The Benefits of Twitter for Business Marketing and How to Get Started

For the most part, folks in the green industry seem reluctant to make full use of social media, particularly twitter. Perhaps there’s a feeling that many of their customers are not online and, therefore, their marketing efforts on twitter would not be as beneficial as they might be for say small business owners who are selling an actual product. Fair enough. But our inclination is that most landscape business owners are reluctant to get on twitter simply due to a fear of the unknown.

Many of us are reluctant to change. We’ve built a decent customer base on traditional forms of marketing, such as direct mailing, customer testimonials and word of mouth. And while that is certainly worthy of applause, the fact of the matter is that times are changing. And our business marketing efforts need to change with the times. At the end of the day, change is the only thing that really helps grow your business. So, in this article, we’re going to look at twitter and see how it can help us with marketing our business and perhaps after reading you might finally bite the bullet and get online!

First of all, before we look at the benefits of twitter, let’s cover what twitter actually is. The best way to describe twitter is to refer to it as a tool or form of technology that allows us to share content with others. While facebook is best-described as a community hub for conversation and discussions, twitter is more like a distribution channel, in which the main purpose is to deliver content to a group of people and engage in quick banter or chit-chat. One thing’s for sure, twitter is not necessarily conducive for in-depth conversation – that is best served through facebook or email – however, twitter is a great driving force for directing people to your blog, website and facebook page where they can then engage in more detailed discussions.

Now that we’ve covered what twitter is and what it’s best used for, let’s break down the benefits of twitter for small businesses:

Twitter is a great resource to help you update your content on your social media sites – when you register with twitter and start following people in your industry, you’ll have immediate access to the most up-to-date, industry-relevant content.
Twitter is not just for marketing, it’s a great information source, in which you can learn about the issues and topics that are of interest in your industry.
Twitter is great for crowd sourcing – when you’re following people in your industry you’re aware of what people think about what you do and you can see what people are saying about you. Basically, it’s like having your own online focus group, 24/7.
Twitter is great for measuring sales if you sell coupons and/or discounts through twitter
Twitter allows you to see first-hand what people are saying about your brand
Twitter is great for building influence on your business – the more content you produce and market, the better you build your reputation as an expert in the industry. Twitter provides the platform for you to establish yourself as a trusted source of content.
Even if you believe your customers are not using twitter enough for it be a good marketing tool for you, you can still use it for relationship building with people in your industry, which is arguably just as important. In this case, Twitter has benefits beyond creating direct sales.

So, now that you know the benefits, how do you get started? One of the best ways to get started is to simply get on twitter and try it out. Share content and get in touch with others. Reply to people, re-tweet content you like. Become part of your followers’ world by engaging with them on a consistent basis. Twitter is a powerful marketing tool for most small business owners, but you’ll never know the true potential it has for your business until you try it out for your business!