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Can Twitter Help an Offline Business?
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Can Twitter Help an Offline Business?
Maybe you are not online but have a brick and mortar business. How can online applications help you? First of all, just about everyone is online these days. You can use online tools such as Twitter to enhance your offline business.
Marketing for offline businesses is not limited to offline marketing tools. You might think that since your business is stationary, you only have certain resources for growing the business. Not so. Your business is good but it can always get better.
Let’s say that you are a small business owner. You have done direct marketing, viral (word-of-mouth) marketing and used other advertising media like newspaper ads to get the word out about your business. You have a decent amount of clients but you can have more. You still haven’t tapped into the online world for customers.
It is a fact that some people don’t read newspapers or visit trade shows. They could be missing your valuable service. Those same people may stay connected to the world at large with social networking online. They could connect with you there if you have a Twitter account.
As an expert in your field of business, you can provide useful information to other twitterers on your business. More and more business owners are using Twitter as a business tool and you can find those people to trade business techniques. Improving technique can improve business.
Twitter is also a social network for personal enjoyment. People interact with others from their hometown, people with similar interests and others who post interesting tweets. Any one of these groups could use what your business has to offer. Those in your hometown, for instance, who don’t know about you, can learn about you. You might not be running an online business but you can create a webpage that tells about your business with contact information for anyone looking to use your services.
Just like an online business, Twitter can be used to answer customer service questions quickly. Many of your customers are undoubtedly online and Twitter is a way to answer their questions without them having to drive to your business location to get answers. And, you don’t have to sit in front of a computer to answer them. Twitter can be accessed from your mobile phone (with Internet support) so you can work on the go.
Twitter offers tools that can be used by offline businesses. The most popular applications are customer service and promotional tools but you will find a whole lot more.
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How Important is Twitter to My Business?
Posted by: | CommentsHow Important is Twitter to My Business?
If you are an online business owner, your first priority after developing your product or service is to find the people that will make your business a success. Marketing your business is a huge task and Twitter can help in that regard.
You have developed a plan for marketing your business or you are in the process of doing so. It might include article marketing, social network marketing and viral marketing. In the social network marketing section, don’t forget Twitter.
Twitter is more than just a site for keeping up with the minute details of everyday life. Sure, you’ve heard that celebrities and others twitter about their dinner plans, vacations and pop culture but those same people can be hearing from you about your business.
Twitter is a micro-blogging forum. You can talk to anyone who wants to listen. It is a quicker way to get people interested in new product offerings, contests, prize giveaways and more. Twitter is free to use so you can post a link to your Twitter account on your business website or blog.
One thing that is hard to keep up with is customer service. Providing timely customer service is the key to customer loyalty and increased sales. It is hard to manage email accounts when you are trying to market your business and fill orders.
As an alternative – turn to Twitter. When a customer posts a customer service question you can reply or direct them to different areas of your website quickly. Instead of sticking by the telephone or using an answering service (especially for small businesses), connect with your customers from your PC or your mobile device.
The platform is favorable for real-time communication with a group of people or one person at a time. Twitter allows you to send out new product information to your customer list. Your customers can tweet back or follow the link in your tweet to the website page with the new products.
You can use various Twitter tools to make your business account easier to manage. Applications, such as TweetDeck, Twitterfeed, Twhirl and TrackThis can be used to manage business groups, get tweet notifications, send draft tweets to all of your customers, track packages and/or backup all business communication on Twitter.
Check out the site and see all of the business tools available for the small business user. Twitter is free to set up an account and accessible from home or mobile. Keep communication easy and quick for your customers with Twitter.
Twitter Traffic Machine
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Be Careful of the Time Warp Known as Twitter
Posted by: | CommentsBe Careful of the Time Warp Known as Twitter
Twitter offers users a free social networking platform that works in real-time. It is micro-blogging that can be done on your PC with an Internet connection or used on your mobile device. People can be found twittering at bus stops, on the train, in their offices or at home. If you use Twitter for business, be careful that you don’t get sucked down into the time warp.
If nothing else, Twitter is one of those sites that are catching. Once you start out on it you can’t seem to stop looking at it. Even if you are not twittering your fingers off, you are reading each and every tweet that comes your way. You sign up for feeds and get alerts when other tweeters post tweets.
Twittering is quite addictive. You start out posting tweets to make business connections and connect with your customers but before long you are spending more time socializing than you are working. You’ll wonder where the time has gone, losing hours to tweets, tweaking and twalking.
The business will suffer if you spend all of your time on Twitter. As a home business owner or a small business owner, you are the only employee in some cases. Your time is precious and you could be twittering it away literally.
Have a plan when using Twitter for business purposes. Restrict your communication to business matters only when you are running your business. Save personal tweets for later in the day when you are on your own time. Separating business and personal accounts works also to that end.
If you have one Twitter account that you use for business and for personal this can pose a problem. While your intention is to show your human side to clients, doing far too much socializing can have the opposite effect and turn off potential visitors and customers. Even current customers can see you as becoming less professional by being too friendly.
Also, fellow Twitter users may see you as a spammer if your posts focus more on your business and not on being social. Social networks don’t take kindly to spammers. As an online business owner, the last thing you want is to give your business a bad name in the eyes of potential customers. It is a fine line to walk especially when you only have 140 characters to use, so be careful.
Twitter is a social micro-blogging platform than can be used for business. It is addictive as a social site for personal enjoyment which can take away from the business aspects of the site. Watch out or the draw of the tweet will entice you to do more playing than working.
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