Is Twitter just for Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber? Is it worth your business’ time and effort?

Twitter now has around half a billion registered profiles. Over 100 million of those are based in the US.  Twitter users now send 175 million tweets every day.  People are talking about everything and anything – from the more mundane bits of their lives like what they’re having for lunch, to their entertainment preferences, to talking about brands and companies with which they interact. Tweet volume spikes into the tens of thousands during major events.  Think Superbowl, Beyonce at the MTV’s Video Music Awards, and more recently, the Presidential debates. (Infographic)   

In a FastCompany article titled “The $1.3 Trillion Price of Not Tweeting at Work”, CEO Ryan Holmes of Hootsuite, a popular Twitter application, says, “On June 6, Larry Ellison--CEO of Oracle, one of the largest and most advanced computer technology corporations in the world--tweeted for the very first time.  In doing so, he joined a club that remains surprisingly elite. Among CEOs of the world’s Fortune 500 companies, only a mere 20 have Twitter accounts.”  There is money to be made, yet many of the executive elite are not using Twitter.

Twitter has gotten a bad rap as “a soft PR tool” and “only effective for celebrities”.  But, if used properly, Twitter can be a means to better communicate with customers, leading to higher customer satisfaction and retention.

Here are some of my favorite examples of creative uses of Twitter: 

• IBM does not have a single corporate Twitter account.  Their philosophy is to have a few thousand of their employees on Twitter.  When you include their thousands of bloggers, IBM was able to have “crowd sourcing jams” allowing them to find 10 best incubator businesses. 
• Dell has created a Dell Outlet Twitter account where you can find special deals available only via this channel.  They did $3 million via this channel last year. 
• And when it comes to customer service, does anyone really like 800 numbers?  I know I enjoy sitting with your phone on speaker, and listening to softly playing music with the “we are experiencing higher traffic than normal” message every 30 seconds. American Airlines has made their customer service process faster and more effective by utilizing Twitter as a customer communication outlet. 

And the “There isn’t any ROI in social media” argument.  A new report from McKinsey Global Institute, explains savings comes from “improved communications and collaboration within and across enterprises,” according to the report.

A couple of weeks ago, I attended the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce networking event, where I was fielding questions about social media.  A business owner said, “I have a Facebook account and a Twitter account,” implying that by being on these platforms, he knew these platforms and that there is no ROI in these platforms.  My reply included two of my favorite examples from Hubspot and PR 20/20, “I am wearing pants.  There is an inherent ROI with wearing pants. Or your mom. Do you place an ROI on your mom?  We don’t always have to completely calculate the ROI of these things, but we know they have an inherent value.” 

A few Twitter tips for new those new to Twitter:

• TweetReach – which will allow you to see how far your tweet goes and number of impressions. 
• TweetGrader – which will show you “where you rank.” 
• TweetChat - to help you with hashtags (#’s). 
• TwitHawk () – if you are marketing-minded

I believe a business’ strategy for Twitter should be addressed just like any other social media channel – all channels should be reviewed to see how effective they may be for your organization, and then determine the amount of resources needed to facilitate that channel.  Please email me at bob@cleriti.com if you have any questions or would like more information about Inbound Marketing.