I once sent out a tweet that asked how many of my followers read the newspaper every day. A few told me they read it online, and one lady tweeted she reads her Pennysaver every week.
That is a scary thought for me, because I get nervous when people don’t read. Most of all, I feel sick to my stomach when I think people aren’t curious about things going on in the world, or new ideas, or innovations. Just plain curious is good.
Twitter is great that way. If there is breaking news, someone is always tweeting about it, and I hear it first on my Tweetdeck. I can also test all kinds of things on Twitter:
1. Ask people about something, with a link to show it (people read tweets with links).
2. Ask for advice. Recently I was throwing my new iMac into the ocean as I couldn’t get it to work because the monitor showed vertical colored lines. As soon as I tweeted about it, 5 or 6 people told me the computer was dead period. Take it back to the store.
3. I make friends on Twitter with people who share my point of view. Many people who I’ve had conversations with on Twitter have come to visit us, or called me, and when I visit a city…I get many invitations for coffee and lunch to meet in person.
4. For business, because of the huge numbers of people on Twitter, I can do a tweet and invite people to come to our Facebook page and enter a contest. They do come and then I can send them to a website to sign up for a newsletter (and get their email addresses).
5. If I want to find people who are lawyers on Twitter, I can go to twitter.search.com or simply press #lawyers and find all lawyer mentioned in the last 10 minutes or an hour.
The opportunities are endless to use Twitter as the driver to take people to your website, or blog, or E-zine. It’s got great possibilities…and I’m sure you’ll think of new ones for your business!
Great information. As a small business coach working I do several workshops a month to get in front of small business people, and discovered that few really manage Twitter, or any of the other social media, for results. Most do what I call “Hope and Pray” marketing. They’ve heard that it’s important so they do it, but they stand there and wait for something to happen . . . and wait . . . and wait.
Because they don’t know how to do it, or to manage it they cast a net out over and over and come up empty handed.
Great article to help them. I’ll share it. Thanks.
Like you, I am an avid reader….books, magazines, newspapers, computer screens, soup cans…if there is printed words, I’m reading them.
Nice, organized list of WIIFM with Twitter. It’s taken me some time, but am finally getting the hang of it and how it can be used as a powerful business tool. And, the ‘meet wonderful, new people’ part is an enormous plus.
Great ideas on the overall value. Twitter is such a great equalizer in the world on the whole because you can talk to, or engage with just about anyone or anything – and with companies monitoring and needing to listen, your opinion really can matter.
Thanks Lois!
Lovely post, Lois. I consider you a Twitter power user because you’re able to leverage your followers to such great advantage. But most importantly, you’re engaging with other users.
People who don’t “get” Twitter often view it as a one way street–people posting random tidbits of daily life into the vacuum of the Internet. But the power of Twitter is the power of connecting, finding the person who knows the answer to your Mac question or can look at a new idea and give you feedback.