Twitter For Business
Filed under Advice • 19-02-2010 •
I’ve been involved in a discussion on LinkedIn, concerning the marketing value of Twitter. Many of the professional marketers in the discussion seem hung-up on the number of followers they have, with one boasting that he has 700 followers, yet only follows 15 people himself. Others are seemingly prepared to dismiss Twitter altogether because they have too many spam followers, and have not thought to block them.
My response is reposted below.
Tags: Marketing • Social Media • Social Networking • TwitterIf you concentrate on the number of followers you have, you are missing the point. Twitter is about sharing information and building relationships. Twitter users don’t care about you or your company. They want to be informed and entertained. They want to network and chat, and be kept up-to-date with the things that interest them. If you want to find followers interested in your product, try searching for relevant subjects using hash tags, and approaching the people that talk the most about those subjects. Offer them new information or a new perspective, and they will follow you. Alternatively, try searching “Lists” to find a list of people involved in a relevant industry or activity.
Personally, I block every corporate Twitter account that tries to follow me, if all it has to offer is an unending stream of company announcements. If there’s no personality or interaction, I bin it. And for those of you complaining about being followed by spambots – you can and should block them. Just make sure you are not acting like one yourself.
