Guest Blog – The Benefits of Twitter

Richard Barker of digital design agency, Harrison Mann, gives some tips about optimising Twitter for business.

Following a discussion with Susan and Paul from Appeal PR about how clients can use social media and its potential benefits, I decided to share some of my thoughts about getting the most from Twitter.

Most people have heard of Twitter and its rise to prominence over the past year or so, although many companies are still unaware of how it can be optimised for business.

Twitter can be used in some of the following ways:

Customer Relations
Using Twitter is all about engaging and creating dialogue with customers. By Tweeting about your products, services, tips and relevant information, you can improve communication and gain invaluable and instant customer feedback, all for a very limited cost - basically, the time it takes to establish and grow your following on Twitter.

It also allows your company to be transparent in terms of your engagement and gives you the ability to respond to feedback before it escalates.  You can improve the perception of your company by responding to messages and create brand ambassadors who spread the word about your company.

In addition, you can also find people who are discussing your brand online using the Twitter search engine. This will then allow you to follow potential customers and engage in an active dialogue with them. By using a person’s specific handle (@harrisonmann for example) you can gain a more personal response to questions and build trust.

Crisis Management
In terms of crisis management, Twitter allows you to keep channels and communication clear, again improving your brand perception and is another tool used to counteract potential problems. You can also use Twitter to post links to your website which will allow you to go into much more detail about a problem and how you are resolving it. Twitter allows you to post real-time updates and then state how you are going to ensure that the problem doesn’t recur.

Corporate Reputation Management
You can also follow people who are talking about your company, your competitors and other related industries. Use Twitter to engage and post relevant information about your industry as much as possible, by becoming a trusted name you will improve your brand image and people will come back for more. If you, as the CEO, are speaking and engaging with customers, then the knowledge that if they have a problem they can speak directly to the head of the company, will do wonders for your brand.

Event Promotion
Brands can use Twitter to promote events and also share context and information during the event, allowing people around the globe to be actively involved. You can also use an event specific handle (@ukwebdesign2010) to drive relevant followers and promote the event further. The use of hashtags to promote the event will allow the Twitter search engines to show your event for the keywords you choose (for the @ukwebdesign2010 event you could use #webdesignevents or #webdesignerevents etc.) Start using hashtags in your tweets, preceding keywords, and also use hashtags.org to find specific keywords related to your brand, event, group, product or service.

Product/Service Promotion
Using Twitter to promote sales, especially if you offer exclusive deals via Twitter, will allow you to actively engage other Tweeters. With a company handle (@harrisonmann) ensure that your Tweets are relevant however, and keep followers up-to-date with specific industry and company news to further strengthen your brand.