I held off from giving my final opinion on how worthwhile Twitter is until now. This is because it takes months to get value from it.
And that's the first point I need to make: Twitter takes weeks and weeks of effort before becoming completely comfortable with it, and before building a good presence. It's essential that you allocate plenty of time for Twitter, particularly in the early days. As you build up more and more followers (and followees), and as you tweet more, and re-tweet, you'll eventually start to see a return on your effort.
Thankfully I'm now over the early stages of:
- searching out relevant people to follow
- reading up about them on their websites to make sure it's worth my while following them, and
- reading endless tweets (usually entitled "10 tips to Using Social Media for business" or similar)
I take time every few weeks to actively seek out new people to follow, but mostly for now its just regular checks on what's being posted and sharing information with my followers.
What's the verdict?
Well, (within the caveat of the huge amount of time necessary to spend first on getting to know Twitter) here it is:
- Twitter is a great way to network online, and to meet lots more people who are relevant to my business
- Twitter holds a wealth of valuable information: reading just a few of the daily links to great articles or posts helps build my own expertise rapidly
- Twitter allows me to share valuable information I've come across with my network. This might be referring a business colleague, promoting a training course, or pointing to a well-written and informative blog or article. [Much easier than heading off on a dark and rainy Monday night to a networking event in town (tho face to face has great value too of course)]
- Finally, Twitter has helped me to build my own online brand. It's an essential facet of the online marketing strategy of any business which hopes to connect with people online. My website is a useful starting point, but now people expect more: and building relationships, offering help and exchanging learning points through Twitter is a great way to deliver more.
Has Twitter driven sales for me?
The answer is Yes, and No.
No because I don't think anyone has gone online in the last six months, and actively looked through Twitter for a researcher such as myself.
However, what Twitter has done for me is to 'help' my sale. My business has a stronger profile through Twitter. People see my tweets and learn more about me. They are reassured about my expertise through the content I tweet. And they feel more confident that my business practice and processess are up to date, relevant and professional. I know that I've won several projects in the last few months, with the help of Twitter.
OVERALL: After nearly 6 months of testing, I would advise most businesses to use Twitter, if they can commit the time.
So, are you Twitter-phobic or a Twitterphile? Would you agree with my verdict? Is there a les time-consuming way to get the benefits of Twitter?
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2 comments:
Great article Roisin, describes my experience of Twitter too. I have taken a Twitter break recently because I've as much work as I can resource at the moment but I found that my time on Twitter either directly or indirectly brought me new clients and contacts.
For me it's a matter of balancing the online profile building and carrying out the client work that results from this activity.
Thanks for the comment Siobhan, and well done on getting that balancing act worked out. I've been reading recently about how Facebook pages can work well for busines development. I don't have one yet (just a basic presence) so that's next on my hit list. Will post here soon on how that's going.
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