Twitter is an online social networking platform that enables people to communicate to one another in an easy straightforward manner. Although it was actually late to enter the game of social networking sites it has still managed to get itself to the head position, sat beside Facebook. But how, why and is it really important and vital for your business?
As with any social media trend it is easy to see Twitter as an instant solution, it’s an easy way for businesses to increase brand awareness and traffic to their domain. In a recession, when Managing Directors are clutching on to anything, this seems like a wonderful solution. Start to do it however and you can’t help but think “this is taking up a lot of my time and I haven’t had any new customers as result”. At this point the company Director quickly turns on the marketing department and asks what went wrong with their Social Media campaign whilst claiming that it’s a waste of time and isn’t a priority.
This scenario is all too common for Twitter users and staggeringly 50% of all Twitter accounts aren’t ‘active’ or being used today. On average most Twitter accounts will only have a lifespan of two months. This short lifespan is a result of only two things:
1) Twitter is hard to grasp and understand. It’s so simple it doesn’t make sense. As a result 21% of all accounts created on Twitter are never used. People are used to a high number of preferences, settings, themes, games and ‘apps’ now-a-days and expect it from a Social Networking website. Twitter doesn’t offer this. It’s purely a website which allows you to place your thoughts online using less than 140 characters. That’s it!
2) Twitter can’t be accurately measured. Done correctly your business Twitter account should only use subliminal marketing and, although people will buy from you as a result, your Twitter account should never purely push your brand and products 24/7. Although you will maybe be able to see the odd sell through the use of Goals on Google Analytics the real un-measureable thing which Directors ignore is how much your company’s visibility will have increased as a result.
Whether Twitter can be measured and understood though hasn’t stopped it from growing and this is where we’ll really learn the strengths and positives of the social media platform.
Reasons for Twitters Success
An Open API- Just like Facebook the Twitter API and code is available to the general public. This means people are able to integrate it with their websites and operate it from their phones. Over 55% of active Twitter users are using Twitter through a third party program. That means that people aren’t needing to go on the Twitter website to use it, instead they can’t escape it, it’s on phones, email clients, websites and other even other social networks such as Facebook and Digg.
Celebrity Promotion- Users such as Stephen Fry publicly use the facility resulting in its awareness increasing and therefore usage and membership increases as well.
No Cost- Membership costs nothing and requires only an email address. This means that there’s no harm in trying what everyone is talking about and joining Twitter. Although member live spans are short this still means that Twitter is regularly increasing its audience and your potential customers.
Summary
Deciding to use Twitter can change a company for the good or bad. On the one side committed long term use of Twitter can result in an increase of sales and traffic to your website whilst, on the other hand, short term use of Twitter is counterproductive and will only result in frustration and dislike for the social networking site because it wasted so much of your time to set up and get to grips with. So really, if your considering using Twitter as a form of online marketing then do it for fun and learn from it, take your time, get involved and talk to people with similar interests on it. Don’t expect results.
Perhaps next year when you look at your Google Analytics you’ll notice that your site traffic and online presence has benefited dramatically from Twitter without your even having considered it as a major part of your company’s marketing campaign. This scenario is what makes Twitter shine so bright and separates the 50% of inactive users from the 50% of company’s noticing a significant benefit from it.
Contact Media Street today to find out how we can get your company set up on Twitter today.
Follow Media Street Ltd on Twitter: http://twitter.com/mediastreet
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