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I personally have well over 150,000 twitter followers so you would think that I would be the first one to promote this social media platform as a must. However, while I am a “techy”, I am also a realist and a pragmatist. I recognize that for many of our clients, twitter is nothing more than a waste of time and money.
Here are 3 reasons you may want to stay away from using twitter in your business:
#3 – You don’t have an active website and an active facebook page. For the local small business, your website and your facebook page come first. Twitter is a distraction until you have these two tasks in place. I know some would disagree with me here but I have worked with hundreds of small business clients and seen them implement twitter and it just isn’t worth the time until you have conquered your own website and your facebook page.
Once you have a website the represents your business and from where you send out updates via email and facebook weekly or monthly with new products, special offers, etc. you are ready to start thinking about a twitter implementation. Your website is the hub for your online strategy. This is the place where potential customers will almost always interact with your company first through google maps or other search engines. Also, the most profitable use of twitter is sharing content and specials from your website and so without that, it would not be an effective profile. Facebook should also come before twitter in my opinion because of the ad campaigns that facebook offers and the simple fact that every demographic is on facebook and spends a lot more time on the platform than they do on twitter.
#2 – You have nothing interesting to post. Twitter is much more about listening than talking or “tweeting” as you will see below but if you have a twitter profile and never post anything, no one will know you are on twitter and that will be one more thing for you to keep in the back of your mind. If you are going to have a twitter profile for your business, make sure you post interesting things. The best tweets contain a short tip or word of wisdom, a relevant news story or a link to a valuable resource online.
#1 – You don’t have the time or resources to monitor @replies and messages in real time during regular business hours. Twitter users view this social network the same way they view your business phone number. Imagine if you never answered your phone? Your customers don’t always expect you to personally answer the phone but they do expect that someone will answer the phone and twitter users believe you will respond the same way if they send you an @reply which is the equivalent of being tagged on facebook.
If, after reading these reasons you still think that Twitter is a good fit, you can always set up an email alert in twitter so that every time someone sends you a message or an @reply an email is sent out. Tip: Set up a separate email account just for this purpose and purchase a used tablet or laptop and put it right next to your phone so that every time you or your employees answer the phone, they also see any social media alerts.
Do you use twitter to promote your business or provide customer experience? If so, let me know in the comments and share your success or frustration stories.
James Shepherd
