Creating a Twitter Presence For Your Small Business

It’s hard to read an article about online marketing these days and not see a mention of Facebook and Twitter, as well as seeing Twitter handle names on business letterhead, business cards, email signatures and many other instances where people list this as an additional way to contact them. Twitter has become a standard for businesses world wide and can be used in multiple different ways to market your business.

First off, let’s do a quick background on Twitter. Twitter is site that allows you to post messages in 140 characters or less to people that choose to follow your stream.  You follow them, and their stream appears in yours, and the numbers of followers you can get can grow very, very quickly.  It’s extremely accessible with wireless devices and is on millions of phones all over the world.  It is currently estimated to have 190 Million users worldwide and has existed only a few years. Almost every  athlete, movie or music star, politician or any form of celebrity now look at Twitter as a necessary marketing tool for their brand.

Twitter is also used by many large and small business to connect with their customers in a new and fresh way. You can post info about your business, daily specials, coupons, helpful articles you come across and just interact with your followers. You can search for Tweets in your area at the top of the page, and you can start by searching for Tweets containing the name of your town, names of other local businesses, local landmarks or anything that people in your area might be talking about. Follow a few people and in all likelihood, they will follow you back. Just play with it and see what works for you. You don’t want to overload people with your business info at first, and the same goes for the frequency of your posts. Try Tweeting 2 times a day to start,  and see if you receive any @ Mentions, and go from there.

Twitter is not going anywhere, any time soon, so getting your foot in that door for your business is a wise decision. Go to www.Twitter.com and create an account. It’s worth it!