simple guidelines should will make your Twittering all the more worthwhile, even if it is a passing fad.
I’m off now to Tweet confidently if you want to follow us click http://twitter.com/OCommunications.
Posts
