When I started using Twitter I had two objectives. One was to see how Twitter functions as a social media marketplace and the other was to get a sense of how smaller businesses could use it as a channel to market.

Despite the hype around it Twitter still seems to me to be a niche product. That is based on the composition of its members. It reminds me of all those speed networking events that were so popular, their limiting factor was that it was predominantly sellers who attended and what we really need is buyers. I don't pretend to suggest that Twitter will die out as speed networking has but it does suffer from this phenomenon of too many sellers.

There are some areas where Twitter is well suited. The B2C environment for one, and there is certainly anecdotal evidence that companies have generated real revenue from Twitter and those providing digital products have found it a regular source of new business. It is however fair to say that this is not a quick win, it does take time and effort to build up a reputation and presence on Twitter. Mostly however its time; for those who are involved in delivering digital services, this is not an issue since using online environments is their natural marketplace. For those offering physical products and services it's a more challenging environment. However, if you're selling into the B2B or SoHo markets then it can still be an effective route. Essentially the fact that you can readily communicate with the decision maker and that the sales process is simple and short means that using Social Media Marketing (SMM) works well and having good visibility on twitter will certainly generate interest.

At the other end of the scale major corporates' have the time and resources to dedicate the man hours necessary to regularly insert their message and build that vital link of trust with their customers and prospects. So you can see many of the worlds largest businesses using Twitter including, Dell, Ford, etc. Dells assertion that it obtained $1million in revenue from Twitter has been well publicised. We must however accept that larger businesses already have an advantage since they've built a level of "trust" around their brand long before Twitter came along and they leverage that advantage further now.


One should not forget also that Twitter is more attractive to business because postings are necessarily short and unlike Facebook, You Tube or MySpace are text based. Interestingly this will make it more readily adopted by the professional in a higher age group and therefore more suited to today's decision makers.

The more difficult question is how "Fred Bloggs of Bloggs Joinery" can use Twitter. B2B business is not necessarily well suited to Twitter and many owner managers don't have the time to devote to develop a network, and quality is still as important as quantity. This is ignoring the import question of whether they "get Twitter" which is likely to be a major hurdle in itself. I have spoken to a number of small business owners who just don't "get it" and have subsequently stopped using it before they really had a chance see what it could do for them. So what options are open to them, well firstly assuming there is sufficient marketplace on Twitter for their product (something that is seriously open to question), they could encourage all their staff to join Twitter and use a collection of voices to build up a following or secondly, outsource. This may seem an extreme step or even heresy in Social Marketing, but to me it's an inevitable consequence of how social marketing works. SMM agencies will naturally develop enormous power simply by having several clients each with several users promoting several products. With that infrastructure its becomes almost inevitable that they would harness all the voices from all the clients to cross promote each new product growing in power and effect each time they add new clients. The next logical step is to dispense with real voices and create surrogate voices after all it's relatively easy to create personas which people can use as templates. If true it would completely undermine the concept of Social Media Marketing as we know it.

Laurence Ainsworth is using is founder of Exigent Consulting which provides advice and support for small to medium businesses. Exigent specialises in Business Turnaround, Sales and Marketing and Mentoring &n Coaching.

He can be found on http://twitter.com/laurenceexigent and at http://www.exigent-uk.com
He is a regular contributor of articles on marketing and sales and is a frequent Blogger and Twitter

Ernie writes: Signed up to Twitter not long ago, great fun. Please check my website on my Twitter link profile.

3:12:53 Tue Apr 14 2009 CDT


Theresa writes: Please check out my website and Blog. Within a few weeks time, I have just recently learned Twitter. You will see my Twitter Link on the site.

I am checking the analytics to see if being followed / following brings desired traffic.

Thank you!

22:39:59 Wed Mar 18 2009 CDT


Car Rental writes: I just joined twitter and am loking foreward if my followers are going to take advantage of the cheapest car rental around.

12:31:49 Mon Mar 16 2009 CDT


Wayne writes: Good article, I agree that it is difficult to figure out just how twitter fits into your business model and how to use it to generate revenue. As a small business owner I am still trying to figure it out myself.

I do have to say that It is somewhat disappointing that I read an article on twitter and how to use it to get more traffic and there isn't a twitter button, twitter icon or anything close that I can click on to add this to twitter. Hmmmm!

One way to make twitter work is to add one of those type buttons to your blog so that when someone likes your article they can add it to twitter just like the other social sites.

11:07:26 Sun Mar 15 2009 CDT


Iqbal writes: I'm interested when i see the home page Twitter for first time, it's simple with big concept. When i find it now, twitter was grew popular and more advance.

22:18:26 Fri Mar 13 2009 CDT


Denis Bernier writes: I am now on Twitter my name is Montrealsauna, but I don\'t see how I could increase by business being on Twitter, is there something I\'m missing here ?

Denis Bernier

19:21:24 Fri Mar 13 2009 CDT


Denny Sugar writes: I'm glad to see people think more about how all of this "web 2.0" stuff actually applies to the real world. Nice article.

@DennySugar

12:56:45 Fri Mar 13 2009 CDT


kate writes: I agree with that a lot of small businesses will stop using it before they can really figure it out. I might be one of them. Since I work 2 jobs I don't have the time sit home all day and play around with this site. I have been in business a little over a year and I'm trying to get my website out there like everyone else. With limited funds you try to find ways to get your products out there but with spending as little as you can.

9:23:13 Fri Mar 13 2009 CDT


lyndas9254 writes: I didn't realize this is a tool I should be using in my small biz. I will definately start doing some research to see how this may help me.

7:22:54 Fri Mar 13 2009 CDT


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