Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?...

I am asking this as an open question.

I have read quite a bit recently about Twitter on this forum and other websites, with people recommending it, following people and saying it is addictive.

However it seems just to be a list of status updates for people - is this really that interesting - can it really lead to business?

Would be good to hear people's thoughts on this and whether I'm missing out...

Stephen

Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

I would also be very interested in this.

Some of my friends have decided that facebook is not enough and have moved onto twitter - however my impression from a quick look is pretty much the same as yours Stephen so I would be very interested to see what it is I'm missing too!

Lianne

Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

Twitter... twitter... twitter... isn't it just used by people who can't communicate properly in the real world so substitute that with online waffle?

Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

From my understanding of it Twitter works in the same way as SMS text messages. I'm not sure of it's potential as a business promotion tool, although I recently took a course from HP on socal networking tools and the author suggested using Twitter.
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Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

I read an interesting article today from someone who does seem to have had great success online that says he views Twitter as the single most important site that people should use this year.

The fact that people consistently say the site is important makes me wonder if there *is* actually something in it, but at the same time the fact I don't get it and how it could be useful still puts me off!

Tim

Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

I started using Twitter a number of months ago and I blogged about my thoughts on whether it has any real value to business.

I have to say that on one level I find it very useful and therefore it has become part of my ongoing marketing strategy.

However, does Twitter bring in sales directly? I suspect that depends on your business and how you approach Twitter.

If you are interested in how I use Twitter then you can find the blog post below. There is a short video that shows how I use Tweetdeck to great effect.

http://www.kksmarts.com/blog/twitter-business-tool/

Chers
Mike
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Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

As mentioned above, I think it largely depends on what your business is. If you sell industrial machinery (for instance) then you are unlikely to have someone looking to buy your wares randomly come across your tweet.

If you offer an information service, however, or sell consumer products, or are just looking to promote your website, then probably you will find, at the very least, posting on twitter generates some visitors to your website - and then perhaps then some leads or sales down the line. In other words, it will have some marketing impact although whether that will be particularly significant compared to other avenues you can spend marketing time and/or budget on, I don't think anyone really knows.
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Web Design

Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

I only started using Twitter a couple of months ago and I've found that it can be fairly useful if you are dealing in a niche market where there's a strong community. If you're coming up with new ideas and trying to develop the area you work in, Twitter can be good for starting debates and getting people interested in what you're doing.

On the other hand, it also seems like a place for 99.9999% of all people just to make random, useless comments that are of no use to anyone.
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Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

I would say that twitter can get you sales. But I would say it is more of a brand builder rather than something to pump people for cash directly. For example say that you are a smart phone guru and people follow you because of this, then driving them towards your review of a new smart phone (where you get a payout if they click on the link) seems like a winning strategy. But just link dropping a random affiliate link is not going to get you very far.
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Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

We've found Twitter works best in conjunction with constantly updated information. We use twitter to broadcast our daily blog updates and this usually attracts some new followers and increases traffic to our blog as an entry point to our site...

Defintely agree with adv416 that its a brand building exercise which doesn't result in immediate sales on the whole. But if twitter users find your tweets of interest then they follow you and maybe at some point in the future may buy from you. Its a bit like recommendation from a friend... you may not need the product or service they are raving about now... but if you do in the future you will like remember the company they were talking about and consider them in your purchase.

If you craft tweets that are interesting and encourage people to click through to have a look at your latest article on a subject of interest then you create a brand awareness and a feeling that you engage with people and you gain a level of trust.

Joe
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Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

I have just started using it, though I resisted greatly in the past. If you word your tweets carefully, you can get customers.

You should check out sites like Digg also.

Make sure you have your link on twitter for them to get to you.
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Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

Some very interesting thoughts here, perhaps I should revise my opinion and actually try it out. We'll see... the thing is there always seems to be something more important to do!

I guess you just have to get into it, but when I've tried similar things in the past I have made one or two posts, got bored, and left.

Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

Thanks for all the thoughts on this, nice to see some good quality responses to a post rather than the ubiquitous adverts that frequent most posts in business forums these days!

Re : Can Twitter get you sales and business exposure?

Twitter is valuable if used in the correct way. Make your posts interesting and relevant, and you will build up an array of potential customers who are interested in what you have to say. If you flummoxed for ideas to tweet, try using a google news search, or set up a google alert to flag up articles of interest. Re-tweet these to make others aware.

You can now also link a facebook page to your twitter account, so updating one will populate both - quite handy!

Best,
Chris
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