Since the inception of what the world has called social media or social networking, there has always been one platform that has been the “it” place to be. First it was MySpace and now the hot location is Pinterest – although it seems to be mostly dominated by the fairer sex currently.
For me, my favorite since its inception has been Twitter. It is the place I consume my news, keep up with friends, crowd source ideas and keep up with my interests.
And I am not alone, during their sixth birthday celebration last month, Twitter reported 140 million active users generating 340 million Tweets a day. So just over one billion every three days. That is a lot of 140 character conversations.
So why should you or better yet, why should your business take part in Twitter?
Since a personal Twitter account is a personal choice we’ll look at a couple of reasons why a business should participate in Twitter.
The biggest reason is by just looking at the numbers. With 140 million people tweeting, people are talking and they could very well be talking about you or your company. So why stand on the outside looking in when you can take an active role in those conversations. It builds creditability and creates a deeper relationship with your constituents.
But to be effective you can’t stand on a perch with a megaphone and announce your message. You have to engage and be part of current conversations, think of it as a telephone conversation rather than a speech.
Although the most effective way to use Twitter is by participating, businesses can also gain insight into what their customers are thinking by just watching. See what is trending and what is gathering attention. You can take that information to create or update a marketing campaign or contest. Take advantage of what is hot.
There are many other reasons and several of those could be specific to your business. If you and your company use Twitter, why and how do you use it? If you don’t, why don’t you use it? We’d love to hear your feedback below.