Plain and simple…

YES.

Q: But how can you say yes when you don’t even know what my business does?

A: It doesn’t matter.

Regardless of all the good or not so good things you’ve heard about Twitter, it is still the 3rd largest social media platform on the planet (Behind Facebook and Instagram, respectively). Twitter claims to have 320 million active users and I can guarantee you that among the 320 million there is a portion of users who consume the product/service your business offers.

The one thing I love most about Twitter, which is absolutely the most beneficial for businesses to use, is the search feature. You can search all of Twitter to try and find the potential customers you want.

search advance

(https://twitter.com/search-advanced)

As you can see from the image, you can search a handful of different terms. If you want to get specific, use the “This exact phrase” search. For example: You own a pizza shop and want to help someone satisfy their pizza craving. Just a simple search for the phrase “I want pizza” turns up hundreds of search results of potential customers. If you happen to be located in a certain area, use the “Add location” feature and you’ll be able to find people who tweeted “I want pizza” in a certain geographic region. Now that you know who wants pizza, all you have to do is tweet through your business’ Twitter account at the person. After doing so, you hope to pique enough interest from that person where they take the time to check out your account and potentially place an order. This is customer acquisition at its finest!

advanced search
quotes

Now let’s make a different example because we all know pizza is delicious and heavenly and everybody wants pizza (I could actually use some pizza as I write this blog).

Let’s say you are a home builder. You will probably want to find people talking about their homes (preferably in a negative manner). We will need to come up with a search that we think will yield results to find the right audience. Here is my search, followed by the results that came up.

Words
more comments

BOOM! Now, before you become Mr./Mrs. Negative by thinking there is no chance that these people are going to want to buy a new house or have a new house built, that’s not necessarily the point. Yes, securing a new customer is the end goal and will help grow your profits, but building relationships on Twitter can be just as beneficial. This search simply was to show that people are tweeting about things that are related to your business. Keep in mind that you’re not always going to search and get an exact match either. If a simple Twitter search always led to new customers, why would I be writing this blog now to help you when I could be securing new customers?

Contact Potential Customers

The point of this blog is to highlight one of the most beneficial features of Twitter. Businesses can use Twitter to reach customers they never knew existed or were unable to contact. Some businesses will have a much easier time finding potential customers on Twitter than others (Pizza place vs. Home builder). It is important to make sure that if you do decide to create a Twitter page, the content of your page relates to your industry. Yes, it is good to take advantage of viral topics, but this isn’t the end all be all. Everything should be done in moderation. Don’t go tweeting 100 times a day when you create your account because you think it’s going to help you gain more followers and increase profits. Also, don’t #hashtag #every #word #in #your #tweet #and #think #it #is #okay. If you aren’t sure how to best utilize hashtags, be sure to use this hashtag guide for businesses.

Twitter for Customer Service

The last thing that will help your business utilize Twitter for better is customer service. Sometimes the way you respond to a customer will keep that customer happy knowing that their company is listening to their complaints and is doing what they can to resolve the issue. As in everything, it’s extremely difficult to keep your eye on something 24/7. However, you’re in luck. Here at Today’s Business we offer all of our clients around the clock monitoring so that no comment or complaint gets left behind. We take the reputation of your brand’s online customer service into our hands to ensure that no customer walks away feeling ignored.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this blog and that it has shed some light on your Twitter questions and how you can utilize Twitter for your business. Now get out there and start tweeting (and be sure to follow @Todays_Business)!