Here are the the top five reasons why businesses will start using Twitter in ’09.
1. In the same way that companies started to blog after staying on the sidelines, they will finally embrace Twitter after realizing it’s becoming a popular and useful communications, marketing and sales tool. The news that Dell sold more than $1-million worth of products through Twitter will convince many companies that Twitter needs to be part of their communications portfolio.
2. Running a Twitter account is easier than running a blog. With only 140-characters to write rather than 400 to 500 words, companies can spend far less time on Twitter, and still get bang for the buck. At a time when many companies are running lean and mean due to the economic landscape, Twitter won’t consume many resources.
3. As Twitter becomes a platform for consumers to talk about their customer service issues, it will be imperative that companies, particularly consumer-facing ones, become part of the conversation. If they don’t use Twitter, they risk running into huge problems because they’ll find out after the fact what’s happening, and then be on the defensive.
4. Twitter can be used for a variety of corporate purposes. You can distribute press releases, launch new features, comment on industry trends, and respond to any questions in real time.
5. It costs nothing to use Twitter, and the ROI can be huge. And if Twitter goes mainstream, few companies will want to be seen as being behind the times.
More: The Montreal Gazette has a story on Twitter-squating in which people have taken Twitter IDs such as Coca-Cola and Sears. This is akin to what happened in the late-1990s when many popular domain names were purchased.
Technorati Tags: advertising, marketing
6 Comments
Point No. 2 is wrong (generally). As Mark Twain (and apparently several other people) wrote, "If I had more time I would write a shorter letter." Boiling ideas down to 140 characters effectively will become harder and harder as Twitter volume increases.
But, when will Twitter start to ask for $. Twitter can't exist on the good will of the early adopters forever.
My post on this: http://thinkdodone.typepad.com/iscool/2008/12/the…
Shaun Dakin – CEO and Founder – StopPoliticalCalls.org
@EndTheRobocalls
@IsCool
@FakeFedEx
I'm not so sure about #5 — in that it costs nothing to use. I read this as slightly dangerous language, perhaps suggesting that businesses can just get delegate their Twitter strategy to their 'techie' or 'web person' , start tweeting away and expect immediate ROI. The fact is, if a corporation plans to have a presence on Twitter, that individual needs a wide-ranging skill set — who knows the business itself, has a certain knowledge and sophistication around customer service, public relations, social media etiquette, Twitter apps, brevity when it comes to worthy tweets, etc. — and appreciates that Twitter, in and of itself, is not strictly a platform to 'push'.
sorry, one more thing: who is "buckpost"?
buckpost is Mark Evans. More about me here: http://www.twitterrati.com/about/
doh! … ya, sorry, Mark — thanks
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