I recently responded to a discussion on an email group about the business value (or lack of value)from using Twitter. I thought others would find my answer interesting. Most of the people thought Twitter was a complete waste of time. I disagree.
My thoughts are below:
I agree that Twitter the company has some work to find a viable business model. But I think I disagree that Twitter is a not a useful tool for marketing and building your own business.
Twitter is another medium to build relationships, and marketing is about relationships. In a time when outbound marketing is becoming less and less effective - cold call connect rates declining, email blast and direct mail response rates declining - Twitter is a great opt-in, inbound marketing tool to engage your consumers.
Some stats on Twitter:
- Twitter has 5-6m accounts, and is growing by 5,000 - 10,000 per day
- Dell sold $1m in PCs using Twitter
- Zappos and Comcast have used Twitter to greatly enhance their brands via customer service
- HubSpot (my company) has built a "list" of over 30,000 people that follow one of our Twitter personas and opt-in to receive notifications of our webinars, which generates leads
- HubSpot has closed a number of new customers that originated through Twitter, and Twitter conversations have influenced a number of other deals during the decision making process
Some related links:
Twitter might not be right for every single business, but a lot of companies are having success using Twitter. Agree? Disagree? You can follow me on Twitter and we can discuss.
